hands. "Have not," says Quintilion, "our hand's the power of exciting, of
restraining, of beseeching, of testifying approbation, admiration, and
shame? Do they not, in pointing out places and persons, discharge the duty
of adverbs and pronouns? So amidst the great diversity of tongues-pervading
all nations and peoples, the language of the hands appears to be a language
common to all men." We stretch forth and clasp the hands when we
importunately entreat, sue, beseech, supplicate, or ask mercy. To put forth
the right hand spread open is the gesture of bounty, liberality, and a free
heart; and thus we reward, and bestow gifts. Placing with vehemence the
right fist in the left palm is a gesture commonly used to mock, chide,
insult, reproach, and rebuke. To beckon with the raised hand is a universal
sign of craving audience and entreating a favorable silence. To wave the
hand from us, the palm outward, is the gesture of repulsion, aversion,
dismissal. To shake the fist at one signifies anger and defiance and
threatening. The hands are clasped or wrung in deep sorrow, and
outstretched with the palms inward to indicate welcoming, approving, and
receiving. In shame, the hand is placed before the eyes; in earnestness and
ardor, the hands reach forward; in joy, they are thrown up, widely apart;
in exultation and triumph, the right hand is waved above the head.
"In the rhetorical actions of the hand, the happy medium ought to be
observed; for the action of the hand should be full of dignity and
magnanimous resolution, making it a liberal index of the mind." A French
writer admirably remarks that we should move the arms because we are
animated, but not try to appear animated by moving the arms.
The countenance, especially the eye, should be made to speak as well as the
tongue. It is said of Chatham, that such was the power of his eye, that he
very often cowed down an antagonist in the midst of his speech, and threw
him into confusion. It is through the eye, scarcely less than through the
tones of voice, that intercourse of soul is carried on between the speaker
and hearers. To secure this intercourse the speaker should let his soul
beam from his eye. Nor should he fail to look at his hearers, if he would
have his hearers look at him. Among the faults to be avoided in the
management of the eye, Dr. Porter notices particularly that unmeaning look
which the eye "bent on vacuity" has, resembling the inexpressive glare of
the glass eye of a wax figure; that indefinite sweep of the eye which
ranges from one side to the other of an assembly, resting nowhere; and
that tremulous, roving cast of the eye, and winking of the eyelid, which
is in direct contrast to an open, collected, manly expression of the face.
Among the faults of action to be noticed are:--1. Want of action; 2. Want
of expression of countenance; 3. A stiff, or a careless, attitude; 4. Want
of appropriateness; 5. Excess of motions of the hands and arms; 6. Too
great violence of action; 7. Too great complexity; 8. A mechanical
uniformity; 9. Tardiness, the action following the utterances when it
should accompany it, or slightly precede it.
It must not be supposed that it is necessary for the pupil to receive
training in a technical system of gesticulation before he commences his
exercises in declamation. If the student designs to qualify himself to be a
professor of elocution, he will need to study the laws of gesture in
"Austin's Chironomia," and be instructed in their application by a skillful
teacher. But this course is neither practicable nor necessary for the mass
of students. Instruction in this department should generally be of a
negative nature, and occupy itself mainly in the correction of faults. When
the pupil commences his exercises in declamation, the less said about
action the better. Freedom is the first thing to be secured, and, to attain
this end, few directions should be given and few criticisms be made, at the
outset. When the speaker has acquired some confidence, and freedom of
action, his faults may be gradually pointed out, and his attention called
to some general principles of gesture, such as have been presented
respecting the language of the hands. Pupils should be taught to observe
accurately the action of accomplished orators, not with the view to
imitating their peculiarities, but to learn their method of producing
effect by means of attitude and gesture.
DECLAMATION.
Declamation should be attended to in all grades of educational
institutions, from the primary school to the college, and every pupil
should be required to take his turn in the performance of the exercise. It
would be highly beneficial, if well taught. The reason why so many teachers
have no taste for it, is because they have not taken pains to qualify
themselves to teach it. Want of time is sometimes offered as an excuse for
neglecting it. But if a part of the time which is devoted to teaching
reading, were appropriately to declamation, the progress in reading itself
would be more rapid, to say nothing of other advantages which would result
from this course. I cannot too earnestly urge upon every teacher the
importance of qualifying himself for teaching well both reading and
declamation, There is no accomplishment which more effectively promotes the
success of the teacher than that of elocutionary culture,--a good voice
skillfully managed in conversation and in teaching. Without special
attention to the subject, teachers are apt to acquire certain
characteristic faults of voice, such as nasality, sharpness, harshness, and
thinness of tone, of which they are quite unconscious. Whereas, by constant
attention to the manner of using the voice, since they are in constant
practice, it might be perfected in its modulation. For want of culture in
the elocutionary art, many teachers are greatly deceived, thinking their
pupils read and declaim well when they do not.
In the management of declamation much care should be taken in the selection
of the pieces. It is best for the pupil, in the first place, after proper
advice, to exercise his own taste in the selection of his piece, which
should then be submitted to the teacher for approval. If the selection is
very appropriate, the pupil should be commended and told why the piece is
considered suitable. If the selection presented is not suitable, the pupil
should be informed on what ground it is objected to, so as to aid his
judgment in another attempt. If the pupil has made proper effort without
success, he should be assisted by the teacher. It is very important that
the selection should be suited to the capacity and progress of the pupil.
Beginners should take simple pieces, and not be allowed, as is sometimes
the case, to murder a passage from Paradise Lost, or Macbeth. Sometimes a
fault is committed on the part of the teacher, by permitting a pupil to
confine his selections to one favorite class. I have observed in certain
schools, that one particular boy would always appear in a comic piece,
another in a tragic, and so on. It would be better for the teacher to
require each pupil to speak a variety of pieces, so as to secure a more
general and comprehensive culture than would result from practice on a
single class of selections.
The choice of the piece should be determined upon a considerable period
previous to the day appointed for the public performance of the stage, so
as to afford ample time for preparation. The piece should be accurately
committed to memory, without the variation of a syllable. It should be made
familiar, so that in the delivery no effort will be required in recalling
it. The young pupil should be instructed in the best method of learning his
piece. It will generally be found best to take one sentence at a time. The
teacher's chief work consists in attending to individual private
rehearsals. The rehearsal should be a drill. The piece should be analyzed
more or less minutely, the allusions and difficult points being explained.
It should be the first aim to make the pupil understand it, not only in
its general spirit and scope, but in its particular ideas. His attention
should then be turned to the emotions which it expresses. Let it be
remembered that the paramount object should be to make the pupil
understand the meaning and feel the spirit of the piece. If he is timid
and diffident he should be encouraged. Tell him that even Daniel Webster
could not make a declamation at the first attempt; but that he did not
despair; he did not cease his efforts; he persevered and succeeded.
After the rehearsal, the pupil should have time to practice by himself and
apply and confirm the instruction received from his teacher. It must be
impressed upon his mind that if he would attain excellence he must
practice, practice, practice. He must be made to understand that the
repetition of a piece three or four times is no adequate preparation, and
that it is necessary to go over with it twenty, thirty, or fifty times, if
he would excel, and take a high rank.
When the declamation takes place, excepting on public occasions, the
criticisms ought to be made immediately after the performance of each
speaker. The faults of the diffident should be mildly criticized. It is
very important to call attention to points of special excellence in any
performance. It should be remembered that judicious commendation is a most
powerful stimulant to exertion.
The most difficult task in teaching declamation is to develop that
indescribable fervor, that unaffected earnestness of manner which always
captivates the hearers, and wins the highest marks at an exhibition for
prizes. There will always be one speaker in a school who excels all the
rest in this quality. The teacher should point out the peculiar excellence
of this speaker, and show wherein it differs from loudness of voice, and
violence of actions and affected passion. Let it be remembered that the
perfection of declamation consists in delivering the piece as though it
were real speaking. The speaker must "put himself in imagination, so
completely into the situation of him whom he personages, and adopt for the
moment, so perfectly, all the sentiments and views of that character, as to
express himself exactly as such a person would have done, in the supposed
situation." Give the speaker every other quality--let his enunciation, his
modulation of voice, and his action be faultless, and yet without
earnestness, real earnestness,--not the semblance of it, not boisterous
vociferation, not convulsive gesticulation, but genuine emotion felt in the
heart, carrying the conviction to the hearers that the sentiments uttered
are real, the spontaneous, irrepressible outpouring of the thought and
feeling of the speaker,--without this sovereign, crowning quality, he
cannot be said to speak with eloquence. To bring out and develop this
highest quality of delivery, requires the highest skill in the teacher.
Unless the teacher possesses some degree of this quality himself he cannot
develop it in his pupils.
The best immediate preparation for speaking is rest. I have often noticed
that speakers at exhibitions have in many cases failed to do themselves
justice from sheer exhaustion. A day or two of repose previous to speaking,
enables the speaker to bring to the performance that vigor of the faculties
which is indispensable to the highest success, Webster told the Senate, and
truly, no doubt, that he slept soundly on the night previous to the
delivery of his second speech on Foote's resolution, which is considered
his greatest parliamentary effort. It is well for the speaker to remember
what Mr. Everett said in allusion to this fact: "So the great Condé slept
on the eve of the battle of Rocroi, so Alexander slept on the eve of the
battle of Arbela, and so they awoke to deeds of immortal fame."
The best training cannot make good readers and good speakers of all pupils,
but it can do much. And it is a fact worthy of observation that those who
are most sceptical as to the possibilities of elocutionary culture, are
invariably those who are themselves unskillful teachers in this branch.
BOOK FIRST.
STANDARD SELECTIONS
FOR
RECITATION AND DECLAMATION
IN PROSE AND POETRY.
BOOK FIRST.
STANDARD SELECTIONS.
PROSE.
I. THE NOBLE PURPOSES OF ELOQUENCE.
If we consider the noble purposes to which Eloquence may be made
subservient, we at once perceive its prodigious import ance to the best
interests of mankind. The greatest masters of the art have concurred, upon
the greatest occasions of its display, in pronouncing that its estimation
depends on the virtuous and rational use made of it.
It is but reciting the common praises of the Art of Persuasion, to remind
you how sacred truths may be most ardently promulgated at the altar--the
cause of oppressed innocence be most woefully defended--the march of
wicked rulers be most triumphantly resisted--defiance the most terrible be
hurled at the oppressor's head. In great convulsions of public affairs, or
in bringing about salutary changes, every one confesses how important an
ally eloquence must be. But in peaceful times, when the progress of events
is slow and even as the silent and unheeded pace of time, and the jars of a
mighty tumult in foreign and domestic concerns can no longer be heard,
then, too, she flourishes--protectress of liberty--patroness of
improvement--guardian of all the blessings that can be showered upon the
mass of human kind;--nor is her form ever seen but on ground consecrated to
free institutions.
To me, calmly revolving these things, such pursuits seem far more noble
objects of ambition than any upon which the vulgar herd of busy men lavish
prodigal their restless exertions. To diffuse useful information, to
further intellectual refinement, sure forerunner of moral improvement,--to
hasten the coming of the bright day when the dawn of general knowledge
shall chase away the lazy, lingering class, even from the base of the great
social pyramid;--this indeed is a high calling, in which the most splendid
talents and consummate virtue may well press onward, eager to bear a part.
Lord Brougham.
II.
ROLLA TO THE PERUVIANS.
My brave associates--partners of my toil, my feelings, and my fame! Can
Rolla's words add vigor to the virtuous energies which inspire your
hearts?--No! You have judged, as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea,
by which these bold invaders would delude you. Your generous spirit has
compared, as mine has, the motives which, in a war like this, can animate
their minds and ours.
They, by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, for plunder, and
extended rule;--we, for our country, our altars, and our homes. They follow
an adventurer whom they fear, and obey a power which they hate;--we serve a
monarch whom we love,--a God whom we adore. Wherever they move in anger,
desolation tracks their progress. Wherever they pause in amity, affliction
mourns their friendship.
They boast they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and
free us from the yoke of error! Yes;--they will give enlightened freedom to
our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride.
They offer us their protection! Yes, such protections as vultures give to
lambs,--covering and devouring them! They call on us to barter all the good
we have inherited and proved, for the desperate chance of something better,
which they promise!
Be our plain answer this: The throne we honor is the People's choice,--the
laws we reverence are our brave fathers' legacy,--the faith we follow
teaches us to live in bonds of charity with all mankind, and die with hope
of bliss beyond the grave. Tell your invaders this; and tell them too, we
seek no change; and, least of all, such change as they would bring us!
R. B. Sheridan.
III.
INVECTIVE AGAINST WARREN HASTINGS.
If, my Lords, a stranger had at this time gone into the province of Oude,
ignorant of what had happened since the death of Sujah Dowlah--that prince
who with a savage heart had still great lines of character, and who, with
all his ferocity in war, had, with a cultivating hand, preserved to his
country the wealth which it derived from benignant skies and a prolific
soil--if, ignorant of all that had happened in the short interval, and
observing the wide and general devastation of fields unclothed and brown;
of vegetation burned up and extinguished; of villages depopulated and in
ruins; of temples unroofed and perishing; of reservoirs broken down and
dry, this stranger should ask, "what has thus laid waste this beautiful and
opulent land; what monstrous madness has ravaged with wide-spread war; what
desolating foreign foe; what civil discords; what disputed succession;
what religious zeal; what fabled monster has stalked abroad, and, with
malice and mortal enmity to man, withered by the grasp of death every
growth of nature and humanity, all means of delight, and each original,
simple principle of bare existence?" the answer would have been, not one of
these causes! No wars have ravaged these lands and depopulated these
villages! No desolating foreign foe! No domestic broils! No disputed
succession! No religious super-serviceable zeal! No poisonous monster! No
affliction of Providence, which, while it scourged us, cut off the sources
of resuscitation! No! This damp of death is the mere effusion of British
amity! We sink under the pressure of their support! We writhe under their
perfidious gripe! They have embraced us with their protecting arms, and lo!
these are the fruits of their alliance!
What then, my Lords, shall we bear to be told that, under such
circumstances, the exasperated feelings of a whole people, thus spurred on
to clamor and resistance, were excited by the poor and feeble influence of
the Begums? After hearing the description given by an eye-witness of the
paroxysm of fever and delirium into which despair threw the natives when on
the banks of the polluted Ganges, panting for breath, they tore more widely
open the lips of their gaping wounds, to accelerate their dissolution; and
while their blood was issuing, presented their ghastly eyes to heaven,
breathing their last and fervent prayer that the dry earth might not be
suffered to drink their blood, but that it might rise up to the throne of
God, and rouse the eternal Providence to avenge the wrongs of their
country,--will it be said that all this was brought about by the
incantations of these Begums in their secluded Zenana; or that they could
inspire this enthusiasm and this despair into the breasts of a people who
felt no grievance, and had suffered no torture?
What motive, then, could have such influence in their bosom? What motive!
That which nature, the common parent, plants in the bosom of man; and
which, though it may be less active in the Indian than in the Englishman,
is still congenial with, and makes a part of his being. That feeling which
tells him that man was never made to be the property of man; but that, when
in the pride and insolence of power, one human creature dares to tyrannize
over another, it is a power usurped, and resistance is a duty. That
principle which tells him that resistance to power usurped is not merely a
duty which he owes to himself and to his neighbor, but a duty which he owes
to his God, in asserting and maintaining the rank which he gave him in his
creation--that God, who, where he gives the form of man, whatever may be
the complexion, gives also the feelings and the rights of man. That
principle which neither the rudeness of ignorance can stifle, nor the
enervation of refinement extinguish! That principle which makes it base for
a man to suffer when he ought to act; which, tending to preserve to the
species the original designations of Providence, spurns at the arrogant
distinctions of man, and indicates the independent quality of his race.
R. B. Sheridan.
IV.
THE BIBLE THE BEST CLASSIC
The Bible is the only book which God has ever sent, and the only one he
ever will send into the world. All other books are frail and transient as
time, since they are only the registers of time; but the Bible is as
durable as eternity, for its pages contain the records of eternity. All
other books are weak and imperfect, like their author, man; but the Bible
is a transcript of infinite power and perfection. Every other volume is
limited in its usefulness and influence; but the Bible came forth
conquering and to conquer,--rejoicing as a giant to run his course,--and
like the sun, "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." The Bible only,
of all the myriads of books the world has seen, is equally important and
interesting to all mankind. Its tidings, whether of peace or of woe, are
the same to the poor, the ignorant, and the weak as to the rich, the wise,
and the powerful.
Among the most remarkable of its attributes, is justice; for it looks with
impartial eyes on kings and on slaves, on the hero and the soldier, on
philosophers and peasants, on the eloquent and the dumb. From all, it
exacts the same obedience to its commandments: to the good, it promises the
fruits of his labors; to the evil, the reward of his hands. Nor are the
purity and holiness, the wisdom, benevolence, and truth of the Scriptures
less conspicuous than their justice. In sublimity and beauty, in the
descriptive and pathetic, in dignity and simplicity of narrative, in power
and comprehensiveness, in depth and variety of thought, in purity and
elevation of sentiment, the most enthusiastic admirers of the heathen
classics have conceded their inferiority to the Scriptures.
The Bible, indeed, is the only universal classic, the classic of all
mankind, of every age and country of time and eternity; more humble and
simple than the primer of a child, more grand and magnificent than the epic
and the oration, the ode and the dramas when genius, with his chariot of
fire, and his horses of ire, ascends in whirlwind into the heaven of his
own invention. It is the best classic the world has ever seen, the noblest
that has ever honored and dignified the language of mortals!
If you boast that the Aristotles and the Platos, and the Tullies of the
classic age, "dipped their pens in intellect," the sacred authors dipped
theirs in inspiration. If those were the "secretaries of nature," these
were the secretaries of the very Author of nature. If Greece and Rome have
gathered into their cabinet of curiosities the pearls of heathen poetry and
eloquence, the diamonds of pagan history and philosophy, God himself has
treasured up in the Scriptures, the poetry and eloquence, the philosophy
and history of sacred law-givers, of prophets and apostles, of saints,
evangelists, and martyrs. In vain you may seek for the pure and simple
light of universal truth in the Augustan ages of antiquity. In the Bible
only, is the poet's wish fulfilled,--
"And like the sun be all one boundless eye."
T. S. Grimké.
V.
WHAT WE OWE TO THE SWORD.
To the question, "What have the People ever gained but by Revolution?" I
answer, boldly, If by revolution be understood the law of the sword,
Liberty has lost far more than she ever gained by it. The sword was the
destroyer of the Lycian Confederacy and the Achæan League. The sword
alternately enslaved and disenthralled Thebes and Athens, Sparta, Syracuse,
and Corinth. The sword of Rome conquered every other free State, and
finished the murder of Liberty in the ancient world, by destroying herself.
What but the sword, in modern times, annihilated the Republics of Italy,
the Hanseatic Towns, and the primitive independence of Ireland, Wales, and
Scotland? What but the sword partitioned Poland, assassinated the rising
liberty of Spain, banished the Huguenots from France, and made Cromwell the
master, not the servant, of the People? And what but the sword of
Republican France destroyed the independence of half of Europe, deluged the
continent with tears, devoured its millions upon millions, and closed the
long catalogue of guilt, by founding and defending to the last, the most
powerful, selfish, and insatiable of military despotisms?