Page images
PDF
EPUB

EMBRACING THE

PHILOSOPHY OF VOCALIZATION,

WITH

ILLUSTRATIONS AND EXERCISES FOR DRILL
IN ALL THE ARTS OF READING

AND DECLAMATION.

BY PROF. C. P. BRONSON, A. M., M. D.

[merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by

JOHN P. MORTON AND COMPANY,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.

ELECTROTYPED BY

ROBERT ROWELL,

LOUISVILLE, KY.

TO THE PUBLIC.

The veteran and well-known elocutionist, Professor Bronson, left at his death a large quantity of manuscript, embracing matter on all the principles involved in voice-culture, reading, and speaking. It was found, upon examination, that much condensation and arrangement of these papers were necessary. This has been a labor requiring time, care, and experience. The result is now before the public.

The pieces selected for readings, with the emphatic words and rhetorical pauses indicated, are culled from a large quantity thus prepared by him. Any person who attempts to describe accurately an action or vibratory movement of body or limb, in writing, will realize to a small extent the difficulty an author experiences in attempting to convey on paper, in a comprehensible manner, an idea of the tones of the human voice-its force, its melody, its multiplicity of shades and intonations. It is something like an attempt to cage the wind. As the dancing-master can show by one movement of his foot what he could not fully explain in a dozen pages of a treatise, so the elocutionist in a few spoken words, or waves of voice, can elucidate a principle which many pages of printed matter could not make clear to the mind of his pupil.

And yet the necessity for the treatise remains-a Manual of Principles is demanded as a text-book for both teacher and pupil.

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »