PART 2. EXPRESSION

DIRECTNESS

Good speech means direct speech. You read aloud usually for the purpose of conveying thought to others. Having this aim clearly in your mind will tend to impart definiteness and directness to your expression. You wish the hearers not only to understand what you read, but to share with you the author's mood and feeling. It is noteworthy that those persons who are most interesting and impressive in conversation and in public speaking possess in marked degree this quality of directness. When you stand to read or speak, be yourself at your best, and your sincerity will communicate itself to your expression, and thence to your hearers.

EXAMPLES FOR PRACTISE

1. No punishments of Heaven are so severe as those for mercies abused; and no instrumentality employed in their infliction is so dreadful as the wrath of man. No spasms are like the spasms of expiring Liberty, and no wailing such as her convulsions extort. It took Rome three hundred years to die; and our death, if we perish, will be as much more terrific as our intelligence and free institutions have given us more bone, sinew, and vitality. May God hide from me the day when the dying agonies of my country shall begin! O thou beloved land, bound together by the ties of brotherhood, and common interest, and perils! live forever-one and undivided! "Necessity of Education."

LYMAN BEECHER.

2. But the same impartial history will record more than one ineffaceable stain upon his character, and never, to the end of time, never on the page of historian, poet, or philosopher; never till a taste for true moral greatness is eaten out of the hearts of men by a mean admiration of success and power; never in

the exhortations of the prudent magistrate counseling his fellow citizens for their good; never in the dark ages of national fortune, when anxious patriots explore the annals of the past for examples of public virtue; never in the admonition of the parent forming the minds of his children by lessons of fireside wisdom; never, O never, will the name of Napoleon, nor of any of the other of the famous conquerors of ancient and modern days, be placed upon a level with Washington's.

"On Washington."

EDWARD EVERETT.

3. We none of us need many books, and those which we need ought to be clearly printed on the best paper, and strongly bound. And tho we are indeed now a wretched and povertystruck nation, and hardly able to keep soul and body together, still, as no person in decent circumstances would put on his table confessedly bad wine, or bad meat, without being ashamed, so he need not have on his shelves ill-printed or loosely and wretchedly stitched books; for tho few can be rich, yet every man who honestly exerts himself may, I think, still provide for himself and his family good shoes, good gloves, strong harness for his cart or carriage-horses, and stout leather binding for his books. And I would urge upon every young man, as the beginning of his due and wise provision for his household, to obtain as soon as he can, by the severest economy, a restricted, serviceable, and steadily-however slowly-increasing series of books for use through life-making his little library, of all the furniture in his room, the most studied and decorative piece, every volume having its assigned place, like a little statue in its niche, and one of the earliest and strictest lessons to the children of the house being how to turn the pages of their own literary possessions lightly and deliberately, with no chance of tearing or dogs' ears.

"Sesame and Lilies."

JOHN RUSKIN.

4. Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,

or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on the battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate-we can not consecrate-we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here. But it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who have fought have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

"Address at Gettysburg."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

FIFTH LESSON

PART 1. DRILL

1. Physical Culture. Raise the arms straight in front on a level with the shoulders, the palms together; suddenly throw the arms back and down, endeavoring to make both hands meet together behind the back, at the same time rising on the toes. Keep head erect and chest well expanded.

2. Deep Breathing. Inhale a deep breath through the nostrils; hold while mentally counting one, two, three, four, five, then exhale gently through the nostrils.

3. Voice Exercise. Hum the letter m, on a middle key, causing it to vibrate against the lips. Distinguish between nasality and facial resonance. In the latter the lips are made the principal place of vibration, while in the former the voice is wrongly directed to the nose. Repeat the exercise on various keys, holding strictly to one pitch at a time. 4. Articulation. Repeat the following vowels slowly and distinctly. After considerable practise repeat them rapidly, but always with special regard to flexibility of lips and distinctness.