3. You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, 4. Hush lightly tread; still tranquilly she sleeps. Delivery is the expression of thought by means of words and actions. Perfect delivery, then, is the result of a mastery of every principle and art of elocution: - enunciation, emphasis, tone, earnestness, expression, action. Gestures must depend mainly upon the earnestness of the speaker's conception of what he is to utter. No one can portray character unless he can realize it, and he can realize it only by making it his own for the time, and by expressing himself exactly as a person would do in the supposed situation, and so "suit the action to the word, the word to the action." Action has been defined as the beginning, the middle, and the end of oratory. It is shown chiefly by the expression and the management of the eye, and by the motions of the hand, although thought may be expressed or enforced by various movements of the body. "When all the powers of elocution are brought into requisition, — the voice, with all its thrilling tones; the eye, through which, as a window, the soul darts forth its light; the whole glowing countenance; the whole breathing frame: - when every motion speaks, every muscle swells with the inspiration of high thoughts: - what instrument of music, what glories of the canvas can equal it? It is beauty, genius, power, sublimity, in their most glorious exercise.” "So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." Nehemiah viii. 8. CONTENTS America's Contributions to the World... An Appeal for our Country..... Antony's Address to the Romans.... Brutus on the Death of Cæsar.... Cato's Soliloquy on Immortality PAGE Urging the Need of Spring Clothing. Geo. P. Morris. 295 ..Charles Phillips. 68 Oh! why should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud...................... Wm. Knox. 49 T. Buchanan Read. 32 South Carolina and Massachusetts......... ............ Miss Priest. 158 O. W. Holmes. 381 .Bible. 237 Bernard Barton. 150 Bayard Taylor. 66 T. Buchanan Read. 47 .Shakspeare. 267 .E. Kellogg. 101 |