"Elocution" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Orators are those who deal in Invectives, and who are commonly known by the Name of the Censorious. The Imagination and Elocution of this Set of Rhetoricians is wonderful. With what a Fluency of Invention, and Copiousness of Expression, will they enlarge upon every little Slip in the Behaviour of another? With how many different Circumstances, and with what Variety of Phrases, will they tell ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... pretty squaws." The eldest of these comely daughters, Mary Forman Ledyard, was married to my grandfather, Glen Cuyler, who was the principal lawyer of the village, and their eldest son was my father, Benjamin Ledyard Cuyler. He became a student of Hamilton College, excelled in elocution, and was a room-mate of the Hon. Gerrit Smith, afterward eminent as the champion of anti-slavery. On a certain Sabbath, the student just home from college was called upon to read a sermon in the village church of Aurora, in the absence of the pastor, and his handsome visage and graceful ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... inferior degree of the emotion which the preacher feels. But intense feeling is contagious. There is much in common between the tragic actor and the popular preacher; but while the actor's power is generally the result of a studied elocution, the preacher's is almost always native. A teacher of elocution would probably say that the manner of Chalmers, Guthrie, or Caird was a very bad one; but it suits the man, and no other would produce a like impression. ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... overcame his defects, in such manner as to satisfy a critical assembly like the Athenians, is one of the most memorable circumstances in the general history of self-education. Repeated humiliation and repulse only spurred him on to fresh solitary efforts for improvement. He corrected his defective elocution by speaking with pebbles in his mouth; he prepared himself to overcome the noise of the assembly by declaiming in stormy weather on the sea-shore of Phalerum; he opened his lungs by running, and extended his powers of holding breath by pronouncing sentences in marching up-hill; he sometimes ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... Christian era. After having for some time practised as a "Rhetorician," that is, advocate or jurist, in his native land, he seems to have migrated early to Byzantium or Constantinople. There he gave lessons in elocution, and acted as counsel in several law-cases. His talents soon attracted attention, and he was promoted to official duties in the service of the State. He was commissioned to accompany the famous Belisarius during his command of the army in the ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... word for word. His memory, quite apart from his abnormal linguistic aptitudes, was amazing. Nor was that all. He somehow contrived, almost automatically it seemed, to imitate the very gestures and the elocution of the speakers. M. Thomas is troubled with a rather unruly wisp of hair which, when he gets wrought up in fiery moments, will tumble down over his brow into his eyes, to be swept back every now and again with a thrust ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... prudent young clergyman called immediately on Mr. Micklewham to read the letter which he had received from the Doctor; and which the worthy dominie did without delay, in that rich and full voice with which he is accustomed to teach his scholars elocution by example. ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... Thornes had dined at the rectory. Eleanor had been duly put to stand on her box, and in that position had found herself quite unable to express her opinion on the merits of flounces, such having been the subject given to try her elocution. Mr Arabin had of course been much in his own parish, looking to the doings at his vicarage, calling on his parishioners, and taking on himself the duties of his new calling. But still he had been every evening at Plumstead, and Mrs Grantly was partly willing to agree with her ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... philosophers call intellectual; the largeness of your capacity, the faithfulness of your memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the penetration of your judgment, and the facility and order of your elocution: and I have often thought that of all the persons living that I have known, your Majesty were the best instance to make a man of Plato's opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance, and that the mind of man by Nature knoweth all things, and hath ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... generality of readers, for having found a like robe, very mistakingly imagine they have the same body and inside too, whereas force and sinews are never to be borrowed; the gloss, and outward ornament, that is, words and elocution, may. Most of those I converse with, speak the same language I here write; but whether they think the same thoughts I cannot say. The Athenians, says Plato, study fulness and elegancy of speaking; the Lacedaemonians affect brevity, and those of Crete to aim more at the fecundity ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... were whispering and laughing, Jacqueline recited, in a soft voice, and with feeling that did credit to her instructor in elocution, Mademoiselle X——, of the ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... his mighty soul the fire of a generous emulation had been kindled, not to go out until his oratorical fame threw a refulgent glory on the declining fortunes of the once formidable Iroquois. In the deep and silent forest he practiced elocution, or to use his own expressive language, played Logan, until he caught the manner and tone of his great master. Unconsciously the forest orator, was an imitator of the eloquent Greek, who tuned his voice on the wild sea beach, to the thunders of the surge, and caught from ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... "I had it fixed up, as soon as I got wise to what was going to happen. The voice is one of the girls in my office, over at the brewery. Pronunciation, grammar, elocution and ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... Tennyson's of the poem as a rhythmical whole; his delivery had more affinity to that of an actor, laying stress on all the light and shade of the composition—its touches of character, the conversational points, its dramatic give-and-take. In those qualities of elocution in which Tennyson was strong, and aimed to be strong, Browning was contentedly weak; and vice versa."[146] Sometimes, like another great poet, Pope, he was deeply affected by the passion of beauty or heroism or pathos in what ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... If Mr. Edwin Forrest, the Tragedian, thinks that more effect can be produced by reading Tragedy than can be by reading from Scripture, Mr. Nazro, Instructor of Elocution, from Roundhill School, would deny it fully, and offers to meet him, Mr. Forrest, in any town in the United States, and read from Scripture, and Mr. Forrest shall read ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... that does not here meet with something fitted well for its amplest illustration. No tenderness of pathos, no earnestness of thought, no play of wit, no burst of passion, is there, perhaps, of which the accomplished teacher of Elocution may not find the proper style of expression in these pages, and, consequently, the best examples for the ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... students would, in after life, have the honour of addressing so great a multitude of their fellow-countrymen, I should certainly advise the authorities of the college to erect a chair for teaching the art of elocution—(applause)—so that the volume of the voice might be increased to reach much further than I am afraid is possible for me to-day. But let me join with you in wishing continued success to the Queen's College University at Kingston—(applause)—to associate ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... Enfield's son-in-law, with a good discretion; he wrote plays for his family, in which Eliza Barron used to shine in the chief parts; and later in life, after the Norwich home was broken up, his little granddaughter would sit behind him in a great armchair, and be introduced, with his stately elocution, to the world of dramatic literature. From this, in a direct line, we can deduce the charades at Claygate; and after money came, in the Edinburgh days, that private theatre which took up so much of Fleeming's energy and thought. The ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or orations to the people will be of great benefit to the Senate, the prerogative, and the whole nation. To the Senate, because they will not only teach your Senators elocution, but keep the system of the government in their memories. Elocution is of great use to your Senators, for if they do not understand rhetoric (giving it at this time for granted that the art were not otherwise ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... dignified address, in which the tremulous voice of deep emotion was occasionally mingled with the manly tones of bolder elocution, was listened to in silence deep as death; and when he descended from the pulpit, Mr. Douglas was surrounded by a throng of elders, and young men, and humble matrons, who were eager to manifest their heartfelt reverence for ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... alone in a corner. Presently the French actor began to give one of his famous monologues. She heard his wonderfully varied elocution, his voice—intelligence made audible and dashed with flying lights of humour rising and falling subtly, yet always with a curious sound of inevitable simplicity. She heard gentle titterings from the concealed audience, then a definite laugh, then a peal of laughter quite gloriously indiscreet. ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... "they are too monotonous, too singsong, to dead-and-alive; they have no expression, no elocution. It isn't natural; it could never happen in real life. A person who had just acquired a dog is either blame' glad or blame' sorry. He is not on the fence. I never saw a case. What the nation do you suppose is the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... an enthusiastic clapping when Miss Celia sat down, but even while hands applauded, consciences pricked, and undone tasks, complaining words and sour faces seemed to rise up reproachfully before many of the children, as well as their own faults of elocution. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... remember when I listened with such delight to the address of Mr. Secretary Evarts, which you have just now been cheering, that the first time I heard this persuasive and convincing orator, was when he took the prize for elocution, a boy of thirteen, on the platform in the great hall in our old schoolhouse in School Street. Nay, I confess also, to a little feeling of local as well as national pride, when the President of the United States ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... in for the title when I am dead and gone—God help me!—So I would have you keep an equilibrium. If once you get the name of being a fine speaker, you may have any thing: and, to be sure, you have naturally a great deal of elocution; a tongue that would delude an angel, as the women say—to their sorrow, some of them, poor creatures!—A leading man in the house of commons is a very important character; because that house has the giving of money: and money makes the mare to go; ay, and queens and kings too, sometimes, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... had, I observed, more mercy; and this imperfection of sympathy (the question of Waterloo apart) rested, it was impossible not to feel, on his so resenting the dishonour suffered at our hands by his beautiful tongue, to which, as the great field of elocution, he was patriotically devoted. I think he fairly loathed our closed English vowels and confused consonants, our destitution of sounds that he recognised as sounds; though why in this connection he put up best ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... an almost fanatical admiration for his genius, and in many of the qualities which make an agreeable talker he was unsurpassed. Every one who ever heard him at the Bar or on the Bench must recall that silvery voice and that perfect elocution which prompted a competent judge of such matters to say: "I should enjoy listening to Coleridge even if he only read out a page of Bradshaw." To these gifts were added an immense store of varied knowledge, a genuine enthusiasm ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... the most renowned preacher of our age as soon as I should have grown fat—a quality which I certainly could not boast of, for at that time I was extremely thin. I had not the shadow of a fear as to my voice or to my elocution, and for the matter of composing my sermon I felt myself equal to the production of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and know—but with what higher rapture would he still be read, could they conceive how Betterton played him! Then might they know, the one was born alone to speak what the other only knew to write! pity it is, that the momentary beauties flowing from a harmonious elocution, cannot, like those of poetry, be their own record! that the animated graces of the player can live no longer than the instant breath and motion that presents them; or at best can but faintly glimmer through the memory, or imperfect attestation of a few surviving spectators. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... lords, the woman Knows not her tropes, nor figures, nor is perfect In the academic derivation Of grammatical elocution. ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... the organs of speech in filing down and otherwise disfiguring their teeth; and likewise adopt the uncouth practice of filling their mouths with betel whenever they prepare to hold forth. We must conclude that it is not upon the graces of elocution they value an orator, but his artful and judicious management of the subject matter; together with a copiousness of phrase, a perspicuity of thought, an advantageous arrangement, and a readiness, especially, at unravelling the difficulties and ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... with Digges, then manager of the Edinburgh Theatre. At Edinburgh he married an actress named Heydon, from whom, however, he was soon obliged to part on account of her dissolute life. Returning again to London, he set up as wandering lecturer on elocution, and in this character travelled with varying success through England. In November 1776 he set out on a visit to France, and lived at Paris for upwards of six months on funds supplied by his father. His resources being exhausted, he left ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... himself in the delivery of his learned oration on the origin of the human race, beginning with Spider, and ranging up to the wondrous Missing Link. "Captured by my own hand in the jungles of Central Africa, ladies," said he, with fine dramatic elocution and the attitudes ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... the whole passage in a sing-song tone, accompanied by a few crude gestures recalled from long-ago school-boy elocution. Josephine knew what was coming. Every time David proposed to her he had begun by reciting poetry. She twirled her towel around the last plate resignedly. If it had to come, the sooner it was over the better. Josephine knew by experience that there was no heading David off, despite ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sensible and candid in the information you may want from him; and if you are kind enough to bestow pains upon him, the obligation on my part will be lasting. The branches to be learnt are these: Latin, French, Arithmetic, Mercantile Accounts, Elocution, History, Geography, Geometry, Astronomy, the Globes, Mathematics, Philosophy, Dancing, ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... charity," said the former, "if some philanthropist would give this blighter elocution lessons. Can ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... professor in one of our universities had a letter from a young woman in the West, asking him if he did not think she could teach elocution if she could come to the university and take twelve lessons. Our young people of to-day want something, and want it quickly. They are not willing to lay broad, deep foundations. The weary years in preparatory school and college dishearten them. They ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... of a bad cause, an energy, an earnestness, and a power of illustration, which, on any other subject, must have crowned him with the laurels of a brilliant victory. But what power of logic—what force of elocution—- what stretch, of fancy, can defend gambling?—which, even if right in itself, is yet attended by such baneful consequences—such appalling effects—as to strike terror into the hearts of the most reckless, and seal the lips of eloquence by the blood of the unfortunate? ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... the back of the chest, with a speakin' tube runnin' up to the mouth. John Henry bein' a regular minister, he can get the Homiletic Review at a dollar and a half a year; we can subscribe for that, get the up-to-datest sermons by the most distinguished divines, get some gent that's afflicted with elocution to say 'em into a record, and on Sunday our friend and pastor here will reel 'em off fine. You press the button—he does the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... Art began to call him— Pictures began to appeal to him. Statues beckoned to him. Music maddened him, and any form of Recitation or Elocution drove ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... profitable events of the institution was the annual society contest between the two societies, the Literati and the Lyceum. The Silver City Commercial Club offered a costly cup to the winning society and it was won by the Lyceum. The contest was in oration, elocution, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... herself in that black velvet costume which seems to be the only alternative to white muslin for ladies who aspire to be considered historic. Not Marie Stuart herself could have become it better than Lola Montez. Her face, air, attitude, and elocution are thoroughly and bewilderingly feminine. Perhaps her smartest and happiest remark was the one in which, with a pretty affectation, she says, "If I were a gentleman, I should like an American young lady to flirt with, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... accomplishments of the body, that they, like the ancient Greeks, may know that every muscle will obey the brain. A shy, awkward boy should be trained in dancing, fencing, boxing; he should be instructed in music, elocution, and public speaking; he should be sent into society, whatever it may cost him at first, as certainly as he should be sent to the dentist's. His present sufferings may save him from ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... when there's any call for it and she don't mumble her remarks when she has something to say. Not Miss Joyce. Her words come out clear and crisp, with a slight roll to the r's and all the final letters sounded, like she'd been taking elocution or something. ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... happy to say that I saw Dr. Macdonald once and heard him speak. His venerable aspect and chaste elocution made a powerful impression on all who heard him. His discourse could not be reported in cold print, for the flash of the mystic's eye, the human kindness that emanated from his whole being, and the felt emotion of his every tone could not be reproduced ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... was to be "Professor of Elocution," as Mr. Roberts gaily called her when the workers were alone together. It had been discovered that she could read both prose and poetry with effect. So a reading-class was organized, and they chose for the first evening, ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... once the ladies who had mislaid their fans blushed as they listened to the old gentleman, whose brilliant elocution won their indulgence for certain details which we have suppressed, as too erotic for the present age; nevertheless, we may believe that each lady complimented him in private; for some time afterwards he gave to each of them, as also to the masculine guests, a copy of this charming story, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... you are, Betty Wales," declared Bob. "Have you forgotten that you are on the all-powerful play-committee, and that you five and Miss Kingston, head of the elocution department, practically decide ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... after his sister's character in town he was willing to lay some of the blame due to himself. Mr. Melvill, Dr. Lewen's assistant, must, he said, be the man; and he praised him for his abilities; his elocution, and unexceptionable manners; and promised to engage him early ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... been given to this. The fact is that one short unaccented vowel is very likely to be mistaken, for another, especially by the uneducated and by careless speakers. The hearer cannot detect the difference, and in fact there is none, practically. The extremely accurate and discriminating elocution of which we hear was in all probability confined ...
— Latin Pronunciation - A Short Exposition of the Roman Method • Harry Thurston Peck
... morals which we may have from Aristotle and Epictetus with more profit than from any poet. Neither Holyday nor Stapleton have imitated Juvenal in the poetical part of him, his diction, and his elocution. Nor, had they been poets (as neither of them were), yet in the way they took, it was impossible for them to have succeeded in the ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... to weak and imperfect Christians as an excuse for their own weak lives; the drunkards and the liars and the oppressors of the poor; the people who heard a thousand sermons full of Gospel truth and despised them because of some imperfection in delivery or elocution; all those men who went through life the betrayers of the home; the selfish politicians, who betrayed their country; the men who read the Bible and believed only the parts that didn't hurt their sensitive feelings; the young men who lived fast lives and sowed ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... personated her father, the Curate; and who was, on this occasion (I presume through unavoidable circumstances), neither more nor less than—drunk. There was no mistaking the cause of the fixed leer in the reverend gentleman's eye; of the slow swaying in his gait; of the gruff huskiness in his elocution. It appeared, from the opening dialogue, that a pending law-suit, and the absence of his daughter Fanny in London, combined to make him uneasy in his mind just at present. But he was by no means so clear on this subject as could be desired—in fact, he ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... profession the actor's was, how great he was as an actor, how commonplace her life there, how beautiful he could make it if only he had money. It was an experience to hear Mr. Feuerstein say the word "money." Elocution could go no further in surcharging five letters with contempt. His was one of those lofty natures that scorn all such matters of intimate concern to the humble, hard-pressed little human animal as food, clothing and shelter. ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... daughter, the youngest, Mollie, having so far escaped from the traditional female employments of the region as to spend a season in New York, supplementing the grammar school education by a course in elocution, with Delsarte accompaniments. When she returned she gave her old friends to understand that she was thoroughly misunderstood by her family; also, that she was now to be called Marie and preferably Miss, hinted that she was soon going on a professional tour, and condescendingly ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... lectures, base-ball, French, pigeon-shooting, elocution, kites, composition, nutting, and the academy debating society; and the list of the future demands upon their time grew as ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... inseparable companion of her whole life. When she lost her sight, he used to read to her every evening. He was a poor reader; and, perceiving that she was sensitive to this defect, he secretly took lessons, at the age of sixty-four, to improve his elocution. Junot and Bernadotte were her ardent, lasting friends, and always delighted to serve her. Her rare graces, and her generous goodness to Madame Desbordes-Valmore, disarmed the prejudices and won the heart of the gifted but misanthropic Latouche. The Duke ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... I were spokesman," Kelson sighed, his eyes glistening at the sight of so many pretty upturned faces. "Go on, old man!" he added, giving Curtis a nudge. "Fire away, and show them you know a bit about elocution, for the ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... teacher in the institutes during my entire period of service, although he offered to retire on account of age. He was an excellent teacher, and in the art practically, perhaps, the best of all. Professor William Russell was the teacher of elocution. His recitations were good, as were his criticisms on language, but as a teacher, he had not a high rank. After the retirement of Professor Agassiz, I employed Sanborn Tenney, a young man of great industry and enthusiasm. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... dim the unique glory of St Lawrence, rendered the Church and Constitution an affair of their business and bosoms. A zealous Evangelical preacher had made the old sounding-board vibrate with quite a different sort of elocution from Mr. Gilfil's; the hymn-book had almost superseded the Old and New Versions; and the great square pews were crowded with new faces from distant corners of the ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... the fewest, simplest, and aptest words. As for the speaker who lives, not in the inspiration of his theme, but in the display of his eloquence, we may rest assured that he will never say any thing worth hearing: his work will naturally turn all to mere elocution; which may be described as the art of pronouncing nothing in such a way as to make it pass for ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... you 'gammon' through very well, for I always think you are one of the easiest speakers of the day." To which Mr. Toole replied, "Well, for my part, I think repose is everything. Quiet humour is always much more telling than noisy fun, and to feel your part deeply is far more than mere elocution." "Do you think that the training that young people on the stage get, now-a-days, is as thorough as it was in your early days, Mr. Toole?" "Well," he said, "I don't think that young actors get so much practice as they did ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... assistants as they embraced themselves wildly. "Oh! Oh! Caput's practisin'! Just listen to 'im! Ain't he the little cuckoo! Bet he's takin' lessons in elocution! But won't old Tutt just ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... to call together a few persons known to be in favor of suffrage, some day during anniversary week, in some parlor in Boston. I corresponded with Adin Ballou, E. D. Draper, and others, on the subject, and talked the matter over with Prof. T. T. Leonard, teacher of elocution, who offered his hall for a place of meeting. I wrote a notice inviting all persons interested in woman suffrage to come to Mr. Leonard's hall, on a certain day and hour. At the time appointed the hall was full of people. I opened the meeting, and stated why I had called it; others took up ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... tender passages in the same prosaic tone with which he described the shipwreck, and his elocution would have been funny to any other group of persons; as it was, neither of his ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... done in the university in Chinese and Armenian, he of course did; but his lectures took a much wider range, embracing general history and ethnography. His powers of elocution were of a high order, and crowds of students were drawn to his lecture room. That freedom of utterance which cost him the rectorship at Speyer, was like Dr. Watts's or Pope's instinct for making rhymes—it was his nature, and could not be whipped out of him; ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... being consumptive, and as being subject to an effusion of blood from the lungs; about the last condition, one would think, poor woman, for the exercise of public elocution as an art. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... critical moment after the second lesson was reached with dreadful celerity. Doctor Parsons, having read a chapter from the New Testament, which he emerged from the congregation to do, and which he did ill, though he prided himself upon his elocution, returned to his seat as the Vicar rose, adjusted his double eyeglasses and gave out ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... desire, Inclinable now grown to touch or taste, Sollicited her longing eye; yet first Pausing a while, thus to her self she mus'd. Great are thy Vertues, doubtless, best of Fruits, Though kept from Man, & worthy to be admir'd, Whose taste, too long forborn, at first assay Gave elocution to the mute, and taught The Tongue not made for Speech to speak thy praise: Thy praise hee also who forbids thy use, 750 Conceales not from us, naming thee the Tree Of Knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil; Forbids us ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... made by conversation. He that buries himself among his manuscripts, "besprent," as Pope expresses it, "with learned dust," and wears out his days and nights in perpetual research and solitary meditation, is too apt to lose in his elocution what he adds to his wisdom; and when he comes into the world, to appear overloaded with his own notions, like a man armed with weapons which he cannot wield. He has no facility of inculcating his speculations, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... his brave followers, not seconded by the powerful voice of Lord George Murray. Lochiel, who was not a man given to much elocution, recommended delay, and urged that the army would be at least fifteen hundred stronger on the following day. The return of the army to Culloden, fatigued and famished, between five and six o'clock on the following morning, was the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... portrait of Daniel Webster is taken from a book just issued by the Fowler & Wells Co., New York, entitled, "A Natural System of Elocution and Oratory," founded upon analysis of the Human Constitution. By Thomas A. Hyde and William Hyde. Among other valuable subjects which this book contains is a description and analysis ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... Demosthenes, since I could now read these authors, as far as the language was concerned, with perfect ease, I was not required to construe them sentence by sentence, but to read them aloud to my father, answering questions when asked: but the particular attention which he paid to elocution (in which his own excellence was remarkable) made this reading aloud to him a most painful task. Of all things which he required me to do, there was none which I did so constantly ill, or in which ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... sensibilities of a lofty patriotism, and chastened by the meditations of a profound philosophy; if a brilliant imagination, a discerning intellect, a sound judgment, an indefatigable capacity, and vigorous energy of application, vivified with an ease and rapidity of elocution, copious without redundance, and select without affectation; if all these, united with a sportive vein of humor, an inoffensive temper, and an angelic purity of heart;—if all these, in their combination, are the qualities suitable for an Attorney-General of the United States, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... quoth Carpalin, a whoremaster at Orleans, the whole art of rhetoric, in all its tropes and figures, was not able to afford unto me a colour or flourish of greater force and value, nor could I by any other form or manner of elocution pitch upon a more persuasive argument for bringing young beautiful married ladies into the snares of adultery, through alluring and enticing them to taste with me of amorous delights, than with a lively sprightfulness to tell ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... propagates, but the fact that the writer has opinions. The old lady from Colchester was right to sun her simple soul in the energetic radiance of Bradlaugh's genuine beliefs and disbeliefs rather than in the chill of such mere painting of light and heat as elocution and convention can achieve. My contempt for belles lettres, and for amateurs who become the heroes of the fanciers of literary virtuosity, is not founded on any illusion of mind as to the permanence of those forms ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... I beheld the selfsame figure that had appeared a half-hour before upon the bank. My fancy had conjured up a very different image. A form and attitude and garb were instantly created worthy to accompany such elocution; but this person was, in all visible respects, the reverse of this phantom. Strange as it may seem, I could not speedily reconcile myself to this disappointment. Instead of returning to my employment, I threw ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Demosthenes (Nay, his mere knuckles, for more ease) To rap a few short sentences; Or if, for want of proper keys, His Greek might make confusion, Then just to get a rap from Burke, To recommend a little work On Public Elocution. 610 Meanwhile, the spirits made replies To all the reverent whats and whys, Resolving doubts of every size, And giving seekers grave and wise, Who came to know their destinies, A rap-turous reception; When unbelievers void of grace Came to investigate the place, (Creatures of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... giving Mr. Rushworth's opinion in better words than he could find himself. He was aware that he must not expect a genius in Mr. Rushworth; but as a well-judging, steady young man, with better notions than his elocution would do justice to, he intended to value him very highly. It was impossible for many of the others not to smile. Mr. Rushworth hardly knew what to do with so much meaning; but by looking, as he really felt, most exceedingly pleased ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... was not equal to his merit) Farquhar having acquaintance with him, Mr. Wilks, was soon introduced upon the stage by his means, where he did not long continue, nor make any considerable figure. His person was sufficiently advantageous, he had a ready memory, proper gesture, and just elocution, but then he was unhappy in his voice, which had not power enough to rouse the galleries, or to rant with any success; besides, he was defective in point of assurance, nor could ever enough overcome his ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... is fundamental to correct and agreeable speaking. The breathing apparatus should be brought under control by daily practice upon exercises prescribed in any standard book on elocution. Pure tone of voice depends upon the ability to convert into tone every particle of breath used. Aspirated voice, in which some of the breath is allowed to escape unvocalized, is injurious to the throat, and unpleasant to ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... debut of M. Rollin took place in 1842. His first speech was delivered on the subject of the secret-service money. The elocution was easy and flowing, the manner oratorical, the style somewhat turgid and bombastic. But in the course of the session M. Rollin improved, and his discourse on the modification of the criminal law, on other legal subjects, and on railways, were more sober specimens ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... PELL, with dignity. And he read with emphatic elocution from some closely-printed columns in the Times, interjecting exclamatory comments from time ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various
... pronunciation, we should hardly care to hear the mutilation of Holy Scripture which must have followed the continuance of the practice. Would it not be possible to find men qualified to hold the office of parish clerk by education and powers of elocution who could revive the ancient practice with advantage to the church both to ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... it," said the rector, with his lofty politeness. "Another time will do. It is a habit of mine, Mr. Nugent, to read aloud in my family circle. As a clergyman and a lover of poetry (in both capacities) I have long cultivated the art of elocution——" ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... Hercules (I speak as I think)! though I am fond enough of myself, I dare not say that I excel in beauty that bull which carried Europa. For the question here is not concerning our genius and elocution, but our species and figure. If we could make and assume to ourselves any form, would you be unwilling to resemble the sea-triton as he is painted supported swimming on sea-monsters whose bodies are ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Country with a religious application and perfect integrity, he feared no one, courted no one, neglected his own fortune. Besides this, he was a person of universal worth, and in great estimation among the Literati, for his unbounded reading, his sound judgment, his great elocution, his mastery in method, his singular curiosity, and his uncommon munificence towards the advancement of learning, arts, and industry, in all degrees: to which were joined the severest morality of a philosopher, and all the polite accomplishments ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... a pudding full of plums, Care's a canker that benumbs. Wherefore waste our elocution On impossible solution? Life's a pleasant institution, Let us take it as ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... and person was a younger brother of the Noble Family of the Herberts of Montgomery, whose florid wit, obliging humour in conversation, fluent Elocution, and great proficiency in the Arts, gained him that reputation at Oxford, where he spent his more youthful Age, that he was chosen University Orator, a place which required one of able parts to Mannage it; at last, taking upon him ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... of mouth, parole, palaver, prattle; effusion. oration, recitation, delivery, say, speech, lecture, harangue, sermon, tirade, formal speech, peroration; speechifying; soliloquy &c. 589; allocution &c. 586; conversation &c. 588; salutatory : screed: valedictory [U.S.][U.S.]. oratory; elocution, eloquence; rhetoric, declamation; grandiloquence, multiloquence[obs3]; burst of eloquence; facundity[obs3]; flow of words, command of words, command of language; copia verborum[Lat]; power of speech, gift of the gab; usus loquendi[Lat]. speaker &c. v.; spokesman; prolocutor, interlocutor; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... engaged in dividing their plunder. Carrying them to Pergamus, he handed them over to the civil authorities, by whom his promise of crucifying them all was duly carried out. Then he went to Rhodes, and spent two years in the study of elocution. He had proved himself an awkward kind ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... have got through tea if the coffee-cream cakes had not been so good. The old Earl called me to him when he had finished, and talked so beautifully to me; he paid me some such grand old-fashioned compliments, and his voice sounds as if he had learnt elocution in his youth. There is not a word of slang or anything modern; one quite understands how he was able to wake up the House of Lords before his legs gave way. It seems sad that such a ninny as Charlie should succeed ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... did not want ambition or vanity, was desirous to make himself conspicuous, and to show how worthy he was of high preferment. As he thought himself qualified to become a popular preacher, he displayed his elocution with great success in the pulpits of London; but the Queen's death putting an end to his expectations, abated his diligence; and Pope represents him as falling from that time into intemperance of wine. That in his latter life he ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... college.... And, Oh! the experiments! It is enough to try the patience of a Job. I came here to take a college course, and not to dabble in a little of every insignificant thing that comes up. More than half of my time is taken up in writing essays, practicing elocution, trotting to chapel, and reading poetry with the teacher of English literature, and it seems to make no difference to Miss Howard and Mr. Durant whether the Latin, Greek and Mathematics are well learned or not. The result is that I do not have time to half learn my lessons. My real college work is ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... and Mr. Philip de Gray have received a cable despatch from the Prince of Wales, inviting them to instruct his sons in elocution and music, at a very liberal salary. They have this proposal under consideration, though they are naturally rather reluctant to give up the plaudits of the public, even for so honorable ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... so familiar already with the Queen's foibles. It was probably earlier in the year, and about this same Irish business, that Raleigh spoke to Elizabeth, on the occasion which Naunton describes. 'Raleigh,' he says, 'had gotten the Queen's ear at a trice; and she began to be taken with his elocution, and loved to hear his reasons to her demands; and the truth is, she took him for a kind of oracle, which nettled them all.' Lord Grey, who was no diplomatist, had the want of caution to show that he was annoyed at advice being asked from a young ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... interlocution; improvisation; toast; equivocation, prevarication, quibbling; ambages, pseudology, amphibology, amphiboly, dilogy. Associated Words: extempore, extemporaneous, extemporize, extemporization, impromptu, improvise, improvisation, brogue, aphasia, amnesia, oratory, elocution, rhetoric, oratorical, rhetorical, rhetorician, elocutionary, peroration, voluble, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... so unweariedly, and so unblameably. Two things (rarely to be found in one man) were eminent in him, viz. a quick invention and sound judgment, and these accompanied with a homely but clear expression, and graceful elocution; so that such as knew him best were in a strait whether to admire him most for his penetrating wit and sublime genius in the schools, and peculiar exactness in disputes and matters of controversy, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... his tenderest point by her insensibility to his elocution] Oh, indeed! I'm mad, am I? Very well, Mrs. Pearce: you needn't order the new clothes for ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... his bailiff, say that he was a pleasant man, and was fond of reciting old scraps of poetry, which he did with great energy; indeed, Mr. Darrell declares that it was the noticing, in his father's animated and felicitous elocution, the effects that voice, look, and delivery can give to words, which made Mr. Darrell himself the fine speaker he is. But I can only recollect the antiquary as a very majestic gentleman, with a long pigtail—awful, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at the window a few remonstrances to his brother, which, if he did not attend to, let the consequences be upon his own head. Accordingly, taking his station at one of the crevices, and calling upon his brother three several times by name, as use is, he uttered the most moving pieces of elocution he could think of, imploring him, as he valued his poor parents' life and blessing, to come forth and go home with him, Donald Macgillivray, his thrice affectionate and unhappy brother. But whether it was the dancer could not hear this eloquent harangue, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... exception of returning thanks for "art" or "literature" or for "the visitors" now and then at a City banquet, I was quite unaccustomed to public speaking. A friend of mine suggested I should take lessons in elocution from "one of those actor fellows." "It is not what you say but how you say it," he said to me. "Indeed!" I replied, rather nettled. "Matthew Arnold had a wretched delivery, and I think there was something in what he said." "True, but you are not a Matthew ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... his insisted-upon statements, and it well illustrates the lifelong practice of the man himself, for every word as he talks can be heard in every part of a large building, yet always he speaks without apparent effort. He avoids "elocution." His voice is soft-pitched and never breaks, even now when he is over seventy, because, so he explains it, he always speaks in his natural voice. There is never ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... looks when she blushes! He'll confuse her, though, as sure as fate. No, not a bit of it! That was dignified, wasn't it? How the words rang, 'Of course not!' I say, Jack, this will be as good as a lesson in elocution for us!" ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Elocution has, for some years past, been an object of attention in the most respectable schools in this country. A laudable ambition of instructing youth in the pronunciation and delivery of their native language, has made English speeches a very ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... Butler opened a "Commercial and Preparatory Academy," and in a prospectus that recalls Mr. Squeers' famous advertisement of Dotheboys Hall, announced that the programme of the Academy would include "reading, taught as an art and upon the most approved principles of elocution, writing, arithmetic, euclid, algebra, mensuration, trigonometry, book-keeping, geography, grammar, spelling and dictation, composition, logic and debate, French, Latin, shorthand, history, music, and general lectures on astronomy, natural philosophy, geology, and other subjects." ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... Purple Ink; the Keeper of the Secret Seal; the First Valet; the Chief of the Night Guard (Grand Drumgaire); the Chief of the Huntsmen (Protocynege); the Commander of the Body Guard of Foreigners (Acolyte); the Professor of Philosophy; the Professor of Elocution and Rhetoric; the Attorney General (Nornophylex); the Chief Falconer (Protojeracaire) and others—these he called one by one, and formally presented to the Princess, not minding that with many of them ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... newspapers as may strike the speaker as interesting or important. Or the student may describe his personal observation of any event, invention, manufacture, or what not; or report upon the condition, history, or prospects of any art, trade, or business undertaking. This not to teach elocution, but to train the student to think while standing, and to express himself in ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... nations sink, by darling schemes oppress'd, When vengeance listens to the fool's request. Fate wings with ev'ry wish th' afflictive dart, Each gift of nature, and each grace of art; With fatal heat impetuous courage glows, With fatal sweetness elocution flows, Impeachment stops the speaker's pow'rful breath, And restless fire precipitates on death. [b]But, scarce observ'd, the knowing and the bold Fall in the gen'ral massacre of gold; Wide wasting pest! that rages unconfin'd, And crowds with crimes the records of mankind; For ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... you," he remarked with his usual stiff solemnity, "if you would care for me to read the lessons at morning service to-morrow. . . . I do not read badly. . . . I have studied elocution." ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... living men; but dwelt in a remote conventional world in /Castles of Otranto/, in /Epigoniads/ and /Leonidases/, among clear, metallic heroes, and white, high, stainless beauties, in whom the drapery and elocution were nowise the least important qualities. Men thought it right that the heart should swell into magnanimity with Caractacus and Cato, and melt into sorrow with many an Eliza and Adelaide; but the heart was in no haste either to swell or to melt. Some pulses ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... year younger than Theodore Parker. He went the way of all well-to-do Boston youth through Harvard, graduating there in 1831, without distinguishing himself particularly, except by his skill in debate and his finished elocution. During one of the revivals of religion which followed the settlement of Dr. Lyman Beecher at Boston, he became a convert, and this marked the beginning of his interest in the great moral question of the day, slavery. It soon became overwhelming, and was ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... delight. But of this I shall take more seasonable cause to speak, in my observations upon Horace his Art of Poetry, which, with the text translated, I intend shortly to publish. In the mean time, if in truth of argument, dignity of persons, gravity and height of elocution, fulness and frequency of sentence, I have discharged the other offices of a tragic writer, let not the absence of these forms be imputed to me, wherein I shall give you occasion hereafter, and without my boast, to think I could better prescribe, than omit the due use for ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... towards the city in the immediate vicinity, of which Vaura alighted at a neat cottage to visit a blind protegee, one Marie Perrault, daughter of a one-time actor of no mean repute, who had taught elocution at the Seminaire where Miss Vernon had finished her education. Monsieur Perrault had assisted Vaura in the getting up of theatricals, she having developed such excellent histrionic powers. Perrault secretly hoped she would ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... IRVING'S earlier performance remarked a gain in depth and fire and a happier restraint of mannerism. It was a very notable and gracious piece of work. He has the player's first gift, an arresting personality. His elocution has distinction. He conveys the beauty of the words and the richness of the packed thought thoughtfully. The complex play of action and motive—the purpose blunted by overmuch thinking, the spurs to dull ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... Suetonius, "at once with sweetness and with a wonderful fascination;" and Seneca had a story of the poet Julius Montanus saying that he himself would attempt to steal something from Virgil if he could first borrow his voice, his elocution, and his dramatic power in reading; for the very same lines, said he, which when the author himself read them sounded well, without him were empty and dumb. He read to Augustus the whole of his "Georgics," and on another ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... as "the young professor of journalism." In 1885, Mr. Charles E. Fitch, but just gone after long newspaper service, delivered a course of lectures on the training of the journalist, at Cornell University. Two years later Mr. Brainerd Smith, before and after of the New York Sun, then professor of elocution in the same university, began training in the work of the newspaper in his class in composition, sending out his class on assignments and outlining possible occurrences which the class wrote out. This experiment was abruptly closed by Mr. Henry W. Sage, Chairman of the ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... that what I am telling you is true.' And Josephine advanced, warmly cheered by the spectators, who thought that they were going to have some more tumbling. She advanced, however, as Andromache. It seemed to Sidonia that he had never listened to a voice more rich and passionate, to an elocution more complete; he gazed with admiration on her lightning glance and all the tumult of her noble brow. As she finished, he applauded her with vehemence. He was standing near to her father leaning ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... voice was husky with excitement as he spoke his brief but vehement call to arms, and the effect was immense, precisely because the speaker, carried away by the tide of feeling, had not tried to impress the learned and eloquent men whom he addressed by any tricks of elocution or choice of words. They, too, were fired by the spark of the old man's enthusiasm; they gathered round him, and followed him at once to the rooms where the weapons had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a lesson in elocution: that is to say Mr. Repton, the visiting-master for this branch of study, was reading aloud, in a sonorous voice, a chapter of HANDY ANDY. He underlined his points heavily, and his hearers, like the self-conscious, emotionally shy young colonials they were, ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... building, were taught. There was a School of Art, in which wood modelling, carving, and other minor arts were taught, as well as painting and drawing. There was a Commercial School for Arithmetic, Book-keeping, Shorthand, Typewriting; French, German, etc., were taught; there were Musical Classes, Elocution Classes, a School of Engineering, a School of Photography. Enough; it will be seen that everything a lad might desire to learn he could learn ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... passed, and then came the first rehearsal. This, of course, could be little more than a reading of the parts before Mr. Mann, with the latter to advise them as to elocution and stage business. But Bobby declared she had been practicing walking like a boy and had succeeded in copying Short and Long ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... acquainted till some time after this period, though I collected their characters from my friend Clifford. Mr. Thelwall had cut the concern, and set up in another line, that of a fashionable teacher of elocution. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... Attorney, George Hay—serious, humorless, faithful to Jefferson's interests, and absolutely devoid of the personal authority demanded by so grave a cause. He was assisted by William Wirt, already a brilliant lawyer and possessed of a dazzling elocution, but sadly lacking in the majesty of years. At the head and forefront of the defense stood Burr himself, an unerring legal tactician, deciding every move of the great game, the stake of which for him was life itself. About him ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... the language of the calam has perpetuated remarkable deeds. What would have become of the names of Rustam, Cyrus, and Afraciab, if eloquence had not preserved their memory like the recital of a remote dream? It is by the pearls of elocution that the sweet relations between distant friends are preserved. The study of this sublime art is like a market always filled with buyers. It will remain in the world as long as the ear shall be sensible to harmony, or ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... of excellent presence and manner, but utterly incapable of original thought. He could not prepare a speech of any kind. However, he had a phenomenal memory. He could listen to a speech made by another and repeat it perfectly. His attractive appearance, good voice, and fine elocution made the speech a great success. Several orators told me that when they found their efforts a failure they asked for the cause, and discovered that this man had delivered their speeches a few nights before, ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... with reading a part of them. The Spectator was particularly pleasing and serviceable to me. The Abbe de Gauvon had taught me to read less eagerly, and with a greater degree of attention, which rendered my studies more serviceable. I accustomed myself to reflect on elocution and the elegance of composition; exercising myself in discerning pure French from my provincial idiom. For example, I corrected an orthographical fault (which I had in common with all Genevese) by these two lines ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... years. Owing to ill health she gave up teaching. She was persuaded to travel for her alma mater, Wilberforce, and started on a lecturing tour, concluding at Hampton School, Virginia, where she was received with a great welcome. After taking a course in elocution at this place, she traveled again, having much greater success, and received favorable ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... judgment on its merits, even when I had done. He insisted, however, on the signal advantages of reading well. He had an acquaintance, he said, a poet, who had taken lessons under Mr. Thelwall, and who, though his verses, when he published, met with no great success, was so indebted to his admirable elocution, as to be invariably successful when he ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... been studying elocution under a graduate of the Old Bowery, and has acquired a most tragic croak, which, with a little rouge and burnt cork, and haggard hair, gives him a truly awful aspect, remarked that the soil of the South was clotted with blood by fiends in human shape, (sensation in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... heartily wish that more of our country clergy would follow this example; and, instead of wasting their spirits in laborious compositions of their own, would endeavour after a handsome elocution[40], and all those other talents that are proper to enforce what has been penned by greater masters. This would not only be more easy to themselves, but ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... beaten him. But I had so grossly overshot the mark that I suppose it took me two good miles of road and half an hour of elocution to persuade him I had been in earnest. In the course of which I became so interested in demonstrating my present danger that I forgot all about my future safety, and not only told him the story of Goguelat, but threw ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... endeavored to find more lucrative employment, and advertised his intention to open, near the site of the present Herald office, a "Permanent Commercial School," in which all the usual branches were to be taught "in the inductive method." His list of subjects was extensive,—"reading, elocution, penmanship, and arithmetic; algebra, astronomy, history, and geography; moral philosophy, commercial law, and political economy; English grammar, and composition; and also, if required, the French and Spanish languages, by natives of those countries." ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... said one day, "I wish I had a place of my own. What is the reason I can't? A girl can go in for Art, and set up a studio; or she can go to Rome, and sculp, and study; she can learn elocution, and read, whether people want to be read to or not; and all that is Progress and Woman's Rights; why can't ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... notice of Dr. Sam. Wright in the opening stanza, is at variance with the general report of biographers. In the copy of the verses in the Blackmore MSS. is this note:—"I think this is too severe on the Dr." Dr. Wright was admired for his pulpit elocution; and it is said that Archbishop Herring was, in his younger years, a frequent hearer of his, with a view to improve in elocution. The notice of the celebrated Tom Bradbury is grossly unjust. He was a man of wit and courage, though ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... have my judgement of her indeed? To be plain, I am void of all judgement, if your Nine Comedies, whereunto in imitation of Herodotus, you give the names of the Nine Muses (and in one man's fancy not unworthily), come not nearer Ariosto's comedies, either for the fineness of plausible elocution, or the rareness of poetical invention, than that Elvish Queen doth to his Orlando Furioso, which notwithstanding you will needs seem to emulate, and hope to overgo, as you flatly professed yourself in one ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... this sweetly beautiful little poem its noble truths should be uttered with emphatic, but not noisy elocution. There is sufficient variety in the different stanzas for the speaker to display ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... not you yourself be one of those to enter your name in such a list as I speak of? You are young; you have great talents; you have a clear head; you have a natural, fluent, and unforced elocution; your ideas are just, your sentiments benevolent, open, and enlarged;—but this is too big for your modesty. Oh! this modesty, in time and place, is a charming virtue, and the grace of all other virtues. But it is sometimes the worst enemy they have. Let him whose print I gave you the other ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... overwrought and flustered with their experiments, did not calculate on the fact that the smoke of their bonfire would give away their secret. Rachel had handed her tennis racket to Phyllis, and was taking a turn among the orange trees to try to memorize her recitation for the elocution class. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... were few, while the people were clamoring for meetings. Fortunately I had learned how to protect my voice. In the course of the campaign every one who spoke with me lost his voice and had to return home for treatment. When I was a student at Yale the professor in elocution was an eccentric old gentleman named North. The boys paid little attention to him and were disposed to ridicule his peculiarities. He saw that I was specially anxious to learn and said: "The principal thing about oratory ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... this remark with great emphasis and elocution, as if it comprised no small quantity of ingenuity and research; and, in truth, it was not unworthy of being classed among the extraordinary discoveries of the age. Kate looked up hastily, and as hastily looked ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... E. H. CHAPIN, whose effective elocution and brilliant rhetoric attract crowds to his ordinary discourses at the Universalist Church in Murray-street, has in the press of Mr. J. S. Redfield, a volume upon "Womanhood, Illustrated by the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... was Ernestine the means of bestowing through her good elocution, united to the happy circumstance that brought it to the knowledge of the king! First there were her poor neighbors, to whom she could give instruction and entertainment. Then there was the poor widow who sent the petition, and who not only regained her son, but received through Ernestine an ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... was over, Mr Hill came down with Lord Byron to the gate of the upper town, where his Lordship, as we were taking leave, thanked him with more elocution than was precisely requisite. The style and formality of the speech amused Mr Hobhouse, as well as others; and, when the minister retired, he began to rally his Lordship on the subject. But Byron really fancied that he had acquitted himself with ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... set forth with an ear-piercing elocution, and a voice that sometimes crashed like cannon. Such as it was, it was the gift of all hill-preachers, to a singular degree of likeness or identity. Their images scarce ranged beyond the red horizon ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... February, 1827, as I sat with a volume of the Tor Hill in my hand, in the back drawing-room of my lodging in Conduit-street. It was about ten o'clock in the afternoon. My dinner was just removed. It had left me with that gay complacency of disposition, and irrepressible propensity of elocution, which result from a satisfied appetite, and an undisturbed digestion. My sense of contentment became more vigorous and confirmed, as I cast my eye around my apartment, and contemplated my well-filled book-case, and the many articles of convenience ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... Livia, upon subjects of importance he wrote on his tablets all he wished to express, lest, if he spoke extempore, he should say more or less than was proper. He delivered himself in a sweet and peculiar tone, in which he was diligently instructed by a master of elocution. But when he had a cold, he sometimes employed a herald to deliver his speeches to ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... the Elocution Contest, I find that night has closed in. Not a ripple is on the far-stretching blue waste. From the high cliffs that overhang the town and its amphitheatre can be seen the faintly outlined harbour, where the ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... for elocution had inclined him at first to be a lawyer, but when he visited the county courthouse the attorneys he listened to had such dull themes to expound that he felt no call to the law. What glory was there in pleading for the honor of ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... before beheld this seamstress from King Street, Westminster, but she must have been familiar with the handsome figure of one who had drunk many a brimming glass at the Mitre Tavern. Thus, when he made bold to praise her elocution, she was not offended, and, although she ignored his request to continue the "Scornful Lady," Anne proved sufficiently mistress of the interruption to astonish the intruder by her "discourse and sprightly wit." That innate breeding, of which no amount of poverty could ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... before the two friends had met, Bronson Alcott heard him preach in Dr. Channing's church on 'The Universality of the Moral Sentiment,' and was struck, as he said, with the youth of the preacher, the beauty of his elocution and the direct and sincere manner in which ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... borrowed materials which offend his sense of literary equity; an emotive intensity which exaggerates his conscious sensibility; an impetuosity of delivery which overworks his thought; gestures and looks put on for scenic effect; an eccentric elocution, which no human nature ever fashioned; even a shrug of the shoulder, thought of and planned for beforehand—these are causes of enervation in sermons which may be otherwise well framed and sound in stock. They sap a preacher's ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... the speech of the Learned Blacksmith, in the ordinary sense of that word, no grace of elocution, but mighty thoughts radiating off from his heated mind, like sparks from the glowing steel ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Practical work; gardening, agriculture, carpentry, turning, locksmith's work, work in forge. Drawing, writing, elocution, music. Knowledge of literature and human nature, physics, ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... precision of a schoolgirl who has been taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she leaned over the balcony and ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... Williams—efforts which collapsed upon the appearance of the preacher's wife Winifred. "Wife, wife," muttered the disconcerted priest, "if the fool has a wife he will never do for us." In the course of his wanderings this nineteenth-century S. Augustine often gave himself out to be a teacher of elocution. ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... iudgement of hir indeede? To be plaine, I am voyde of al iudgement, if your nine Comoedies, whervnto, in imitation of Herodotus, you giue the names of the nine Muses, (and in one mans fansie not vnworthily), come not neerer Ariostoes comoedies, eyther for the finesse of plausible elocution or the rarenesse of poetical inuention, than that Eluish Queene doth to his Orlando Furioso; which, notwithstanding, you wil needes seeme to emulate, and hope to ouergo, as you flatly professed yourself ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser |
