"Elocution" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 of the moor and the rainy hill-top, the shepherd and his sheep, a fowling- ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... christianlike and 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
... was one of the things he had steered and seen to. There had been a school they might have gone to higher up the hill where one learned needlework even in the "first class" as they called it instead of the sixth form as at her school, and "Calisthenics" instead of drilling—and something called elocution—where the girls were "finished." It was an expensive school. Had the teachers there taught the girls... as if they had no minds? Perhaps that school was more like the one she found herself in now? She ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... of character, judgment, and a most sensitive tact. His qualities and his limitations alike appear in the Spectator. For example, he tells us that he wishes that country clergymen would borrow the sermons of great divines, and devote all their own efforts to acquiring a good elocution: [Footnote: Spectator 106.] here we detect the practical moralist and the man who likes a thing good of its kind, but not the enthusiast. He upholds the observance of Sunday on account of its social influences rather than for its religious meaning; [Footnote: Spectator 112.] Swift's ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... declaimed 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 ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... heartily wish that more of our Country Clergy would follow this Example; and in stead of wasting their Spirits in laborious Compositions of their own, would endeavour after a handsome Elocution, 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 more ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... finished artist combined with the freshness and simplicity of youth. Great praise, but there are few actors who can claim any competition with him." Six weeks later he was playing Hamlet there, and his elocution is spoken of as remarkable for its purity, his action as suited to the passion he represented, and his performance as an exquisite one ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... 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 she set ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... reading a Cincinnati Sunday newspaper, I ran across an advertisement of a School of Elocution, in which was the statement, "Stammering Positively Cured!" Whenever I saw a sign "Vocal Culture" I became interested, so I clipped the advertisement, corresponded with the school and not many Sundays later, being able to secure excursion rates to Cincinnati, ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... saw a boy that "showed off" more. His mother was wrapped up in him; you could see in a minute that she fairly worshipped him; but I don't know, if it hadn't been for Mary, that I'd have praised his recitations and elocution so much, myself. ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... vain. I could not pass in. Of course my pride was up; for was I to defer to an untutored African on a point of pronunciation? Classic shades of Harvard, forbid! Affecting scornful indifference, I tried to edge away, proposing to myself to enter the camp at some other point, where my elocution would be better appreciated. Not a step could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... "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, not one of Bryant's or Whittier's gems, nor selections ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... grande poesie?" asked Christine of G.J., who did not reply. Christine, though she condemned Alice as now disgusting, had been taken aback and, in spite of herself, much impressed by the surprising display of elocution. ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... States District 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 were gathered ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... 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 of a gentleman, particularly ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... indeede? To be plaine, I am voyde of al judgement, if your nine Com{oe}dies, whereunto, in imitation of Herodotus, you give the names of the Nine Muses, and (in one man's fansie not unworthily), come not neerer Ariostoes Com{oe}dies, eyther for the finenesse of plausible elocution, or the rareness of poetical invention, than that Elvish queene doth to his Orlando Furioso, which notwithstanding, you will needes seem to emulate, and hope to overgo, as you flatly professed yourself in ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... was pertinaciously temperamental: that is to say, spoiled; beautiful women are so, for the most part—invariably so, if on the stage. That kind of temperament is part of an actress' equipment, an asset, as much an item of her stock in trade as any trick of elocution or pantomime. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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
... in order that elocution may be cultivated? But elocution is seldom, if ever, cultivated in the ordinary elementary school, the veriest mumbling on the part of the child being accepted by his teacher (who follows him with an open book in his hand), provided that he can read correctly ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... was born to become 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
... to confidence? He spoke of the state of England; the necessary measures to be taken to ensure its security, and confirm its prosperity. He drew a glowing picture of its present situation. As he spoke, every sound was hushed, every thought suspended by intense attention. His graceful elocution enchained the senses of his hearers. In some degree also he was fitted to reconcile all parties. His birth pleased the aristocracy; his being the candidate recommended by Adrian, a man intimately allied to the popular party, caused a number, who had no great reliance either on the Duke or Mr. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... Sophomore years are devoted to the classics and mathematics. A large share of the work in the Junior and Senior years may be devoted to specialization in science, language, mathematics, history, sociology, or philosophy. In some cases elocution, music, and the fine arts rightly receive a fair share of attention on the part of a large number of ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... necessary to be reserved, and with whom he might safely venture to be communicative. The consequence was that he did what Mordaunt, with all his vivacity and invention, or Burnet, with all his multifarious knowledge and fluent elocution never could have ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I wish all Christendom could have heard Elihu Burritt's speech. One unbroken, unabated stream it was of profound and lofty and original eloquence. I felt riveted to my seat till he finished it. There was no oratory about it, in the ordinary sense of that word; no graces of elocution. It was mighty thoughts radiating off from his heated mind like the sparkles from the glowing steel on his own anvil, getting on as they come out what clothing of language they might, and thus having on the most appropriate and expressive ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... of the Greek language, and the arts of rhetoric; but as the mind of the orator was never disconcerted by timid perplexity, he was able, as often as the occasion prompted him, to deliver his decided sentiments with bold and ready elocution. The laws of martial discipline were the only laws that he had studied; and he was soon distinguished by the laborious diligence, and inflexible severity, with which he discharged and enforced the duties of the camp. In the time of Julian he provoked the danger ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... 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, debate, parliamentary ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... quite as bottomless are even his finished sentences. We have known "old stagers," in the newspaporial line, veteran reporters, so dumbfounded and confounded by the first fire of Ralph, and his grand and lofty acrobating in elocution, that they up, seized their hat and paper, and sloped, horrified at the prospect of an attempt to "take ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... pocketing his coin in order to release his hands for a little elocution, "we could boy 'em up twice over. The workhouse isn't in it with Wakefield's. There's not a day but they come cadging to us, wanting to borrow our tin, or our grub, or something. There, look at that chap going across there! He's one of 'em. Regular casual-ward ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... 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 ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... speeches for James Otis and sermons for Whitefield should have made her a sharper detective of the ingenuity of others. Those successful imitations, published originally in her novel of "The Rebels," have hardly yet ceased to pass current in the school elocution-books. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... of vital importance that the blind should have pleasant, well-modulated voices, and for this reason elocution should be included in the course of study. In recent years a number of blind students in eastern schools have been trained as readers and public entertainers, a line of work in which eyesight is ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... Politics for the People or Hogswash (1794) took its title from the fact that Burke called the people the "swinish multitude." The book resulted in sending the author to the Tower for sedition. In 1798 he gave up politics and started a school of elocution which became very famous. Thomas Hardy (1752-1832), who kept a bootmaker's shop in Piccadilly, was a fellow prisoner with Thelwall, being arrested for high treason. He was founder (1792) of The London Corresponding Society, a kind of clearing house for radical associations ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... never Straighten out life's tangled skein, Why should we, in vain endeavour, Guess and guess and guess again? Life's 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 ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... 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
... Words of good cheer were native to his lips, and he was always doing what he could to lighten the lot of all who came into his beautiful presence. His talk was simple, natural, and direct, never dropping into circumlocution nor elocution. Now that he is gone, whoever has known him intimately for any considerable period of time will linger over his tender regard for, and his engaging manner with, children; his cheery "Good Day" to poor people he happened to be passing in the road; his trustful and earnest ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... and recited 'The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck' without making a single mistake. Then it recited 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' and afterwards 'Excelsior.' You see, the chicken had eaten an Elocution Pill." ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... for any woman who felt she had something to say to stand up and say it. I felt very nervous, and as if my knees were giving way; but I did not show any nervousness. I read the lecture, but most of the quotations I recited from memory. Not having had any lessons in elocution, I trusted to my natural voice, and felt that in this new role the less gesticulation I used the better. Whether the advice of Demosthenes is rightly translated or not—first requisite, action; second, action; third, action—I ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... captain would not condescend to explain, and we went aft in a body, with John, the Swede, the oldest and best sailor of the crew, for spokesman. The recollection of the scene that followed always brings up a smile, especially the quarter-deck dignity and elocution of the captain. He was walking the weather side of the quarter-deck, and, seeing us coming aft, stopped short in his walk, and with a voice and look intended to annihilate us called out, "Well, what the d—-l do you want now?'' Whereupon we stated our grievances ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... to remark here, that sailors, like the orientals, are exceedingly addicted to the use of tropes and figures of speech, to similes and metaphors. In fact, if any gentleman was about compiling a treatise on elocution, I would recommend to him to pass a year or two on board one of our men of war, where he would daily hear specimens of eloquence, known and unknown to exclusively terrestrial orators, whether in the halls of Congress, at a public dinner-table, or on a stump. There is ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... Nathaniel Bacon, a gentleman who had received his education, in England, at the inns of court; and had been appointed a member of the council soon after his arrival in Virginia. Young, bold, and ambitious; possessing an engaging person, and commanding elocution; he was well calculated to rouse and direct the passions of the people. Treading the path by which ambition marches to power, he harangued the people on their grievances, increased their irritation against the causes of their disgust, and ascribed ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Author an' Invintor of th' great Chronothairmal Therey o' Midicine, th' Unity Perriodicity an' Remittency of all disease," put in the visitor, with such prodigious swiftness of elocution that the words went tumbling over one another like railway carriages out on pleasure, and the sentence was a ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... hazy, now brilliantly original. On the whole it was not satisfactory; and when for a change the Doctor gave up reciting, and made the boys read, the effect was still worse. One boy, quite a master of elocution, spoilt the whole beauty ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... his passions to atoms. The recent revivals of A Midsummer Night's Dream and the Taming of the Shrew at the Globe Theatre show how pleasing Shakspearian representations may be made, even when their success depends less upon elocution than scenic effect. The first of these plays was simply delightful, with its fairy glades and "built-up" temples. The last, too, is well off for "cloths," pleasingly representing Padua and Verona. The performers (with the exception of Mr. STEPHEN PHILLIPS, who ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... 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 with our own compatriots, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... in agreement. The commander hadn't put a question to me. So no answer was called for. This man expressed himself with perfect ease and without a trace of an accent. His phrasing was clear, his words well chosen, his facility in elocution remarkable. And yet, to me, he didn't have "the feel" of a ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... is ready to talk, but Constance is in no mood to listen. She cuts short her aunt's elocution, and goes with listless weariness ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... And so that, indeed, appears to us to be the proper materials of rhetoric, which we have said appeared to be such to Aristotle. VII. And these are the divisions of it, as numerous writers have laid them down: Invention; Arrangement; Elocution; Memory; Delivery. Invention, is the conceiving of topics either true or probable, which may make one's cause appear probable; Arrangement, is the distribution of the topics which have been thus conceived ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... between the theatre and the church is this, you preach the gospel as if it were fiction, while we speak fiction as if it were the gospel truth. When you give less attention to dry theological disquisitions and much more to the graces of elocution, you may expect to do ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... 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. ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Bertha with a filial sweetness Sought her mother's favorite authors, And with perfect elocution Made their sentiments and feelings, Guests around the ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... Reading and Speaking; calculated to improve the Minds and refine the Taste of Youth, and also to instruct them in the Geography, History, and Politics of the United States. To which are prefixed Rules in Elocution, and Directions for expressing the Principal Passions of the Mind." This laboriously emphatic title-page bears the motto from Mirabeau: "Begin with the infant in his cradle; let the first word he lisps be Washington." In strict accordance with this patriotic sentiment, ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... a good education, learning much from a scholarly father, a college-bred man, and an ornament to the United States District Court for more than a quarter of a century. Moreover, from early youth Conkling had studied elocution, training a strong, slightly musical voice, and learning the use of secondary accents, the choice of words, the value of deliberate speech, and the assumption of an impressive earnestness. In this debate, too, he discovered the talent for ridicule and sarcasm ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... laid music aside and took up elocution as he dodged another stone and wished that the mesquite-loving crank had put on a roof. In evading the projectile he let his sombrero appear on a level with the desert, and the hum of a bullet as it passed through his head-gear and into the opposite ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... of German, that day will Miss Brosius put us to extra work in elocution and oratory. If I read the stars right, I discovered a play in the corner of her eye when I saw her last. She has already begun to estimate each one of us, to see who will best serve her purpose. Anna Cresswell is already ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... little play lovingly, and, I fear, not without some elocution. There was one scene in it that I believed in greatly. The comedy swiftly rises into thrilling and unexpectedly developed drama. Capt. Marchmont suddenly becomes cognizant that his wife is an unscrupulous adventuress, ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... into practice, in any such way as to offend the taste, or infringe on the rights of others, it is proper to express disgust and disapprobation. If the female advocate chooses to come upon a stage, and expose her person, dress, and elocution to public criticism, it is right to express disgust at whatever is offensive and indecorous, as it is to criticize the book of an author, or the dancing of an actress, or any thing else that is presented to ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... Marjorie, "but if somebody had stumbled over every line I shouldn't have felt it so. I know the good there is in studying elocution. When Mr. Woodfern was here and read 'O, Absalom, my son! My son, Absalom!' everybody had tears in their eyes, and I had never seen tears about it before. And now I know the good of punctuation. I guess punctuation ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... Analysis, Weld's Old Grammar, Weld's New Grammar, Weld's Parsing Books, Weld's Latin Lessons, Smyth's Elementary Algebra, Smyth's Elements of Algebra, Key to each of Smyth's Algebras, Smyth's Trigonometry & Survey'g, Smyth's Calculus, Maine Justice of the Peace, Maine Townsman, Caldwell's Elocution, School Testaments, 18mo. School Testaments, 32mo. ...
— The Fox and the Geese; and The Wonderful History of Henny-Penny • Anonymous
... of making the most of our opportunities in this industry, the temptation, in too many cases, is to be music-teachers, teachers of elocution, or something else that few of the race at present have any money to pay for, or the opportunity to earn money to pay for, simply because there is no foundation. But, when more coloured people succeed in the more fundamental ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... 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 ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... himself.[18] He was bred in the height of what is called the Tory principle; and continued with a strong bias that way, till the other party had bid higher for him than his friends could afford to give. His want of literature is in some sort supplied by a good understanding, a degree of natural elocution, and that knowledge of the world which is learned in armies and courts. We are not to take the height of his ambition from his soliciting to be general for life:[19] I am persuaded his chief motive was ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... Elizabeth asked him a little anxiously about Mr. Carlyon's reading, "but I know you would not have questioned me if you did not want to know my real opinion. I think it is rather a pity that Mr. Carlyon has not taken elocution lessons." ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... off," he said. "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
... was united with an understanding equally vigorous and flexible. He was gifted with the faculty of method in the highest degree, and with great powers of application, which were sustained by a prodigious memory, while he could communicate his acquisitions with clear and fluent elocution. Such a man under any circumstances and in any sphere of life would probably have become remarkable. Ordained from his youth to be busied with the affairs of a great empire, such a man, after long years of observation, practice, and perpetual discipline, ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... Sheridan, Discourse ... Being Introductory to His Course of Lectures on Elocution and the English Language (1759). Introduction ...
— Hypochondriasis - A Practical Treatise (1766) • John Hill
... that the chapter on Elocution (elocutio), or style, far outweighs all the others in scope and bulk. Of the 108 seven-line stanzas which Hawes devotes to rhetoric, 20 praise the poets; 7 define rhetoric; 13 explain inventio; 12, dispositio; 40, elocutio; 8, pronuntiatio; and ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... woman Knows not her tropes, nor figures, nor is perfect In the academic derivation Of grammatical elocution. ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... opposition, and was finally rejected.] carried to such a height as in this sessions; the House seldom breaking up till eleven or twelve at night. From these contests, the desire of improving in the article of elocution is become very general. There are no less than five persons of rank and fortune now waiting my leisure to become my pupils. Remember me to all friends, particularly to our good landlord and landlady. I am, with love ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... Twynintuft, it may be remarked that he had devoted a long life to elocution, and produced a bulky manual full of illustrative quavers. And as it happened that his work was the first of the sort published in America, it obtained a pretty general circulation in schools and colleges, and was even patronisingly noticed in a British Review,—at that time the apotheosis ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... powers and look upon their lack of confidence as a weakness or lack of ability, when it may indicate quite the reverse. By teaching children early the arts of social life, such as boxing, horseback riding, dancing, elocution, and similar accomplishments, we may do much to overcome ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... invention at work, to contrive some means of indemnifying himself for his assiduities, presents, and the disappointment he had already undergone. On pretence of enjoying a free air, he mounted the box, and employed his elocution and generosity with such success, that the driver undertook to disable the diligence from proceeding beyond the town of Alost for that day; and, in consequence of his promise, gently overturned it when they were but a mile short of that baiting-place. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... of elocution and constant application of its principles to conversational utterances are requisite to refined speech. Errors in pronunciation, hasty and indistinct enunciation, the dropping out of entire syllables ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... were discussed with an energy of utterance, and a fitness of speech, which would have put to shame the general elocution of both the pulpit and the bar. At length, however, a certain semi (second-classman, or more popularly sheep) stood up to give his opinion on some subject in dispute, and attempting to speak too soon after his dinner, for he was one of the more fashionable ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... British civilization, and induced such action on the part of government as advanced it in ten years more than it had been previously advanced in a century. In 1820 he displayed in their perfection those amazing powers of knowledge, reason, invective, sarcasm, and elocution, on the trial of Queen Caroline, which more than anything else have made that trial so memorable among legal and forensic conflicts. In 1822 he made his unparalleled speech in the case of the Dean and Chapter of Durham against Williams, and in the following ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... irksome to him, but had relieved him from domestic cares, regulated and watched over the expenses of his house, etc.' 'She had,' as Boswell says (post, Aug. 1783), 'valuable qualities.' 'Had she had,' wrote Johnson, 'good humour and prompt elocution, her universal curiosity and comprehensive knowledge would have made her the delight of all that knew her' (Piozzi Letters, ii. 311). To Langton he wrote:—'I have lost a companion to whom I have had recourse for domestic amusement for thirty years, and whose variety of knowledge ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... no way of showing any one good quality, or of making a single friend. In the House, he votes for ever in a dispirited minority. If he speaks, the doors are locked. A body of loquacious placemen go out to tell the world, that all he aims at, is to get into office. If he has not the talent of elocution, which is the case of many as wise and knowing men as any in the House, he is liable to all these inconveniences, without the eclat which attends upon any tolerably successful exertion of eloquence. Can we conceive a more discouraging ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... presented 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, but a typical English girl for a wife." This dictum ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Miss Allison, as she sealed the letter, nodding confidently to Mrs. Sherman, who had come over to help with Lloyd's costume. "You remember Nell Bond, do you not? She took the prize every year in elocution, and was always in demand at every entertainment. She is the most charming reader I ever heard, and as for story-telling—well, she's better than the 'Arabian Nights.' You must let the Little Colonel come over every ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... grace, dignity, and action add to the celebrity of a public man, repeated to him several passages from Sophocles and Euripides, which so delighted and astonished Demosthenes that he always afterwards formed his elocution and action on the models ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... years, pass by and you again find yourself listening to this celebrated preacher, but what a change! The same faultless diction, the same beautiful style, the same unimpeachable logic, the same skillful elocution, the same sound orthodoxy, but now there is something more, there is reality, life, grip, power in the preaching. Men and women sit breathless as he speaks, sinners bowed with tears of contrition, pricked to their hearts with conviction of sin; ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... or later. We may not have indorsed her previous productions, but we always liked Miss Fischer, with her bouncing good nature, her intelligent outlook, her curious untrammeled demeanor, always suggestive of a huge schoolgirl suddenly let loose; her capital elocution and her agreeable way of insistently seeming at home. In "The School for Husbands," these qualities appeared quite relevantly. This strange season, now over, which has snuffed out so many poor, feeble little stars, has been very kind to ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... general idea of justice; but faith, of any national kind, shut up from one Sunday to the next, not artistically beautiful even in those Sabbatical exhibitions; its paraphernalia being chiefly of high pews, heavy elocution, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... Edwin Hahn of Pomona College, five young men participating. Clare, daughter of Judge C. C. McComas, gave highly-appreciated recitations on the woman question, and Miss Nina Cuthbert, the young teacher of elocution, delighted many audiences with ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... phonographs bearing the same title before making a selection. As the phonographs seemed exact counterparts in appearance, I did not understand this till Hamage explained that differences as to style and quality of elocution left quite as great a range of choice in phonographed books as varieties in type, paper, and binding did in printed ones. This I presently found to be the case when the clerk, under Ham-age's direction, began waiting on me. In succession ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... almost as soon as for an oath. His hair was roached up, and stood as erect and upright as his body; and his voice was slow, deep, in "linked sweetness long drawn out," and modulated according to the camp-meeting standard of elocution. Three such men at a country frolic would have turned an old Virginia reel into a dead march. He was one of Carlyle's earnest men. Cromwell would have made him ensign of the Ironsides, and ex-officio chaplain at first sight. He took out his pocket-handkerchief, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... this with Mr. 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 revenge, the self-contempt, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... diffidence that rarely accompanies so many talents and accomplishments, which left you to suppose more than appeared. His sentiments were elevated and inspired esteem, they had a softness that conciliated affection. His elocution was handsome, his address easy, polite, and insinuating. By his merit he had acquired the unlimited confidence of his general, and was making rapid progress in military rank and reputation. But in the height ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... it 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 of thought (call them opinions) by which I ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... straight ahead as good soldiers should, with a sly glance out of the corners of our eyes at our leader. But Ed knew just what to do. He faced about sharply, and made a low bow to the lady, took the flag held out to him, and then made a speech. Ed Ross was always a fine talker, and had won the elocution prize at school the year before. On this occasion he fairly surpassed himself. I have often thought of it since. At our next meeting we unanimously elected Miss Katherine Burke McDermott an honorary member of the Rifles. Tom Ryland's sister ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... of 63 and there is no record of her burial place. She had been the friend of Voltaire, Rousseau, d'Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius, and the Baron d'Holbach. She had "created" Gluck's Iphigenie en Aulide and the composer had said of her, "If it had not been for the voice and elocution of Mlle. Arnould, my Iphigenie would never have been performed in France." In her youth she had interested not only Marie Antoinette but also the King, and she had been the object of Mme. de Pompadour's ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... the book as soon as they are tired; but an attentive tutor will perceive when they ought to be stopped, before the utmost point of fatigue. We have heard a boy of nine years old, who had never been taught elocution by any reading master, read simple pathetic passages, and natural dialogues in "Evenings at Home," in a manner which would have made even Sterne's critic forget ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... grown to touch or taste, Solicited her longing eye; yet first Pausing a while, thus to herself she mused. Great are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits, Though kept from man, and worthy to be admired; 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 he also, who forbids thy use, Conceals not from us, naming thee the tree Of knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil; Forbids us then to taste! but his forbidding Commends thee more, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... 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 good) and come to treat with, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... instance, modeled the plan of his great work, "De la Justice dang l'Eglise et dans la Revolution," upon the letter of Rousseau to Beaumont; his three volumes are a string of letters to an archbishop; eloquence, daring, and elocution are all fused in a kind of persiflage, which is ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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 Cornell Board ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... (Curopalate); the Keeper of the 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 ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... and in elocution Emerson was a practised and consummate artist, who knew how both to command his effects and to conceal his means. The casual, practical, disarming directness with which he writes puts any honest man at his mercy. What difference does it make whether a man who ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... Mr. Green, and his able and plausible antagonist, Mr. Freeman—who brought to the defence 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
... 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 ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... to die Is my resolution; Let wine to my lips be nigh At life's dissolution: That will make the angels cry, With glad elocution, "Grant this toper, God on high, Grace ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... 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 matter with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various |
