phrase of the whole oration. It should be made to stand out as prominently as the poor peasant in Millet's " Man with the Hoe."

With the preceding principles in mind give reasons why the following italicized words should (or should not) be emphasized:

"If I were to tell you the story of Napoleon, I should take it from the lips of Frenchmen, who find no language rich enough to paint the great captain of the nineteenth century. Were I to tell you the story of Washington, I should take it from your hearts,-you, who think no marble white enough on which to carve the name of the Father of his country. But I am to tell you the story of a negro, Toussaint L'Ouverture, who has left hardly one written line. I am to glean it from the reluctant testimony of his enemies, men who despised him because he was a negro and a slave, and hated him because he had beaten them in battle.

"Cromwell manufactured his own army.

Napoleon, at the

age of twenty-seven, was placed at the head of the best troops
Europe ever saw. Cromwell never saw an army till he was
forty; this man never a soldier till he was fifty. Cromwell
manufactured his own army-out of what? Englishmen,
the best blood in Europe. Out of the middle class of English-
men, -the best blood of the island. And with it he conquered
what? Englishmen, their equals. This man manufactured
his army out of what? Out of what you call the despicable
race of negroes, debased, demoralized by two hundred years
of slavery, one hundred thousand of them imported into the
island within four years, unable to speak a dialect intelligible
even to each other. Yet out of this mixed and, as you say,
despicable mass he forged a thunderbolt, and hurled it at
what? At the proudest blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and
sent him home conquered; at the most warlike blood in
Europe, the French, and put them under his feet; at the
pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked home

to Jamaica. Now, if Cromwell was a general, at lea man was a soldier." See page

"I watch the mowers, as they go

Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row.
With even stroke their scythes they swing,
In tune their merry whetstones ring.
Behind, the nimble youngsters run
And toss the thick swathes in the sun.
The cattle graze, while, warm and still,
Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill,
And bright, where summer breezes break,
The green wheat crinkles like a lake.
The butterfly and humble bee
Come to the pleasant woods with me;
Quickly before me runs the quail,
Her chickens skulk behind the rail;
High up the lone wood-pigeon sits,
And the woodpecker pecks and flits,
Sweet woodland music sinks and swells,
The brooklet rings its tinkling bells,
The swarming insects drone and hum,
The partridge beats his throbbing drum.
The squirrel leaps among the boughs,
And chatters in his leafy house,
The oriole flashes by; and, look!

Into the mirror of the brook,

Where the vain bluebird trims his coat,

Two tiny feathers fall and float."

From Trowbridge's "Midsummer.

"The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:

7, at least this

See page 307.

d row. ng,

er.

His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above the sceptered sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings.
It is an attribute to God Himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation, We do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much,
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;

Which, if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.”
Shakespere's "The Merchant of Venice."

GESTURE

A speaker influences his audience in two ways: by an appeal to the ear and by an appeal to the eye. In learning to appeal to the eye of their audience, students often ask the following questions.

How shall I get upon the platform? Take your time. A speaker often hurries so much that he shows his audience at the very start that he cannot control himself. "Don't scrape your feet "; or keep your eyes fixed upon the floor as if trying to pick out the place to stand. Walk in a dignified manner to the middle of the stage.

66

What is the proper way to bow? In the first place do not draw your feet up together as if about to present arms”. Do not bow with one foot ahead of the other. Do not, if you are a young man, draw one foot backward; that method is often correct for a young woman on the platform as in the ballroom, but for a man it is too artificial. In bowing,

both the neck and the back should be bent

"Don't how as

though your spine was a poker with the hinge near the terminus.' ... Don't bow as though the hinge was in neck. "'* The head should be bent forward first, the torso: in recovering your position begin to straighte back first, then the neck. Shall I keep my eyes o audience when bowing? Yes. To be sure, if you deeply, you will seem to roll your eyes upward; but d bow deeply. Make simply a respectful bow of recogni

How ought a speaker or reader to stand? The answ this question must be somewhat like an answer to the tion, How shall I trim my boat? In sailing into the of a gale you trim your boat differently from what yo when you are sailing over smooth water.

First position. A good normal, fair-weather attitude stand erect, the hands hanging loosely at the sides, fingers slightly bent, one foot a little in advance of the o and making with it an angle of about sixty degrees, weight of the body being thrown upon the ball of the behind. In this position the knee of the free leg should be stiffened.

In trying to get an erect position do not thrust the o out too far; do not throw the shoulders back too much the hips forward. Such an attitude is sure to seem vul or artificial; and remember, here, as everywhere, the gr art is to conceal art. Imagine some one is pulling you by the scalplock; you will then get your head and body in the right position.

As far as the position of the hands is concerned, to sure we sometimes see public speakers with their han behind them, with their thumbs in their trousers pockets, with one hand fumbling a watch-chain. That is all ve well so far as it looks free and easy and not disrespectfu but for a young man declaiming, such a position is rath dangerous; it makes him seem over-confident. Do no

* Smith: "Reading and Speaking," p. 105. D. C. Heath & Co

Boston.

clench the hands tightly. This comes, like the contracting
of the brow, from a desire to haul one's self together.
When speaking keep the muscles of the hands, arms, and
face relaxed. Do not fumble with your ring. Do not keep
hold of your coat.
Do not keep shutting or opening your
hands or pulling down your cuffs. Such movements distract
the attention of the audience from what you are saying.
The attention of an ordinary audience is very easily diverted.
A man opening a window, or a harmless cat walking up the
pulpit stairs, or a neck-tie working up over a speaker's collar
will worst even the most eloquent orators in the contest for
attention.

In speaking the following selections one could properly stand in the first position.

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There was an air of desolation about the grim old State House, as, one by one, the last loitering feet came down the damp corridors. The Governor heard the steps and the rustle of a woman's skirt. He never felt quite alone in the empty State House until those steps had passed by.”

See page 31.

''Adolfo Rodriguez was the only son of a Cuban farmer. When the revolution broke out young Rodriguez joined the insurgents, leaving his father and mother and sisters at the farm. He was taken by the Spanish, was tried by a military court for bearing arms against the government, and sentenced to be shot by a fusillade some morning before sunrise." See page 228.

These are passages of plain, unemotional prose; but at times your speech is impassioned. You wish to defy your audience, as Regulus in his speech to the Carthaginians; to appeal to them, as Lodge in the last part of "The Traditions of Massachusetts" (page 11); to describe an exciting race, as in "Ben Hur" (page 251), or a perilous battle-charge, as in "The Storming of Missionary Ridge" (page 23) or the "Victor of Marengo" (page 292). Then the first posi

tion is too passive: change to one of the following positions