The frolic wind that breathes the spring, As he met her once a maying Over beds of violets blue, And fresh blown roses washed in dew, Promised her to thee. Ex. 8. Lingua-gutturals (g, h, j, k, ng, wh, y). Formed by the application of the back part of the tongue to the palate. gay, got, gun, guide, gregarious, giggle, dig, egg, vague, A giddy giggling girl, her kinsfolks' plague, VOWEL SOUnds. 10. The vowel sounds, for the purposes of reading, may be divided into two classes, the accented or long vowels, and the unaccented or short vowels. While the proper pronunciation of the consonant sounds, is essential to distinct articulation, it is of primary importance that attention be paid also to the vowel sounds, as the proper use of these furnishes one of the most effectual safeguards against every form of provincialism. One of the most striking defects in the reading and speaking of ill-educated persons is a vulgar pronunciation of the vowels, more especially those not under accent. Thus we hear possible, singular, regular, particular, sounded as if written possuble, singlar, reglar, particlar. In the following exercises a full and prolonged sound is to be given to the long vowels marked by an accent, while a shorter but still distinct sound is to be given to the unaccented vowels, printed in italics, in the second extract. Ex. 9. Long Vowels. Wỏe, to the traitors! Woe. To arms! To arms! A thousand voices cried, He threw his blood-stained sword in thúnder down, Who rush to glory or the gráve. He bursts upon them all ; Búrsts as a wave that from the clouds impénds, Ex. 10. Unaccented Vowels. Temperature depends upon the property all bodies possess, more or less, of perpetually absorbing and emitting or radiating heat. When the interchange is equal, the temperature of a substance remains the same; but when the radiation exceeds the absorption it becomes colder, and vice versa. The radiation is abundant when the sky is still, clear and blue; but clouds intercept it, so that a thermometer rises in cloudy weather and sinks when the air becomes clear and calm; even a slight mist diminishes radiation from the earth because it returns as much heat as it receives. The temperature of the air is subject to such irregularities from these circumstances, and from the difference of the radiating powers of the bodies at the surface of the globe, that it is necessary to find by experiment the mean or average warmth of the day, month, and year at a great variety of places, in order to have a standard by which the temperature in different parallels of latitude may be compared.-Mrs. Somerville. SYLLABICATION. 11. When the student has attained a complete command over the articulation of the elementary sounds, he should proceed to analyse the construction of syllables, more especially those combinations which do not readily unite in one syllabic impulse. The chief difficulties in such combinations arise from the presence of allied or reduplicated consonants, or a hiatus of vowels, where the sounds are apt with careless readers and speakers to run into each other, producing an indistinctness of utterance, and not unfrequently a confusion of the sense. The best rule in all such cases is, to take care that the organs completely finish one articulation before beginning to form another. Where a word or a sentence ends, and the next begins with the same or an allied consonant, a difficulty of utterance arises that should be obviated by dwelling on the final consonant, and then taking up the one at the beginning of the next word in a second impulse of the voice with a short pause between. Ex. 11. Allied and Coalescent Sounds. aerial, aorta, iota, oasis, geographer, zoologist, zootomy; A great error often exists A great terror often exists A languid dame His cry moved me His crime moved me Wastes and deserts Waste sand deserts ACCENT. He built him an ice house He built him a nice house Such a notion exists Such an ocean exists His brothers ought to owe nothing 12. While exercises like the foregoing cannot fail to prove useful in acquiring a clear and firm articulation, care must be taken to avoid the fault of a measured and pedantic manner of speaking and reading, which an exaggerated distinctness of pronunciation is apt to produce. The best corrective to this is a proper use of accent, which is that stress of the voice by which one syllable of a word is made more prominent than others, and by which the necessary variety and animation are imparted to speech. Accent being a matter of usage, for which there is no rule but the language of good society and the practice of the best speakers, the student's only sure guide is reference to a dictionary-a laborious process, but which will yield results in time. We can only here notice, among other illustrations of the importance of accent, a few of that large class of words, which, though composed of the same letters, assume with a change of accentuation a different meaning. Ex. 12. Words varied by Accent. Note the mark of accent, and accent the right syllable. If they reprimand him, he will not regard their réprimand. My increase serves but to increase your wealth. Did you abstract from my desk, the abstract of the speech I made? Man is instinct with reason, but with the lower animals reason gives place to instinct. About a minute afterwards I picked up a minúte piece of gold from the ground. The month of August derives its name from the augúst founder of the line of Roman Emperors, Augustus. EXPRESSION. 13. After the student has acquired distinctness of articulation and the correct pronunciation of single words, he may proceed to the next stage in the study of ElocutionExpression, which deals with groups of words, and the sense expressed by them when they are combined in sentences. In this process he has not, as before, merely to give each word its full sound; he must mould the pronunciation of each according to the meaning it is designed to convey, and in accordance with certain laws of speech by which, in a collocation of sounds the object of which is to produce a definite impression on the mind, some must be subordinated to others, and some modified so as to harmonise with those which precede or follow. Expression depends for its effectiveness on attention to 14. The basis of Expression is a right understanding of the meaning, and the best key to this meaning is a familiarity with the principles of construction developed by the logical analysis of the sentence. The simplest form of the sentence is that where it is formed of a single subject and a single predicate, e. g., 'boysread;' and here the most uncultivated reader can hardly fail to give each word its proper expression. When this sentence becomes enlarged by the addition of an object or other accessories, e. g. 'The-boys-of-this-class... will-read... a-lesson-in-history,' the members of the sentence, though consisting of several grammatical parts, are in meaning indivisible, and in delivery may be regarded as one word of many syllables, subject to the same general laws of expression as when the members consisted of single words. The student who keeps this principle before him, will always be in the right track for reading even the most complicated passages with an intelligent appreciation of the sense to be conveyed. Practice will lead him to the habit of keeping the eye so far in advance of the lips, as to enable him to grasp the purport of a sentence, and rapidly analyse it before he has actually begun to read it, an accomplishment without which he can never become an effective reader, and which will be found not so difficult in practice as it may appear in description. INFLECTION. 15. Inflection is the name applied to the slides which the voice makes in going from one note to another in reading or speaking. 16. All notes of the voice are either Continuative, Acute, or Grave, or a combination of these. When the tone is continuative, it is called a Monotone.* 17. Inflection may be illustrated by a reference to the distinction between musical and speaking sounds. Musical sounds continue for a given time on one point or pitch of the musical scale, and leap as it were from one note to another as in striking the keys of the pianoforte. The sounds produced in speaking, instead of dwelling on the note they begin with, slide either upwards or downwards, as in the mewing sound produced in playing the violin when the finger is made to slide up and down the string while the bow is drawn across it. It is to these waves or bendings of the voice that the name Inflection (Lat. inflecto, I bend) is applied. The rise and fall of the sounds produced by inflection, their swelling or sinking according to the requirements of the sense, constitutes one of the greatest charms of good reading. Monotone or Subdued Inflection, 18. The Monotone is well suited for the delivery of passages of a solemn or elevated character, which raise emotions of sublimity, awe, reverence or terror. Ex. 13. Examples of Monotone. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters. Man that is born of a woman, is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh up like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. High on a throne of royal state, which far *A monotone in the strict sense cannot be properly included under the head of Inflection, which from its very definition implies a constant change of voice. But there is in reality no such thing as an unvaried repetition of the same tone in speaking. What is called a monotone is-to employ Mr. Bell's definition'an emphatic prolongation of the continuative tone in which the inflections are subdued as much as possible.' It is in this approximative sense only of subdued inflections that monotones are employed in elocution. |