Public Speaking: Principles and Practice :: REVIEW EXERCISES EXERCISES

REVIEW EXERCISES EXERCISES

There exercises should be practiced in only a moderately strong voice, at times perhaps in a very soft voice, and always with a good degree of ease and naturalness. They had better be memorized, and as the technique becomes more sure, less thought may be given to that and more to the true expression of the spirit of each passage—or let the spirit from the first, if it will, help the technique.

TONE

For rounding and expanding the voice. To be given in an even sustained tone, with rather open throat and easy low breathing. Suspend the speech where pauses are marked, for a momentary recovery of breath. Keep the breath easily firm. Don't drive the breath through the tone.

Roll on, " thou deep and dark blue Ocean, " roll!
Ten thousand fleets " sweep over thee " in vain;
Man marks the earth " with ruin—his control "
Stops " with the shore.

O Tiber, " Father Tiber "
To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman's life, " a Roman's arms,
Take thou in charge " this day "

O Rome! " my country! " city of the soul!
The orphans of the heart " must turn to thee,
Lone mother of dead empires! " and control
In their shut breasts " their petty misery.

Ring joyous chords!— " ring out again!
A swifter still " and a wilder strain!
And bring fresh wreaths!— " we will banish all
Save the free in heart " from our banquet hall.

O joy to the people " and joy to the throne,
Come to us, " love us " and make us your own:
For Saxon " or Dane " or Norman " we,
Teuton or Celt, " or what ever we be,
We are all of us Danes " in our welcome of thee, Alexandra!

Liberty! " Freedom! " Tyranny is dead!—
Run hence, " proclaim, " cry it about the streets.
Some to the common pulpits, " and cry out,
"Liberty, " freedom, " and enfranchisement!"

INFLECTION

Give these with a rather vigorous colloquial effect, with clear-cut form, with point and spirit.

Armed, say you?
Armed, my lord.
From top to toe?
My lord, from head to foot.
Then saw you not
His face?
Oh, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.
What, looked he frowningly?
A countenance more
In sorrow than in anger.
Pale or red?
Nay, very pale.
And fixed his eyes upon you?
Most constantly.

But, sir, the Coalition! The Coalition! Aye, "the murdered Coalition!" The gentleman asks if I were led or frighted into this debate by the specter of the Coalition. "Was it the ghost of the murdered Coalition," he exclaims, "which haunted the member from Massachusetts; and which, like the ghost of Banquo, would never down?" "The murdered Coalition."

Should he have asked Aguinaldo for an armistice? If so, upon what basis should he have requested it? What should he say to him? "Please stop this fighting?" "What for?" Aguinaldo would say; "do you propose to retire?" "No." "Do you propose to grant us independence?" "No, not now." "Well, why then, an armistice?"

Alas, poor Yorick!—I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it.—Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table in a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come; make her laugh at that.

ENUNCIATION

Keep first of all a good form to the vowels. Make consonants definitely by sufficient action of jaw, tongue, and lips. Keep the throat easy; avoid stiffening and strain. A particularly light, soft, pure tone, with fine articulation, may generally be best for practice.

In these first passages, carry the tone well in the head, so as to give a pure, soft, clear sound to the m's, n's, ng's, and l's. If need be, these letters may be marked.

One cry of wonder,
Shrill as the loon's call,
Rang through the forest,
Startling the silence,
Startling the mourners
Chanting the death-song.

One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan,)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation.

Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!
Forward! let us do or die!

I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

REVIEW EXERCISES

Give clearly the k and the g forms, making a slight percussion in the back of the mouth. Finish clearly all main words.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call:
Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

Where dwellest thou?
Under the canopy.
Under the canopy!
Ay!
Where's that?
I' the city of kites and crows.
I' the city of kites and crows!—
Then thou dwellest with daws, too?
No: I serve not thy master.

Strike " till the last armed foe " expires!
Strike " for your altars and your fires!
Strike " for the green graves of your sires!
God " and your native land!

For flexibility of the lips, form well the o's and w's.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind as man's ingratitude.

O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful, wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all hooping!

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide, wide sea:
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

Have care for t's, d's, s's, the th and the st's.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding-guests are there:
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bride-maids singing are:
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

Attend especially to b's and in passage 2 to p's. Give a very soft, slightly echoing continuation to the ing in "dying."

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

Hop, and Mop, and Drop so clear,
Pip, and Trip, and Skip that were
To Mab their sovereign dear,
Her special maids of honor;
Fib, and Tib, and Pinck, and Pin,
Tit, and Nit, and Wap, and Win,
The train that wait upon her.

EMPHASIS

Determine the exact sense and express it pointedly. The primary or central emphasis takes an absolute fall from a pitch above the general level; the secondary emphasis takes a circumflex inflection—a fall and a slight rise. Primary, Hebrew Letter Yod; secondary Gujarati Vowel Sign li. In the question, the main part of the inflection is usually rising instead of falling. The effect of suspense or of forward look requires the slightly upward final turn to the inflection. Note this in passages 4, 5, and 6.

In 1825 the gentleman told the world that the public lands "ought not to be treated as a treasure." He now tells us that "they must be treated as so much treasure." What the deliberate opinion of the gentleman on this subject may be, belongs not to me to determine.

Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain and simple; the other full of perplexed and intricate mazes. This is mild; that harsh. This is found by experience effectual for its purposes; the other is a new project. This is universal; the other calculated for certain colonies only. This is immediate in its conciliatory operation; the other remote, contingent, full of hazard.

As CÆsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honor for his valor; and death for his ambition.

One moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully out before him; the next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence and the grave.

For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of Murder he was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death; and he did not quail.

There was no flinching as he charged. He had just turned to give a cheer when the fatal ball struck him. There was a convulsion of the upward hand—his eyes, pleading and loyal, turned their last glance to the flag—his lips parted—he fell dead, and at nightfall lay with his face to the stars. Home they brought him, fairer than Adonis over whom the goddess of beauty wept.

But the gentleman inquires why he was made the object of such a reply. Why was he singled out? If an attack has been made on the East, he, he assures us, did not begin it; it was made by the gentleman from Missouri. Sir, I answered the gentleman's speech because I happened to hear it; and because, also, I chose to give an answer to that speech which, if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious impressions.

MELODY

Give musical tone and a fitting modulation, or tune, avoiding the so- called singsong. Note the occasional closing cadence. Observe the rhythmic movement, with beat and pause.

You think me a fanatic to-night, for you read history not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of History will put Phocian for the Greek, and Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright consummate flower of our earlier civilization, and John Brown the ripe fruit of our noonday, then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, Toussaint L'Ouverture.

Have you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told
Of the limitless realms of the air,
Have you read it,—the marvelous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,
Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?

You remember King Charles' Twelve Good Rules, the eleventh of which was, "Make no long meals." Now King Charles lost his head, and you will have leave to make a long meal. But when, after your long meal, you go home in the wee small hours, what do you expect to find? You will find my toast—"Woman, a beautiful rod!" Now my advice is, "Kiss the rod!"

Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray!
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May!
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of Thy children, the Boys!

FEELING

Have great care not to put any strain upon the throat. Breathe low. Be moderate in force.

O mighty CÆsar! dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well.

Yes, I attack Louis Napoleon; I attack him openly, before all the world. I attack him before God and man. I attack him boldly and recklessly for love of the people and for love of France.

I am asked what I have to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me according to law. I am charged with being an emissary of France! and for what end? No; I am no emissary.

I see a race without disease of flesh or brain,—shapely and fair,—the married harmony of form and function,—and as I look, life lengthens, joy deepens, love canopies the earth.

TONE COLOR

Use the imagination to see and hear. Suit the voice to the sound, form or movement of your image, or to the mood of mind indicated. Read with melody and pause. Take plenty of time.

There's a lurid light " in the clouds to-night,
In the wind " there's a desolate moan,
And the rage of the furious sea " is white,
Where it breaks " on the crags of stone.

The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride " comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, " o'er the sea,
Off shot " the specter-bark.

Is this a time to be gloomy and sad;
When our mother Nature " laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens " look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?

The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions " are blossoming near,
That maize " has sprouted, that streams " are flowing,
That the river is bluer " than the sky,
That the robin " is plastering his nest " hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For other couriers " we should not lack;
We could guess it all " by yon heifer's " lowing,—
And hark! how clear " bold chanticleer,
Warmed " by the new wine " of the year,
Tells all " by his lusty " crowing!

VARIETY—IN PITCH, TIME, FORCE, COLOR, AND MODULATION

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Good work is the most honorable and lasting thing in the world.

O Thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers, whence are thy beams, O Sun, thy everlasting light!

I am thy father's spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg'd away.

"Well, gentlemen, I am a Whig. If you break up the Whig party, where am I to go?" And, says Lowell, we all held our breath, thinking where he could go. But, says Lowell, if he had been five feet three, we should have said, Who cares where you go?

GESTURE

Have the action simple and unstudied, expressing the dominant purpose rather than illustrating mere words or phrases. Avoid stiltedness and elaboration. Try to judge where and how the gesture would be made.

I

Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

In my native town of Athens is a monument that crowns its central hills—a plain, white shaft. Deep cut into its shining side is a name dear to me above the names of men, that of a brave and simple man who died in brave and simple faith. Not for all the glories of New England—from Plymouth Rock all the way—would I exchange the heritage he left me in his soldier's death.

Sir, when I heard the gentleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips (pointing to the portraits in the Hall) would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American,—the slanderer of the dead.

Suppose I stood at the foot of Vesuvius, or Ætna, and, seeing a hamlet or a homestead planted on its slope, I said to the dwellers in that hamlet, or in that homestead, "You see that vapor which ascends from the summit of the mountain. That vapor may become a dense, black smoke, that will obscure the sky. You see the trickling of lava from the crevices in the side of the mountain. That trickling of lava may become a river of fire. You hear that muttering in the bowels of the mountain. That muttering may become a bellowing thunder, the voice of violent convulsion, that may shake half a continent."

And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer.

CHARACTERIZATION

Learn from real life. Don't go by the spelling. Don't overdo the dialect.

'E carried me away
To where a dooli lay,
An' a bullet come an' drilled the beggar clean.
'E put me safe inside,
An' just before 'e died:
"I 'ope you liked your drink," sez Gunga Din.

Sergeant Buzfuz began by saying that never, in the whole course of his experience,—never, from the very first moment of his applying himself to the study and practice of the law, had he approached a case with such a heavy sense of the responsibility imposed upon him.

I'm a walkin' pedestrian, a travelin' philosopher. Terry O'Mulligan's me name. I'm from Dublin, where many philosophers before me was raised and bred. Oh, philosophy is a foine study! I don't know anything about it, but it's a foine study!

It is de ladies who do sweeten de cares of life. It is de ladies who are de guiding stars of our existence. It is de ladies who do cheer but not inebriate, and, derefore, vid all homage to de dear sex, de toast dat I have to propose is, "De Ladies! God bless dem all!"

What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin' gray, an' a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine—
A man's a man, for a' that.

For a' that, an' a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that,
The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that!

A keerless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward hand in a row,
But he never flunked, and he never lied,—
I reckon he never knowed how.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing,—
And he went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain't agoing to be too hard
On a man that died for men.

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, even years after the official publication date.

Most people start at our Web sites at: or http://promo.net/pg

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04 or
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04

Or /etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, as it appears in our Newsletters.

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.

Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):

eBooks Year Month

1 1971 July
10 1991 January
100 1994 January
1000 1997 August
1500 1998 October
2000 1999 December
2500 2000 December
3000 2001 November
4000 2001 October/November
6000 2002 December*
9000 2003 November*
10000 2004 January*

We need your donations more than ever!

As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones that have responded.

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.

In answer to various questions we have received on this:

We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, just ask.

While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to donate.

International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are ways.

Donations by check or money order may be sent to:

We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up to date donation information online at:

/donation.html

***

Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

We would prefer to send you information by email.

**The Legal Small Print**

(Three Pages)

***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.

To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that time to the person you received it from. If you received it on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement copy. If you received it electronically, such person may choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to receive it electronically.

THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you may have other legal rights.

[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, including any form resulting from conversion by word processing or hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*:

[*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not* contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work, although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may be used to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR

[*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays the eBook (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR

[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this "Small Print!" statement.

If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: hart@pobox.com

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*

Clyx.com