As an unperfect actor on the stage, Who with his fear is put besides his part, The perfect ceremony of love's rite, And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, And dumb presagers of my speaking breast, More than that tongue that more hath more express'd. "Sonnets." SHAKESPEARE. TRANSITION The abrupt changes and quick contrasts made in the modulations of the voice are called transitions. The ability to make these changes promptly and gracefully is an important element in good reading. 1. Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, РОРЕ. 2. O, how our organ can speak with its many and wonderful voices ! Play on the soft lute of love, blow the loud trumpet of war, Sing with the high sesquialter, or, drawing its full diapason, Shake all the air with the grand storm of its pedals and stops. STORY. 3. Ever, as on they bore, more loud, The clan's shrill gathering they could hear,- 4. How soft the music of those village bells, In cadence sweet, now dying all away, COWPER. 5. When you are enacting a part, think of your voice as a color, and, as you paint your picture (the character you are painting, the scene you are portraying), mix your colors. You have on your palate a white voice, la voix blanche; a heavenly, ethereal or blue voice, the voice of prayer; a disagreeable, jealous, or yellow voice; a steel-gray voice, for quiet sarcasm; a brown voice of hopelessness; a lurid, red voice of hot rage; a deep, thunderous voice of black; a cheery voice, the color of the green sea, that a brisk breeze is crisping; and then there's a pretty little pink voice and shades of violet-but the subject is endless. MANSFIELD. CLIMAX Climax is the artistic building up of a dramatic effect by means of increased force and intensity. 1. We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves at the foot of the throne. PATRICK HENRY. 2. I not only did not say this, but did not even write it; I not only did not write it, but took no part in the embassy; I not only took no part in the embassy, but used no persuasion with the Thebans. "On the Crown." DEMOSTHENES. 3. It is coming fast upon you; already it is near at hand-yet a few short weeks, and we may be in the midst of those unspeakable miseries the recollection of which now rends your souls asunder. LORD BROUGHAM. 4. They must be repealed. You will repeal them. I pledge myself for it that you will in the end repeal them: I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot if they are not finally repealed. CHATHAM. 5. Ay, is it so? Then wakes the power which in the age of iron Set but a foot within that holy ground, And on thy head--yea, tho it wore a crown— "Richelieu." EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON. 6. I impeach Warren Hastings, Esquire, of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of all the Commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonored. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has subverted, whose property he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate. I impeach him in the name, and by virtue, of those eternal laws of justice which he has violated. I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes, in every age, rank, situation and condition of life. "Impeachment of Warren Hastings." 7. Look to your hearths, my lords! EDMUND BURKE. For there, henceforth, shall sit, for household gods, "Catiline's Defiance." GEORGE CROLY. 8. Then soon he rose; the prayer was strong; The text, a few short words of might― The stirring sentences he spake In face of death he dared to fling Defiance to a tyrant king. "The Revolutionary Rising." 9. King Henry. THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. What's he, that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland?—No, my fair cousin : To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men the greater share of honor. God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold; Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear; I am the most offending soul alive. No, 'faith, my coz, wish not a man from England: |