328 SPECIAL EXERCISES IN ELOCUTION. become comparatively easy, in time, like every other habit. Thus, even men with the commonest brains and the most slender powers will accomplish much, if they will but apply themselves wholly and indefatiga bly to one thing at a time. "The longer I live," said a successful man, "the more I am certain that the great difference between men-between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant — is energy, invincible determination, a purpose once fixed; and then-death or victory!" GOR'GON, n., a fabled monster that AUG-MENT', v. t., to increase. I Do not give up my country. I see her in a swoon, but she is not dead. Though in her tomb she lies helpless and motionless, still there is on her lips a spirit of life, and on her cheek a glow of beauty. "Thou art not conquered; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks, While a plank of the vessel sticks together, I will not *For Part I., see page 91; Part II., page 195; Part III., page 291. SPECIAL EXERCISES IN ELOCUTION. 329 leave her. Let the courtier present his flimsy sail, and carry the light bark of his faith with every new breath of wind; I will remain anchored here, with fidelity to the fortunes of my country, faithful to her freedom, faithful to her fall! 2. - INDIGNANT DENIAL. Knowles. Lucius. Justice will be defeated. Virginius. Who says that? He lies in the face of the gods. She is immutable, The guilty globe should blaze, she would spring up Its fierceness! 3. - HORROR AND ALARM.-Shakspeare. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight - Awake! awake! Murder and treason! Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm, awake! Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, - 4. DYING FOR FREEDOM. They never fail who die · Byron. In a great cause! The block may soak their gore; They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts The world, at last, to freedom! I have lived long enough: my way of life 6.- EULOGY.-Shakspeare. This was the noblest Roman of them all: Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar; 7. - IMPROVE THE PRESENT MOMENT. - Dryden. Happy the man, and happy he alone, He who can call to-day his own: He who, secure within, can say, TO-MORROW! do thy worst, for I have lived TO-DAY! The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate are mine. 8. THE MURDERER'S CONFESSION. Horace Smith. The country's amenity brings no serenity; Each rural sound seeming a menace or screaming; There goes the offender! Dog him, waylay him, encompass him, stay him, And make him surrender!" SPECIAL EXERCISES IN ELOCUTION. Grief, sickness, compunction, dismay in conjunction, 331 Make the heart writhe and falter more than gibbet and halter ! Arrest me, secure me, seize, handcuff, immure me ! I own my transgression will make full confession! Quick! quick! let me plunge in some dark-vaulted du geon, Where, though tried and death-fated, I may not be baited By fiends and by furies! 9. BRUTUS TO CASSIUS.-Shakspeare. There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats; For certain sums of gold, which you denied me;- O, Heaven! I had rather coin my heart, And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring - To you for gold to pay my legions, Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius? When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, 10. MILTON ON HIS BLINDNESS. O! dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, O, first created beam, and thou, great Word, The reader should study the author's meaning in this Soliloquy. In the fifth, sixth fines, &c., he seems to mean simply this: "Death-sleep- they are equal; they do not differ; and if, by the sleep of death, we could throw off all our cares and troubles, such a sleep would be desirable indeed." But the thought of what may come after death immediately checks him in his suicidal speculations. To be or not to be - that is the question! And, by opposing, end them!-To die, to sleep; No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks To sleep? perchance to dream;-ay, there's the rub; Must give us pause. There's the respect* That makes calamity of so long life! For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, That patient merit of the unworthy takes, * That is, the consideration. Shakspeare often uses the word in this sense. |