ELEMENTS OF EXPRESSION.

Effusive.

I. QUALITY.*

ASPIRATE.

How beautiful this night! The balmiest sigh
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in Evening's ear,
Were discord to the speaking quietude

That wraps this moveless scene.

Hush lightly tread! still tranquilly she sleeps;
I've watched, suspending e'en my breath, in fear
To break the heavenly spell. Move silently.

Expulsive.

Soldiers! You are now within a few steps of the enemy's out-post. Let every man keep the strictest silence, under pain of instant death.

Oh, coward conscience, how dost thou affright me!

Hush! hark! step softly! All's hushed as midnight, yet. Make no noise. Be silent.

There's knocking at the gate! come, come, come.
What's done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed, to bed.

*It is not intended that the following exercises must be uniformly read in the manner indicated. In reading the passages from which they are selected, various modifications may be advisable. They are presented as the most typical examples readily obtainable.

Explosive.

The foe! they come, they come !

Hark! I hear the bugles of the enemy! They are on their march! For the boats!

Forward!

Effusive.

PURE.

And while the shadowy veil of night
Sleeps on the mountain side,

And brilliants of unfathomed light

Begem the concave wide,

There's a spell, a power, of harmonious love,
That is beckoning mute to the realms above.

Expulsive.

Where are the thronging hosts of other days,
Whose banners floated o'er the Alpine ways,
Who, through their high defiles, to battle wound,
Where deadly ordnance stirred the heights around?

Explosive.

Calling.

Up! up! Glentarkin, rouse thee, ho!

Rejoice, you men of Angiers! ring your bells:

King John, your king and England's, doth approach:-
Open your gates, and give the victors way!

Effusive.

OROTUND.

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course? so long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovereign Blanc !

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea;
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Expulsive.

Sir, we have done every thing that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne.

Hark! hear ye the sounds that the winds, on their pinions, Exultingly roll from the shore to the sea?

With a voice that resounds through her boundless dominions, 'Tis Columbia calls on her sons to be free.

Explosive.

These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. Up! comrades, up! in Rokeby's halls, Ne'er be it said our courage falls!

PECTORAL.

In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face: the hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still; but I could not discern the form thereof; an image was before mine eyes; there was silence; and I heard a voice saying, Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?

Still it cried, "Sleep no more," to all the house,

"Glamis hath murdered sleep; and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more - Macbeth shall sleep no more!"

GUTTURAL.

Thou worm! thou

viper!

to thy native earth

Return! Away! Thou scum! thou reptile!