Exercises in to Improve
The Orotund Purity of Your Voice

Orotund is marked by unusual roundness and fullness of tone. Daily practice on the vowel "0," with variety in pitch and force, will materially assist the student in secur­ing this quality. It is used to express sublime and deeply earnest thought. Here are some excerpts to practice:

1. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It can not be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it,- they can not reach it. It comes, if it comes at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object,-this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence: it is action,-noble, sublime, Godlike action.

"The Eloquence of Adams ." DANIEL WEBSTER.

2. 0 thou Eternal One! whose presence bright

All space doth occupy, all motion guide: Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight! Thou only God-there is no God beside!

Being above all beings! Mighty One, Whom none can comprehend, and none explore,

Who fillest existence with Thyself alone-

Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er,-

Being whom we call God, and know no more!

"God." G. R. DERZHAVIN.

3. Suddenly the notes of the deep laboring organ burst upon the ear, falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and rolling, as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord with this mighty building! With what pomp do they swell through its vast vaults and breathe their awful harmony through those caves of death and make the silent sepulchre vocal! And now they rise in triumphant acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes, and piling sound on sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft and warble along the roof, and seem to play about those lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn cadences! What solemn sweeping concords! It grows more and more dense and powerful,-it fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls, the ear is stunned, the senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding up in full jubilee, it is rising from earth to heaven; the very soul seems wrapt away and floating upward on this swelling tide of harmony.
" Westminster Abbey" WASHINGTON IRVING .

4.

0 now, forever,

Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content! Farewell the plumed troops, and the big wars, That make ambition virtue! 0, farewell! Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, and ear-piercing fife, The royal banner; and all quality, pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!

And, 0 you mortal engines, whose rude throats

The immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit,

Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!

"Othello." SHAKESPEARE.

5.

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts ; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston , and Concord , and Lexington , and Bunker Hill ; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for Independence , now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia ; and there they will lie forever. And, Sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin.

" Massachusetts and South Carolina ." WEBSTER.

6.

It took Rome three hundred years to die; and our death, if we perish, will be as much more terrific as our intelligence and free institutions have given to us more bone and sinew and vitality. May God hide me from the day when the dying agonies of my country shall begin! 0 thou beloved land, bound together by the ties of brotherhood, and common interest, and perils, live forever-one and undivided! LYMAN BEECHER .

7.

Thy right hand, 0 Lord, is become glorious in power; thy

right hand, 0 Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy, and in the

greatness of thine excellency thou hast overthrown them that rose

up against thee; thou sentest forth thy wrath which consumed

them as stubble. And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters

were gathered together; the floods stood upright as an heap, and

the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.

"Exodus 15; 6, 7, 8" THE BIBLE.

8.

The nation rises up at every stage of his coming; cities and

states are his pallbearers, and the cannon beats the hours in

solemn progression; dead, dead, dead, he yet speaketh. Is Washington

dead? Is Hampden dead? Is David dead? Is any man

that was ever fit to live dead? Disenthralled from flesh, and risen

in the unobstructed sphere where passion never comes, he begins

his illimitable work

Your sorrows, 0 people, are his peace; your bells and bands and muffled drums sound triumph in his ear. Wail and weep here! Pass on! Ye winds that move over the mighty places of the West, chant his requiem! Ye people, behold a martyr whose blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty!

"On the Death of Abraham Lincoln." BEECHER .

9.

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;-upon the watery plain

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,

And monarchs tremble in their capitals; The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take

Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee Assyria , Greece , Rome , Carthage ,-what are they?

Thy waters washed them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay

Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou, Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play-

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-

Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,

Icing the pole; or in the torrid clime

Dark heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime- The image of eternity-the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone

Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

BYRON.

10. Romans, countrymen and lovers! hear me for my cause; and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honor; and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom; and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If, then, that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer,-Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen? As Caesar 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. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman?

If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that

will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended.

I pause for a reply.

"Julius Caesar." SHAKESPEARE.

11. Father of Earth and Heaven! I call thy name!
Round me the smoke and shout of battle roll
My eyes are dazzled with the rustling flame;
Father, sustain an untried soldier's soul!
Or life, or death, whatever be the goal That crowns or closes round the struggling hour,
Thou knowest, if ever from my spirit stole One deeper prayer, 'twas that no cloud might lower On my young fame!-0 hear! God of eternal power.
Now for the fight-now for the cannon peal-
Forward-through blood and toil and cloud and fire 1 Glorious the shout, the shock, the crash of steel,
The volley's roll, the rocket's blasting spire;
They shake,-like broken waves their squares retire,- On them, hussars!-Now give them rein and heel;
Think of the orphaned child, the murdered sire:-'
Earth cries for blood,-in thunder on them wheel!
This hour to Europe 's fate shall set the triumph-seal!
" Battle Hymn." KARL THEODOR KÖRNER