Exercises to Improve
The Simple Purity of Your Voice

A simple pure voice is the quality used in conversation. It can be readily cultivated by practising the following excerpts:

1. Oh young Lochinvar is come out of the West.
Through all the wide border his steed was the best;
And, save his good broadsword, he weapons had none;
He rode all unarmed and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

"Lochinvar's Bide" Sir Walter Scott.

2. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank;
Here will we sit, and let the sound of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

"Merchant of Venice " Shakespeare.

3. The splendor falls on castle walls,
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

"Bugle Song." Tennyson.

4. I should think myself a criminal, if I said anything to chill the enthusiasm of the young scholar, or to dash with any scepti­ cism his longing and his hope. He has chosen the highest. His beautiful faith, and his aspiration, are the light of life. Without his fresh enthusiasm, and his gallant devotion to learning, to art, to culture, the world would be dreary enough.

Charles Dudley Warner.

5. We all ride something. It is folly to expect us always to
be walking. The cheapest thing to ride is a hobby; it eats no
oats; it demands no groom; it breaks no traces; it requires no
shoeing. Moreover, it is safest; the boisterous outbreak of the
children's fun does not startle it; three babies astride it at once
do not make it skittish. If, perchance, on some brisk morning
it throws its rider, it will stand still till he climbs the saddle. For
eight years we have had one tramping the nursery, and yet no
accidents; though, meanwhile, his eye has been knocked out and
his tail dislocated.

T. De Witt Talmage.

6. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh
me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still
waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou
art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou
preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and
T will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

"Twenty-third Psalm." The Bible.

7. I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret,
By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
1 chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

"The Brook." Tennyson.

8. Speak the speech I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,-trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. 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, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters,-to very rags,-to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for overdoing Termagant: it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it.

Be not too tame, neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word; the word to the action; with this special observance-that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature;-to show virtue her own feature; scorn her own image; and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now this, overdone or come tardy off, tho it make the unskilful laugh, can not but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must, in your allowance, o'er-weigh a whole theatre of others. 0, there be players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, or man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well,-they imitated humanity so abominably!

"Hamlet." Shakespeare.

9. At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran;
E'en children followed, with endearing wile,
And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed; Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven: As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm; Tho round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

"The Village Preacher." Oliver Goldsmith.

10. Insects generally must lead a jovial life. Think what it must be to lodge in a lily. Imagine a palace of ivory and pearl, with pillars of silver and capitals of gold, and exhaling such a perfume as never arose from human censer. Fancy again the fun of tucking one's self up for the night in the folds of a rose, rocked to sleep by the gentle sighs of summer air, nothing to do when you awake but to wash yourself in a dewdrop, and fall to eating your bedclothes.

11. We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs.

He most lives w ho thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Life is but a means unto an end; that end,-
Beginning, mean, and end to all things,-God.

"Festus." Bailey.

12. I consider a human soul without education like marble in the quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties until the skill of the polisher fetches out the colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein that runs through the body of it. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind, draws out to view every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such helps, are never able to make their appearance.

13. Near the city of Sevilla, years and years ago,
Dwelt a lady in a villa, years and years ago;
And her hair was black as night,
And her eyes were starry bright;
Olives on her brow were blooming;
Roses red her lips perfuming;
And her step was light and airy
As the tripping of a fairy.
Ah! that lady of the villa,-and I loved her so,
Near the city of Sevilla , years and years ago.

"The Spanish Duel." Waller.

14. Sail forth into the sea, 0 ship!
Through wind and wave, right onward steer! The moistened eye, the trembling lip,
Are not the signs of doubt or fear. Thou, too, sail on, 0 Ship of State! Sail on, 0 Union , strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

"Building of the Ship." Longfellow.

15. Now clear, pure, hard, bright, and one by one, like to hailstones, Short words fall from his lips fast as the first of a shower,- Now in twofold column, Spondee, Iamb, and Trochee, Unbroke, firm-set, advance, retreat, trampling along,- Now with a sprightlier springiness, bounding in triplicate syl­ lables,

Dance the elastic Dactylics in musical cadences on; Now, their voluminous coil intertangling like huge anacondas, Roll overwhelmingly onward the sesquipedalian words.

Stacy.

16. The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy. The lonely pine upon the mountain top waves its somber boughs, and cries, "Thou art my sun." And the little meadow violet lifts its cup of blue, and whispers with its perfumed breath, "Thou art my sun." And the grain in a thousand fields rustles in the wind, and makes answer, "Thou art my sun." And so God sits effulgent in Heaven, not for a favored few, but for the universe of life; and there is no creature so poor or so low that he may not look up with childlike confidence and say, "My Father. Thou art mine."

Beeches.

17. External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

"A Christmas Carol." Dickens.

18. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long es­ tablished should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right them­ selves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

"Declaration of Independence ."

19. All in the wild March-morning, I heard the angels call;

It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all;
The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll;
And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.

"The May Queen." Tennyson.

20. Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High tho his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentered all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown;
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung.

"Lay of the Last Minstrel." Scott.

21. It was an eve of autumn's holiest mood.

The corn-fields, bathed in Cynthia's silver light, Stood ready for the reaper's gathering hand; And all the winds slept soundly. Nature seemed In silent contemplation to adore Its maker. Now and then the aged leaf Fell from its fellows, rustling to the ground; And, as it fell, bade man think on his end.

Vesper looked forth f rom out her western hermitage, and smiled; And up the east, unclouded, rose the moon With all her stars, gazing on earth intense, As if she saw some wonder working there.

Robert Pollok.

22. She sleeps: her breathings are not heard
In palace chambers far apart. The fragrant tresses are not stirred That lie upon her charmed heart.
She sleeps: on either hand upswells The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest:
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells
A perfect form in perfect rest.
"The Bay Bream." Tennyson