MONOTONE.
In a monotone the voice neither rises nor falls during the utterance of a succession of words. It is generally used in pronouncing grand and solemn passages.
EXAMPLES.
1. The bell strikes one. We take no note of time but from its loss. To give it, then, a tongue is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, it is the knell of my departed hours.
2. Who would fardells bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death
That undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveler returns,—puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear the ills we have
Than fly to others which we know not of.
3. I flew towards her; my arms were already unclosed to clasp her, when, suddenly, her figure changed—her face grew pale—a stream of blood gushed from her bosom. ’Twas Evelina.
4. The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globeˊ itselfˋ—
Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve,
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leaveˊ not a wreck behindˋ.