FULNESS AND POWER.
Fulness of voice is necessary, that, when you are speaking in a large hall, your voice may be powerful. Most persons could make themselves heard, and, with good articulation, understood; but yet they would lack power, because the voice wants fulness. The extracts given below will suggest to you the necessity of a full voice to express them well. Observe these directions in trying to get a full, energetic tone:—
1st, Correct speaker's position, take active chest, and keep it.
2d, Take full breath, breathe often, and control it. (See "Holding Breath.")
3d, Articulate perfectly.
4th, Use conversational and lower tones of the voice.
5th, Fix the mind on some distant spot, and speak as if you wished to make some one hear at that point.
6th, Remember to be very energetic, and yet have it seem to a looker-on or listener to be done without the slightest effort.
1. O'Brien's voice is hoarse with joy, as, halting, he commands,
"Fix bay'nets—charge!" Like mountain-storm rush on these fiery bands.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy! hark to that fierce huzza!
"Revenge! remember Limerick! dash down the Sassenagh!"
Like lions leaping at a fold when mad with hunger's pang,
Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang.
The English strove with desperate strength, paused, rallied, staggered, fled:
The green hill-side is matted close with dying and with dead.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun,
With bloody plumes the Irish stand: the field is fought and won.
2. Thou too sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears,
With all its hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate.
We know what master laid thy keel,
What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast and sail and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope.
3. Oh! young Lochinvar is come out of the west:
Through all the wide border his steed was the best;
And, save his good broad-sword, he weapon 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.
4. One song employs all nations; and all cry,
"Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!"
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
Shout to each other; and the mountain-tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy;
Till, nation after nation taught the strain,
Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round.
5. "But I defy him!—let him come!"
Down rang the massy cup,
While from its sheath the ready blade
Came flashing half way up;
And, with the black and heavy plumes
Scarce trembling on his head,
There, in his dark, carved, oaken chair,
Old Rudiger sat—dead!
6. All hail to our glorious ensign! Courage to the heart, and strength to the hand, to which in all time it shall be intrusted! May it ever wave in honor, in unsullied glory, and patriotic hope, on the dome of the capitol, on the country's stronghold, on the entented plain, on the wave-rocked topmast!
7. Rejoice, you men of Angiers! ring your bells!
King John, your king and England's, doth approach,
Commander of this hot malicious day!
Their armors that marched hence so silver bright
Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood;
There stuck no plume in any English crest
That is removed by a staff of France;
Our colors do return in those same hands
That did display them when we first marched forth;
And, like a jolly troop of huntsmen, come
Our lusty English, all with purpled hands
Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes.