The American Common-school Reader and Speaker: Being a Selection of Pieces in Prose and Verse, with Rules for Reading and Speaking |
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Common terms and phrases
Aurelian beauty blood breath bright Cæsar character Cicero circumflex clouds dark dead death deep delight delinéations dreams earth elocution Emphasis emphatic series England eternal Example exercise expression falling inflection fear feeling fire flowers force Freedom calls gaze genius give glorious glory grave hand happiness hath hear heart heaven hills honor hope hour human king labor land LESSON liberty light live look loud median stress mighty mind moderate moral mountain nations nature never night o'er passions peace Peter Stuyvesant proud reading Rebec Rhetorical Pauses rising inflection rocks round RULE Scrooge shout silent sleep slide slow smile solemn soul sound speak spirit storm sublime sweet swell tempest temple thee things thought throne thundering bands tion tone trembling utterance virtue voice wave wild wind wing word Wouter Van Twiller
Popular passages
Page 16 - No sooner had the Almighty ceased, but all The multitude of angels, with a shout Loud as from numbers without number, sweet As from blest voices, uttering joy, heaven rung With jubilee, and loud hosannas filled The eternal regions...
Page 39 - Holds such an enmity with blood of man, That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body ; And, with a sudden vigour, it doth posset And curd, like eager droppings into milk, The thin and wholesome blood...
Page 375 - I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause : What cause withholds you then to mourn for him? O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason! Bear with me; My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me.
Page 291 - 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.
Page 363 - If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained — we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to...
Page 375 - When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honorable man. You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Page 364 - election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable. And let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come ! " It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace.
Page 363 - Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.
Page 363 - They tell us, sir, that we are weak — unable to cope with so formidable an adversary; but when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house ! Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction?
Page 376 - tis his will : Let but the commons hear this testament, (Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read) And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds, And dip their napkins in his sacred blood ; Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, And, dying, mention it within their wills, Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy, Unto their issue.