The acquisition of this Quality adds greatly to the powers of the speaker who would reach the strong climaxes of impassioned oratory. Like all other elements, it must be employed only in the utterance of its appropriate sentiments. Most speakers need to cultivate this Quality. To produce it one should keep in mind grand and lofty thoughts, open wide the cavities of the pharynx, larynx, and chest, and so project and reflect the sound that it shall be clear and full and especially reënforced by the resonant vibrations of the upper chest.

Selection illustrating the Orotund.

NOTE. As conceptions of the lines of any selection differ, so the rendition of readers must differ; but it will generally be agreed that the greater part of the following poem will be most appropriately given in Orotund Quality.

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

JULIA WARD HOWE

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on."

He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat, He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant my feet!

Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With the glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

SECTION III. ORAL QUALITY

The Oral is a thin, feeble Quality, with the resonance in the forward part of the mouth. It is the opposite of the Orotund in strength, resonance, and significance, and is produced by a weak projection of breath, a feeble vibration of the vocal cords, and a shallowness of the resonant cavities. In fact, it is the physical result of feebleness or exhaustion, and always represents a low state of inherent or exerted vitality; therefore it logically belongs to the Vital division of our triune nature. It is heard in nature in the voice of a human being or lower animal when exhausted by sickness or fatigue. It is used generally in an impersonative sense to express sickness, feebleness, idiocy, timidity, languor, and fatigue.

The Oral wrongly used, or as a fixed habit of voice, becomes a serious fault in expression, and as such should be avoided; but its correct use in the portrayal of the above-named conditions is unmistakable.

Selection illustrating Oral Quality.

NOTE. The impersonative parts of the following selection should be read with different degrees of Oral Quality. Strive for a weak, thin tone in this impersonation.

THE OCEAN BURIAL

CAPTAIN WILLIAM H. SAUNDERS, U. S. A.

"O, bury me not in the deep, deep sea!"
These words came low and mournfully
From the pallid lips of a youth who lay
On his cabin couch, at the close of day.

He had wasted and pined, 'till o'er his brow
The death-shade had slowly pass'd; and now,
When the land and his fond-loved home were nigh,
They had gather'd around to see him die.

"O, bury me not in the deep, deep sea,
Where the billowy shroud will roll over me,

Where no light will break through the dark cold wave And no sunbeam rest upon my grave!

It matters not, I have oft been told,

Where the body shall lie when the heart is cold;

Yet grant ye, O, grant ye this one boon to me,
O, bury me not in the deep, deep sea!

"For in fancy I've listen'd to the well-known words,
The free wild winds, and the songs of the birds;

I have thought of home, of cot and bower,
And of scenes that I loved in childhood's hour :
I have even hoped to be laid, when I died,
In the churchyard there, on the green hillside;
By the bones of my fathers my grave should be:
O, bury me not in the deep, deep sea.

"Let my death slumbers be where a mother's prayer
And a sister's tear shall be mingled there:

O, 'twill be sweet, ere the heart's throb is o'er,
To know, when its fountains shall gush no more,
That those it so fondly hath yearn'd for will come
To plant the first wild flowers of spring on my tomb;
Let me lie where those loved ones will weep o'er me:
O, bury me not in the deep, deep sea.

"And there is another; her tears would be shed
For him who lay far in the deep ocean bed:
In hours that it pains me to think of now,
She hath twined these locks and hath kiss'd this brow:
In the hair she hath wreathed shall the sea snake hiss,
And the brow she hath press'd shall the cold wave kiss?

For the sake of the bright one that waiteth for me,

O, bury me not in the deep, deep sea.

“She hath been in my dreams,”— his voice fail'd there.
They gave no heed to his dying prayer;

They lower'd him slow o'er the vessel's side;

Above him has closed the dark, cold tide,

Where to dip their light wings the sea-fowls rest,
Where the blue waves dance o'er the ocean's crest,
Where billows bound, and the winds sport free:
They have buried him there in the deep, deep sea.

SECTION IV. NASAL QUALITY

The Nasal is an impure, twanging head tone, with the resonance in the front nasal cavities. It is made by lowering the soft palate and projecting the sound at such an angle that it finds its reënforcing vibrations in the forward parts of the nasal cavities. It is heard in the lazy call of the street peddler, the discordant braying of the donkey, and in the wheezing tones of an imperfect bagpipe. As an habitual tone it is the result of careless habits of speech or of obstructions due to a diseased condition of the nasal cavities, and as such it is a grave defect in the speaker. Representing thus a strongly marked condition of the vocal organs, and bearing the stamp of the physical result in vocality, it must be placed in the Vital division of the triune nature. Under control of the will it is used in an impersonative sense to express laziness, mimicry, mockery, burlesque, or drollery; and in the expression of more serious thought it is often employed to give special pungency to irony, sarcasm, sneer, and contempt.

Selection illustrating Nasal Quality.

NOTE. From the descriptions of Darius Green in the following poem it is generally conceded that all personations of him should be given in Nasal Quality.

DARIUS GREEN AND HIS FLYING MACHINE

J. T. TROWBRIDGE

If ever there lived a Yankee lad,
Wise or otherwise, good or bad,

Who, seeing the birds fly, didn't jump
With flapping arms from stake or stump,
Or, spreading the tail of his coat for a sail,
Take a soaring leap from post or rail,
And wonder why he couldn't fly,
And flap and flutter and wish and try,—
If ever you knew a country dunce
Who didn't try that as often as once,
All I can say is, that's a sign

He never would do for a hero of mine.

An aspiring genius was Dary Green:
The son of a farmer,— age fourteen;
His body was long and lank and lean,—
Just right for flying, as will be seen;
He had two eyes as bright as a bean,
And a freckled nose that grew between,
A little awry; for I must mention
That he had riveted his attention

Upon his wonderful invention,

Twisting his tongue as he twisted the strings,
And working his face as he work'd the wings,
And with every turn of gimlet or screw
Turning and screwing his mouth round too,
Till his nose seem'd bent to catch the scent,
Around some corner, of new-baked pies,
And his wrinkled cheeks and his squinting eyes

Grew pucker'd into a queer grimace,

That made him look very droll in the face,

And also very wise.

And wise he must have been, to do more

Than ever a genius did before,