More pangs and fears than wars or women have; Never to hope again. --Henry VIII, iii., 2. THE TONE OF EXULTATION. (See Tone Drill No. 96.) [The tone of Exultation indicates a personal joy bordering on gloating.] Gloster on His Wooing of Lady Anne. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won? I'll have her; but I will not keep her long. What! I, that kill'd her husband and his father, With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes, The bleeding witness of her hatred by; Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me, And I nothing to back my suit at all, But the plain devil and dissembling looks, And yet to win her, all the world to nothing! Ha! Hath she forgot already that brave prince, Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since, Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury? A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman, Framed in the prodigality of nature, Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal, The spacious world cannot again afford: And will she yet debase her eyes on me, That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince, And made her widow to a woful bed? On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety? On me, that halt and am unshapen thus? I do mistake my person all this while: pass. -Richard III, i., 2. TONE OF DESPAIR. (See Tone Drill No. 66.) [The tone of Despair manifests absolute helplessness.] Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn. ROBERT BURNS. "Ye scattered birds that faintly sing, The reliques of the vernal quire! But nocht in all revolving time Can gladness bring again to me. "I am a bending, agèd tree, That long has stood the wind and rain; But now has come a cruel blast, And my last hald of earth is gane: And ithers plant them in my room. "I've seen sae mony changefu' years, On earth I am a stranger grown; I bear alane my lade o' care, Lie a' that would my sorrows share. "And last (the sum of a' my griefs!) His country's pride, his country's stay: In weary being now I pine, For a' the life of life is dead, And hope has left my agèd ken, On forward wing for ever fled. TONE OF MALEDICTION. (See Tone Drill No 134.) [The tone of Malediction denotes that the speaker wishes evil to come to some person or thing. It is usually the accompaniment of hatred.] Curse on Rome. CORNEILLE. Rome, sole object of my resentment! arm has just sacrificed my lover! Rome, to which thy Rome, which has seen thee born, and which thy heart adores! Rome, in short, which I hate because it adores thee! May all its neighbors, conspiring together, be able to sap its foundations! And if Italy be not sufficient, may the East ally itself with the West against her! May a hundred nations from all ends of the universe press on to level her hills and walls! let her hurl her walls on her own head, and tear out her entrails with her own hands; let the wrath of Heaven, called down by my prayers, rain upon her a deluge of fires! May I, with these eyes of mine, see this thunderbolt fall, see her houses in ashes, and laurels in the dust! see the last Roman heave his last sigh. -Horace iv., 5. Curse of Kehama. ROBERT SOUTHEY. I charm thy life From the weapons of strife, And the beasts of blood. And time shall not harm thee; But earth, which is mine, Her fruits shall deny thee. And the winds shall not touch thee When they pass by thee, When they fall nigh thee; And thou shalt seek death To release thee in vain. With a fire in thy heart And a fire in thy brain; And sleep shall obey me, And visit thee never, And the curse shall be on thee For ever and ever! Duchess of York to Richard III. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. Either thou wilt die, by God's just ordinance, And there the little souls of Edward's children And promise them success and victory. Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend. -Richard III; iv., 4. THE TONE OF CONFUSION. (See Tone Drill No. 52.) [The tone of Confusion implies a checking or stoppage of the flow of utterance. Either the mind has ceased to think continuously or the speaker is trying to repress his real thoughts.] An Orator's First Speech in Parliament. ALEXANDER BELL. The pillar of "ten-pounders" rises now, and towards the Speaker makes profoundest bow. Unused to so much honour, his weak knees bend with the weight of senate-dignities. He staggers almost falls-stares-strokes his chin-clears out |