Quantity and Quality. (49)
Quantity, in reading and speaking, means the length of time occupied in uttering a syllable or a word. Sounds and syllables vary greatly in quantity. Some are long, some short, and others intermediate between those which are long or short. Some sounds, also, may be prolonged or shortened in utterance to any desired extent. Quantity may be classified as Long, Medium, or Short.
DIRECTIONS FOR PRACTICE ON LONG QUANTITY.—Select some word of one syllable ending with a long vocal or a subvocal sound; pronounce it many times in succession, increasing the quantity at each repetition, until you can dwell upon it any desired length of time, without drawling, and in a natural tone.
REMARK.—Practice in accordance with this direction will enable the pupil to secure that fullness and roundness of voice which is exemplified in the hailing of a ship, “ship aho—y;” in the reply of the sailor, when, in the roar of the storm, he answers his captain, “ay—e. ay—e;” and in the command of the officer to his troops, when, amid the thunder of artillery, he gives the order, “ma—rch,” or “ha—lt.”
This fullness or roundness of tone is secured, by dwelling on the vocal sound, and indefinitely protracting it, The mouth should be opened wide, the tongue kept down, and the aperture left as round and as free for the voice as possible.
It is this artificial rotundity which, in connection with a distinct articulation, enables one who speaks in the open air, or in a very large apartment, to send his voice to the most distant point. It is a certain degree of this quality, which distinguishes declamatory or public speaking or reading from private conversation, and no one can accomplish much, as a public speaker, without cultivating it. It must be carefully distinguished from the “high tone,” which is an elevation of pitch, and from “loudness.” or “strength” of voice.
It will be observed that clearness and distinctness of utterance are secured by a proper use of the subvocals and aspirates—these sounds giving to words their shape, as it were; but a clear, full, and well-modulated utterance of the vocals gives to words their fullness.
Long Quantity. (49)
1. Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!
2. Woe, woe, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem!
3. O righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave, Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save? Where was thine arm, O Vengeance! where thy rod, That smote the foes of Zion and of God?
4. O sailor boy! sailor boy! never again Shall home, love, or kindred thy wishes repay; Unblessed and unhonored, down deep in the main, Full many a fathom, thy frame shall decay.
5. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens! When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the work of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Medium Quantity. (50)
1. Between Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose; The spectacles set them, unhappily, wrong; The point in dispute was, as all the world knows, To which the said spectacles ought to belong.
2. Bird of the broad and sweeping wing!
Thy home is high in heaven,
Where the wide storms their banners fling,
And the tempest clouds are driven.
3. At midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk lay dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power.
4. On New Year’s night, an old man stood at his window, and looked, with a glance of fearful despair, up the immovable, unfading heaven, and down upon the still, pure, white earth, on which no one was now so joyless and sleepless as he.