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The armaments, which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals;
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike th' Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee:
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage,--what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou;
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves play,
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow;
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers--they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror--'twas a pleasing fear.


THOU, TOO, SAIL ON!

From "The Building of the Ship," by permission of, and by special
Arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers
of this author's works.

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

Sail forth into the sea, O ship!
Through wind and wave, right onward steer!
The moistened eye, the trembling lip,
Are not the signs of doubt or fear.

Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives!

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the 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!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;

'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,--are all with thee!


O TIBER, FATHER TIBER!

From "Horatius"

BY LORD MACAULAY

"O Tiber, Father Tiber!
To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms,
Take thou in charge this day!"
So he spake, and, speaking, sheathed
The good sword by his side,
And, with his harness on his back,
Plunged headlong in the tide.

No sound of joy or sorrow
Was heard from either bank,
But friends and foes in dumb surprise,
With parted lips and straining eyes,
Stood gazing where he sank;
And when above the surges
They saw his crest appear,
All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry,
And even the ranks of Tuscany
Could scarce forbear to cheer.

But fiercely ran the current,
Swollen high by months of rain,
And fast his blood was flowing,
And he was sore in pain,
And heavy with his armor,
And spent with changing blows;
And oft they thought him sinking,
But still again he rose.

And now he feels the bottom;--
Now on dry earth he stands;
Now round him throng the Fathers
To press his gory hands.
And now, with shouts and clapping,
And noise of weeping loud,
He enters through the River Gate,
Borne by the joyous crowd.


MARULLUS TO THE ROMAN CITIZENS

From "Julius Cæsar"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

_Flavius_. Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

_Second Citizen_. Indeed, sir, we make holiday, to see
Cæsar, and to rejoice in his triumph.

_Marullus_. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,
To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The live-long day, with patient expectation
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome;
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,
To hear the replication of your sounds,
Made in her concave shores?
And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?
And do you now strew flowers in his way
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?
Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.


THE RECESSIONAL

From "Collected Verse," with the permission of A. P. Watt and Son,
London, and Doubleday, Page and Company, New York, publishers

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

God of our fathers, known of old--
Lord of our far-flung battle-line--
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget.

The tumult and the shouting dies--
The captains and the kings depart--
Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget.

Far-called our navies melt away--
On dune and headland sinks the fire,
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget.

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the Law--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget.

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard--
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord.


THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY

From Webster's Reply to Hayne, in the United States Senate. Little,
Brown and Company, Boston, publishers of "The Great Speeches and
Orations of Daniel Webster"

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

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. The bones of her sons, fallen in
the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of
every State from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie
forever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and
where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives in the
strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord and
disunion shall wound it; if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk
at and tear it; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and
necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union by
which alone its existence is made sure,--it will stand, in the end, by
the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will
stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain over
the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it
must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very
spot of its origin.


THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS

Delivered in the House of Lords, February 13, 1788

BY EDMUND BURKE

My Lords, I do not mean to go further than just to remind your
Lordships of this,--that Mr. Hastings's government was one whole system
of oppression, of robbery of individuals, of spoliation of the public,
and of suppression of the whole system of the English government, in
order to vest in the worst of the natives all the power that could
possibly exist in any government; in order to defeat the ends which all
governments ought, in common, to have in view. In the name of the
Commons of England, I charge all this villainy upon Warren Hastings, in
this last moment of my application to you.

Therefore, it is with confidence that, ordered by the Commons of Great
Britain, I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors.

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament
assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has abused.

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, whose
national character he has dishonored.

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights,
and liberties he has subverted.

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose property he has
destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate.

I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly
outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes. And I impeach him in
the name and by the virtue of those eternal laws of justice, which
ought equally to pervade every age, condition, rank, and situation, in
the world.


BUNKER HILL

From the oration at the laying of the corner stone of the monument,
June 17, 1825. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, publishers of "The
Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster"

By DANIEL WEBSTER

This uncounted multitude before me and around me proves the feeling
which the occasion has excited. These thousands of human faces, glowing
with sympathy and joy, and from the impulses of a common gratitude
turned reverently to heaven in this spacious temple of the firmament,
proclaim that the day, the place, and the purpose of our assembling
have made a deep impression on our hearts.

If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit to affect the
mind of man, we need not strive to repress the emotions which agitate
us here. We are among the sepulchers of our fathers. We are on ground
distinguished by their valor, their constancy, and the shedding of
their blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals,
nor to draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our humble
purpose had never been conceived, if we ourselves had never been born,
the 17th of June, 1775, would have been a day on which all subsequent
history would have poured its light, and the eminence where we stand a
point of attraction to the eyes of successive generations. But we are
Americans. We live in what may be called the early age of this great
continent; and we know that our posterity, through all time, are here
to enjoy and suffer the allotments of humanity. We see before us a
probable train of great events; we know that our own fortunes have been
happily cast, and it is natural, therefore, that we should be moved by
the contemplation of occurrences which have guided our destiny before
many of us were born, and settled the condition in which we should pass
that portion of our existence which God allows to man on earth.


THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

In dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa., Nov. 19,
1863

BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are
met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a
portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave
their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and
proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate--we cannot consecrate--we
cannot hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or
detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be
here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve
that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under
God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.




VOCAL FLEXIBILITY


CÆSAR, THE FIGHTER

From "The Courtship of Miles Standish," by permission of, and by
Special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized
publishers of this author's works

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

"A wonderful man was this Cæsar!

You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a fellow
Who could both write and fight, and in both was equally skillful!"
Straightway answered and spake John Alden, the comely, the youthful:
"Yes, he was equally skilled, as you say, with his pen and his weapons.
Somewhere have I read, but where I forget, he could dictate
Seven letters at once, at the same time writing his memoirs."
"Truly," continued the Captain, not heeding or hearing the other,
"Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Cæsar!
Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village,
Than be second in Rome, and I think he was right when he said it.
Twice was he married before he was twenty, and many times after;
Battles five hundred he fought, and a thousand cities he conquered;
He, too, fought in Flanders, as he himself has recorded;
Finally he was stabbed by his friend, the orator Brutus!
Now, do you know what he did on a certain occasion in Flanders,
When the rear-guard of his army retreated, the front giving way too,
And the immortal Twelfth Legion was crowded so closely together
There was no room for their swords? Why, he seized a shield from a
soldier,
Put himself straight at the head of his troops, and commanded the
captains,
Calling on each by his name, to order forward the ensigns;
Then to widen the ranks, and give more room for their weapons;
So he won the day, the battle of something-or-other.
That's what I always say; if you wish a thing to be well done,
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!"


OFFICIAL DUTY

BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

I want to talk to you of the attitude that should properly be observed
by legislators, by executive officers, toward wealth, and the attitude
that should be observed in return by men of means, and especially by
corporations, toward the body politic and toward their fellow citizens.

I utterly distrust the man of whom it is continually said: "Oh, he's a
good fellow, but, of course, in politics, he plays politics" It is
about as bad for a man to profess, and for those that listen to him by
their plaudits to insist upon his professing something which they know
he cannot live up to, as it is for him to go below what he ought to do,
because if he gets into the habit of lying to himself and to his
audience as to what he intends to do, it is certain to eat away his
moral fiber.

He won't be able then to stand up to what he knows ought to be done.
The temptation of the average politician is to promise everything to
the reformers and then to do everything for the organization. I think I
can say that, whatever I have promised on the stump or off the stump,
either expressly or impliedly, to either organization or reformers, I
have kept my promise; and I should keep it just as much if the
reformers disapproved.

A public man is bound to represent his constituents, but he is no less
bound to cease to represent them when, on a great moral question, he
feels that they are taking the wrong side. Let him go out of politics
rather than stay in at the cost of doing what his own conscience
forbids him to do.


LOOK WELL TO YOUR SPEECH

From "Self-Cultivation in English," with the permission of the author,
and of Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, publishers

BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER

First, then, "Look well to your speech." It is commonly supposed that
when a man seeks literary power he goes to his room and plans an
article for the press. But this is to begin literary culture at the
wrong end. We speak a hundred times for every once we write. The
busiest writer produces little more than a volume a year, not so much
as his talk would amount to in a week. Consequently through speech it
is usually decided whether a man is to have command of his language or
not. If he is slovenly in his ninety-nine cases of talking, he can
seldom pull himself up to strength and exactitude in the hundredth case
of writing. A person is made in one piece, and the same being runs
through a multitude of performances. Whether words are uttered on paper
or to the air, the effect on the utterer is the same. Vigor or
feebleness results according as energy or slackness has been in
command. I know that certain adaptations to a new field are often
necessary. A good speaker may find awkwardnesses in himself when he
comes to write, a good writer when he speaks. And certainly cases occur
where a man exhibits distinct strength in one of the two, speaking or
writing, and not in the other. But such cases are rare. As a rule,
language once within our control can be employed for oral or for
written purposes. And since the opportunities for oral practice
enormously outbalance those for written, it is the oral which are
chiefly significant in the development of literary power. We rightly
say of the accomplished writer that he shows a mastery of his own
tongue.

Fortunate it is, then, that self-cultivation in the use of English must
chiefly come through speech; because we are always speaking, whatever
else we do. In opportunities for acquiring a mastery of language, the
poorest and busiest are at no large disadvantage as compared with the
leisured rich. It is true the strong impulse which comes from the
suggestion and approval of society may in some cases be absent; but
this can be compensated by the sturdy purpose of the learner. A
recognition of the beauty of well-ordered words, a strong desire,
patience under discouragements, and promptness in counting every
occasion as of consequence,--these are the simple agencies which sweep
one on to power. Watch your speech, then.


HAMLET TO THE PLAYERS

From "Hamlet"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

_Hamlet_. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,
trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of your players
do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very
torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must
acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it
offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a
passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,
who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-
shows and noise. I could have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing
Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

_I Player_. I warrant your honor.

_Hamlet_. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be
your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with
this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature;
for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end,
both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror
up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and
the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this
overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh,
cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must
in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theater of others. O, there be
players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that
highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of
Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted
and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made
men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.


BELLARIO'S LETTER

From "The Merchant of Venice"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

_Duke_. This letter from Bellario doth commend A young and learned
doctor to our court. Where is he?

_Nerissa_. He attendeth here hard by, To know your answer, whether
you'll admit him.

_Duke_. With all my heart. Some three or four of you Go give him
courteous conduct to this place. Meantime the court shall hear
Bellario's letter.

_Clerk_ (reads). "Your grace shall understand that at the receipt
of your letter I am very sick; but in the instant that your messenger
came, in loving visitation was with me a young doctor of Rome; his name
is Balthasar. I acquainted him with the cause in controversy between
the Jew and Antonio the merchant: we turned o'er many books together:
he is furnished with my opinion; which, bettered with his own learning,
the greatness whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him, at my
importunity, to fill up your grace's request in my stead. I beseech
you, let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend
estimation; for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I
leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish
his commendation."


CASCA, SPEAKING OF CÆSAR

From "Julius Cæsar"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

_Casca_. You pull'd me by the cloak; would you speak with me?

_Brutus_. Ay, Casca; tell us what hath chanc'd to-day, That Cæsar
looks so sad.

_Casca_. Why, you were with him, were you not?

_Brutus_. I should not, then, ask Casca what had chanc'd.

_Casca_. Why, there was a crown offered him; and being offered him, he
put it by with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell
a-shouting.

_Brutus_. What was the second noise for?

_Casca_. Why, for that too.

_Cassius_. They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for?

_Casca_. Why, for that too.

_Brutus_. Was the crown offered him thrice?

_Casca_. Ay, marry, was't, and he put it by thrice, every time
gentler than other; and at every putting-by mine honest neighbors
shouted.

_Cassius_. Who offered him the crown?

_Casca_. Why, Antony.

_Brutus_. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.

_Casca_. I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it: it was
mere foolery; I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a
crown;--yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of these coronets;--
and, as I told you, he put it by once: but, for all that, to my
thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again;
then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very loth to lay
his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it
the third time by: and still as he refused it, the rabblement shouted,
and clapped their chopped hands, and threw up their sweaty nightcaps,
and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Cæsar refused the
crown, that it had almost choked Cæsar; for he swooned, and fell down
at it: and for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my
lips, and receiving the bad air.


SQUANDERING OF THE VOICE

From "Lectures on Oratory" BY HENRY WARD BEECHER

How much squandering there is of the voice! How little there is of the
advantage that may come from conversational tones! How seldom does a
man dare to acquit himself with pathos and fervor! And the men are
themselves mechanical and methodical in the bad way who are most afraid
of the artificial training that is given in the schools, and who so
often show by the fruit of their labor that the want of oratory is the
want of education.

How remarkable is the sweetness of voice in the mother, in the father,
in the household! The music of no chorded instruments brought together
is, for sweetness, like the music of familiar affection when spoken by
brother and sister, or by father and mother.

Conversation itself belongs to oratory. How many men there are who are
weighty in argument, who have abundant resources, and who are almost
boundless in their power at other times and in other places, but who,
when in company among their kind, are exceedingly unapt in their
methods. Having none of the secret instruments by which the elements of
nature may be touched, having no skill and no power in this direction,
they stand as machines before living, sensitive men. A man may be a
master before an instrument; only the instrument is dead; and he has
the living hand; and out of that dead instrument what wondrous harmony
springs forth at his touch! And if you can electrify an audience by the
power of a living man on dead things, how much more should that
audience be electrified when the chords are living and the man is
alive, and he knows how to touch them with divine inspiration!


THE TRAINING OF THE GENTLEMAN

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