CONCISE PASSAGES, EXEMPLIFYING CERTAIN PARTIC ULARS ON THE PROPER EXPRESSION OF WHICH THE MODULATION AND MANAGEMENT OF THE VOICE IN READING AND SPEAKING PRINCIPALLY DEPEND. -Examples of ANTITHESIS; or, the Opposition of Words or Sentiments. 1. THE manner of speaking is as important as the matter. T Chesterfield. 2. Cowards die many times; the valiant never taste of death but once. -Shakespeare. 3. Temperance, by fortifying the mind and body, leads to happiness; intemperance, by enervating the mind and body, ends generally i.. misery.Art of Thinking: 4. Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious; but an ill one more contemptible. Vice is infamous, though in a prince; and virtue honorable, though in a peasant-Spectator. 5. Almost every object that attracts our notice, has its bright and its dark side. He who habituates himself to look at the displeasing side, will sour his disposition, and consequently, impair his happiness; while he who constantly beholds it on the bright side, insensibly ameliorates his temper, and in consequence of it, improves his own happiness, and the happiness of all around him.-World. 6. A wise man endeavors to shine in himself; a fool to outshine others. The former is humbled by the sense of his own infirmities; the latter is lifted up by the discovery of those which he observes in others. The wise man considers what ,he wants; and the fool what he abounds in. The wise man is happy when he gains his own approbation; and the fool, when he recommends himself to the applause of those about him. Speciator. 7. Where opportunities of exercise are wanting, temperance may in a great measure supply its place. If exercise throws off all superfluities, temperance prevents them; if exercise clears the vessels,temperance neither satiates nor overstrains them ;-· exercise raises proper ferments in the humors, and promotes. the circulation of the blood, temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigor; if exercise dissipates a growing distemper, temperance starves it.- -Spectator. 8. I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of the mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth, who are subject to the greatest depressions of melaucholly. On the con trary, cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day light in the mind, aud fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.- Spectator. 9. At the same time that I think discretion the most useful talent a man can be master of, I look upon cunning to be the accomplishment of little, mean, ungenerous minds. Discretion points out the noblest ends to us, and pursues the most proper and laudable methods of attaining them; cunning has only private, selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed; discretion has large and extended views, and like a well formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance Spectator 10. Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue; the cther betrays it. True modesty is ashamed to do any thing that is repugnant to the rules of right reason; false modesty is ashamed to do any thing that is opposite to the humor of the Gompany. True modesty avoids every thing that is criminal; false modesty, every thing that is unfashionable. The latter is only a general undetermined instinct; the former is that instinct, limited and circumscribed by the rules of prudence and religion. Spectator: 11. How different is the view of past life, in the man who is grown old in knowledge and wisdom, from that of him who is grown old in ignorance and folly! The latter is like the owner of a barren country, that fills his eye with the prospect of naked hills and plains, which produce nothing either profitable or ornamental; the former behelds a beautiful and spacious land-scape, divided into delightful gardens, green meadows fruitful felds; and can scarce cast his eye on a single spot of his possessions, that is not covered with some beautiful plant or flow-Spectator. er. 12. As there is a worldly happiness, which God perceives to be no other than disguised misery; as there are worldly honors, which, in his estimation, are reproach; so there is a worldly wisdom, which in his sight, is foolishness. Of this worldly wis dom, the characters are given in the scriptures, and placed in contrast with those of the wisdom which is from above The one is the wisdom of the crafty; the other, that of the upright: The one terminates in selfishness; the other in charity: The one, full of strife, and bitter envying; the other, of mercy and good fruits.Blair. 13. True honor, though it be a different principle from religion, is that which produces the same effects. The lines of action though drawn from different parts, terminate in the same point. Religion embraces virtue, as it is enjoined by the law of God; honor, as it is graceful and ornamental to human nature. The religious man fears, the man of honor scorns, to do an ill action. The latter considers vice as something that is beneath him; the former, as something that is offensive to the Divine Being; the one, as what is unbecoming; the other, as what is forbidden.- -Guardian. 14. Where is the man that possesses, or indeed can be required to possess, greater abilities in war, than Pompey? One who has fought more pitched battles, than others have maintained personal disputes! Carried on more wars than others have acquired knowledge of by reading Reduced more provinces than others have aspired to,even in thought! Whose youth was trained to the profession of arms, not by precepts derived from others, but by the highest offices of command! Not by personal mistakes in war but by a train of important victories; not by a series of campaigns but by a succession of triumphs.-Cicero: 15. Two principles in human nature reign, Self-love to urge, and reason to restrain; Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call, Each works its end-to move or govern all.Pope. Byram 17. Know, nature's children all divide her care; 18. O thou goddess, Thou divine nature! How thyself thou blazon'st -Popie As zephyrs blowing below the violet, Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough Flies o'er th’unbending corn, and skims along the main. 20. Good name in man and woman Is the immediate jewel of their souls. Pope. Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; Robs me of that which nought enriches him, 11-Examples of ENUMERATION; or the mentioning of particulars. 1. I CONSIDER a human soul, without education, like marble in the quarry; which shows none of its inherent beauties, till the skill of the polisher fetches out the colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot and vein, that runs through the body of it.- Spectator. 2. The subject of a discourse being opened, explained and confirmed; that is to say, the speaker having gained the attention and judgment of his audience, he must proceed to complete his conquest over the passions; such as imagination, admiration, surprize, hope, joy, love, fear, grief, anger. Now he must begin to exert himself; here it is that a fine genius may display itself, in the use of amplification, enumeration, interrogation, metaphor, and every ornament that can render a discourse entertaining, winning, striking and enforcing. Baillie. 3. I am persuaded, that neither death nor life; nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers; nor things present, nor things to come; nor height nor depth; nor any other creature; shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.- -St. Paul. 4. Sincerity is, to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be Tillotson 5. No blessing of life is any way comparable to the enjoy ment of a discreet and virtuous friend; it eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thought and knowledge, animates virtue and good resolutions, sooths and allays the passions, and finds employment for most of the vacant hours of life- -Spectator. 6. The brightness of the sky, the lengthening of the days, the increasing verdure of the spring, the arrival of any little piece of good news, or whatever carries with it the must distant glimpse of joy, is frequently the parent of a social and happy conversation.World. 7. In fair weather, when my heart is cheered, andI feel that exultation of spirits, which results from light and warmth,joined with a beautiful prospect of nature, I regard myself as one placed by the hand of God, in the midst of an ample theatre, in which the sun, moon and stars, the fruits also, and vegetablcs of the earth, perpetually changing their positions or their aspects, exhibit an elegant entertainment to the understanding as well as to the eye. Thunder and lightsing, rain and hail,the painted bow and the glaring comets, are decorations of this mighty theatre; and the sable hemisphere, studded with spangles, the blue vault at noon, the glorious gildings and rich colorings in the horizon, I look on as so many successive scenes. -Spectator. 8. Complaisance renders a superior amiable, an equal agreeable, and an inferior acceptable. It smooths distinction, sweetens conversation, and makes every one in the company pleased with himself. It produces good nature and mutual benevolence, encourages the timorous, sooths the turbulent, humanizes the fierce, and distinguishes a society of civilized persons from a confusion of savages. In a word, complaisance is a virtue that blends all orders of men together, in a friendly intercourse of words and actions, and is suited to that equality in human nature, which every man ought to consider, so far as is consistent with the order and economy of the world.- -Guardian. 9. It is owing to our having early imbibed false notions of virtue, that the word Christian does not carry with it at first view, all that is great, worthy, friendly, generous and heroic The man who suspends his hopes of the rewards of worthy ac tions till after death; who can bestow, unseen; who can overlook hatred; do good to his slanderer; who can never be angry at his friend; never revengeful to his enemy-is certainly formed for the benefit of society.- Spectator. 10. Though we seen grieved at the shortness of life, in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be of age-then to be a man of business-then to make up an estate-then to arrive at honors-then to retire. The asurer would be very well satisfied, to have all the time annihi |
