QUICK! MAN THE LIFE-BOAT!
This selection demands great vivacity and intense dramatic expression. Each reference to the life-boat requires rapid utterance, elevated pitch and strong tones of command. Point to the life-boat; you are to see it, and make your audience see it. They will see it in imagination if you do; that is, if you speak and act as if you stood on the shore and actually saw the life-boat hurrying to the rescue.
BEAUTIFUL HANDS.
THE BURNING SHIP.
The general character of this selection is intensely dramatic. It is a most excellent piece for any one who has the ability and training to do it full justice. The emotions of agony, horror and exultation are here, and should be made prominent. Let the cry of “Fire!” ring out in startling tones, and let your whole manner correspond with the danger and the excitement of the scene. The rate throughout should be rapid.
The figures in the text refer you to the corresponding numbers of Typical Gestures, at the beginning of Part II of this volume. Insert other gestures of your own.
THE UNKNOWN SPEAKER.
It is the Fourth day of July, 1776.
In the old State House in the city of Philadelphia are gathered half a hundred men to strike from their limbs the shackles of British despotism. There is silence in the hall—every face is turned toward the door where the committee of three, who have been out all night penning a parchment, are soon to enter. The door opens, the committee appears. The tall man with the sharp features, the bold brow, and the sand-hued hair, holding the parchment in his hand, is a Virginia farmer, Thomas Jefferson. That stout-built man with stern look and flashing eye, is a Boston man, one John Adams. And that calm-faced man with hair drooping in thick curls to his shoulders, that is the Philadelphia printer, Benjamin Franklin.
The three advance to the table.
The parchment is laid there.
Shall it be signed or not? A fierce debate ensues, Jefferson speaks a few bold words. Adams pours out his whole soul. The deep-toned voice of Lee is heard, swelling in syllables of thunder like music. But still there is doubt, and one pale-faced man whispers something about axes, scaffolds and a gibbet.
“Gibbet?” echoed a fierce, bold voice through the hall. “Gibbet? They may stretch our necks on all the gibbets in the land; they may turn every rock into a scaffold; every tree into a gallows; every home into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment there can never die! They may pour our blood on a thousand scaffolds, and yet from every drop that dyes the axe a new champion of freedom will spring into birth. The British King may blot out the stars of God from the sky, but he cannot blot out His words written on that parchment there. The works of God may perish. His words never!
“The words of this declaration will live in the world long after our bones are dust. To the mechanic in his workshop they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom; but to the coward-kings, these words will speak in tones of warning they cannot choose but hear.
“They will be terrible as the flaming syllables on Belshazzar’s wall! They will speak in language startling as the trump of the Archangel, saying: ‘You have trampled on mankind long enough! At last the voice of human woe has pierced the ear of God, and called His judgment down! You have waded to thrones through rivers of blood; you have trampled on the necks of millions of fellow-beings. Now kings, now purple hangmen, for you come the days of axes and gibbets and scaffolds.’
“Such is the message of that declaration to mankind, to the kings of earth. And shall we falter now? And shall we start back appalled when our feet touch the very threshold of Freedom?
“Sign that parchment! Sign, if the next moment the gibbet’s rope is about your neck! Sign, if the next minute this hall rings with the clash of the falling axes! Sign by all your hopes in life or death as men, as husbands, as fathers, brothers, sign your names to the parchment, or be accursed forever!
“Sign, and not only for yourselves, but for all ages, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom—the Bible of the rights of men forever. Nay, do not start and whisper with surprise! It is truth, your own hearts witness it; God proclaims it. Look at this strange history of a band of exiles and outcasts, suddenly transformed into a people—a handful of men weak in arms—but mighty in God-like faith; nay, look at your recent achievements, your Bunker Hill, your Lexington, and then tell me, if you can, that God has not given America to be free!
“It is not given to our poor human intellect to climb to the skies, and to pierce the councils of the Almighty One. But methinks I stand among the awful clouds which veil the brightness of Jehovah’s throne.
“Methinks I see the recording angel come trembling up to that throne to speak his dread message. ‘Father, the old world is baptized in blood. Father, look with one glance of thine eternal eye, and behold evermore that terrible sight, man trodden beneath the oppressor’s feet, nations lost in blood, murder and superstition walking hand in hand over the graves of their victims, and not a single voice to whisper hope to man!’
“He stands there, the angel, trembling with the record of human guilt. But hark! The voice of Jehovah speaks out from the awful cloud: ‘Let there be light again! Tell my people, the poor and oppressed, to go out from the old world, from oppression and blood, and build my altar in the new!’
“As I live, my friends, I believe that to be His voice! Yes, were my soul trembling on the verge of eternity, were this hand freezing in death, were this voice choking in the last struggle, I would still with the last impulse of that soul, with the last wave of that hand, with the last gasp of that voice, implore you to remember this truth—God has given America to be free! Yes, as I sank into the gloomy shadows of the grave, with my last faint whisper I would beg you to sign that parchment for the sake of the millions whose very breath is now hushed in intense expectation as they look up to you for the awful words, ‘You are free!’”
The unknown speaker fell exhausted in his seat; but the work was done.
A wild murmur runs through the hall. “Sign!” There is no doubt now. Look how they rush forward! Stout-hearted John Hancock has scarcely time to sign his bold name before the pen is grasped by another—another and another. Look how the names blaze on the parchment! Adams and Lee, Jefferson and Carroll, Franklin and Sherman.
And now the parchment is signed.
Now, old man in the steeple, now bare your arm and let the bell speak! Hark to the music of that bell! Is there not a poetry in that sound, a poetry more sublime than that of Shakespeare and Milton? Is there not a music in that sound that reminds you of those sublime tones which broke from angel lips when the news of the child Jesus burst on the hill-tops of Bethlehem? For the tones of that bell now come pealing, pealing, pealing, “Independence now and Independence forever.”
CHILD LOST.
It used to be a custom to have a man go through the town ringing a bell and “crying” any thing was lost. You should imitate the crier, at the same time swinging your hand as if ringing a bell. This selection requires a great variety in the manner, pitch of the voice and gestures of the reader.
THE CAPTAIN AND THE FIREMAN.
THE FACE ON THE FLOOR.
This is one of many recitations in this volume that have proved their popularity by actual test. “The Face on the Floor,” when well recited, holds the hearers spell-bound.