The Standard Speaker: Containing Exercises in Prose and Poetry for Declamation in Schools, Academies, Lyceums, Colleges : Newly Translated Or Compiled from Celebrated Orators, Authors, and Popular Debaters, Ancient and Modern ...

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Thomas, Cowperthwait, 1852 - Readers - 558 pages

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Page 208 - Prince ; your efforts are forever vain and impotent — doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely ; for it irritates to an incurable resentment, the minds of your enemies — to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder; devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty ! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms — never — never — never.
Page 223 - It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision.
Page 95 - Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all, — to thine own self be true ; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Page 423 - Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer; Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. And all I remember is, friends flocking round As I...
Page 443 - But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. And there lay the rider, distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail ; And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
Page 127 - Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear. Believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe. Censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his.
Page 423 - Aix' — for one heard the quick wheeze Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees, And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank...
Page 422 - Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place ; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.
Page 503 - 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...
Page 496 - The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the war of elements, The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.

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