MELODY IN SPEECH: A Book of PRINCIPLE, PRECEPT, AND PRACTICE IN INFLECTION AND EMPHASIS. BY ROBERT R. RAYMOND, A.M., PRINCIPAL OF THE BOSTON SCHOOL OF ORATORY, AND FORMERLY PROFESSOR BROOKLYN POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. [NOT PUBLISHED.] BOSTON: FRANKLIN PRESS: RAND, AVERY, & COMPANY. PREFATORY NOTE. THE following treatise (if it may assume so pretentious a name) is simply the result of a want felt by its author and compiler, in common with every teacher who has methods of his own, of a text-book which shall serve the daily uses of his school-room. Though probably the precursor of a more comprehensive work, embracing the entire field of elocution, it deals with only a single department of the subject, but that being at once fundamental and cardinal- the most important of all. For surely it can matter little to a fine delivery, whatever perfection of tone the voice may inherit by nature or attain to by art, whatever marvels of force or precision of utterance, nay, whatever refinements of feeling or intuitions of expression, may be present, if there be lacking a mastery of those vocal inflections by which Nature conveys the true sense of spoken passages, and that emphasis by which she defines the relative importance of associated words. The treatment of these subjects which is here presented, lays no special claim to originality. There has been free use, in its construction, of all the material furnished by the thought and labor of others: nevertheless, it is the outcome of much experience in the trial of methods, and is believed to possess some resultant merits of its own. In particular, the presentation of emphasis as a discriminating inflection merely, and as a waving slide rather than a downward pressure of the voice, to be marked by the grave accent, while it claims to be a true statement of the natural fact, has |