til
you can follow Hamlet's directions to the players.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Practise repeating the following rapidly, paying particular attention
to the consonants.

"Foolish Flavius, flushing feverishly, fiercely found fault with
Flora's frivolity.[7]"

Mary's matchless mimicry makes much mischief.

Seated on shining shale she sells sea shells.

You youngsters yielded your youthful yule-tide yearnings
yesterday.

2. Sound the _l_ in each of the following words, repeated in sequence:

Blue black blinkers blocked Black Blondin's eyes.

3. Do you say a _bloo_ sky or a _blue_ sky?

4. Compare the _u_ sound in _few_ and in _new_. Say each aloud, and
decide which is correct, _Noo York_, _New Yawk_, or _New York_?

5. Pay careful heed to the directions of this chapter in reading the
following, from Hamlet. After the interview with the ghost of his
father, Hamlet tells his friends Horatio and Marcellus that he intends
to act a part:

_Horatio_. O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

_Hamlet_. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
But come;
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd so'er I bear myself,--
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on,--
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumber'd thus, or this head-shake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As "Well, well, we know," or "We could, an if we would,"
Or "If we list to speak," or "There be, an if there might,"
Or such ambiguous giving-out, to note
That you know aught of me: this not to do,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you,
Swear.

--_Act I. Scene V._

6. Make a list of common errors of pronunciation, saying which are due
to faulty articulation, wrong accentuation, and incomplete enunciation.
In each case make the correction.

7. Criticise any speech you may have heard which displayed these faults.

8. Explain how the false shame of seeming to be too precise may hinder
us from cultivating perfect verbal utterance.

9. Over-precision is likewise a fault. To bring out any syllable unduly
is to caricature the word. Be _moderate_ in reading the following:

_THE LAST SPEECH OF MAXIMILIAN DE ROBESPIERRE_

The enemies of the Republic c