 | Life and sayings of Mrs. Partington and others
of the family |  |
ON ELOCUTION.
“O, does n't he disclaim fluidly!” exclaimed Mrs.
Partington, delightedly, as she listened to the exercises
of the Humtown Intellectual Mutual Improvement Society.
Her admiration knew no bounds as a young declaimer,
with inspiration truly Demosthenic, launched the flashing
beams of his eloquence broadcast among his auditors,
with thrilling, dazzling, burning force; anon soaring
like a rocket into the “empyrean blue,” dashing helter
skelter amidst the stars, and harnessing the fiery comets
to the car of his genius; anon scouring the land like a
racer, the hot sparks, like young lightning marking his
Phaetonish course; anon breaking through the terraqueous
shell, and revelling in Hadean horrors in underground
localities somewhere.
The voice of Mrs. Partington, whom we left standing
on the threshold of her admiration some way back, recalls
us to herself.
“How fluidly he talks! He ought to be a minister,
I declare; and how well he would look with a surplus
on, to be sure! He stands on the nostrum as if he was
born and bred an oratorio all his life. I wish the
President was here to-night; I know he 'd see he was an
extr'ord'nary young man, and like as not appint him
minister extr'ord'nary, instead of some that never
preached any at all.”
The old lady beat time with her fan to his gesticulations,
as the young man told the world that Franklin had
made it a present of the printing-press.
| Life and sayings of Mrs. Partington and others
of the family | |