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Voltaire had a hollow wooden voice, and his declamation had more pomp in it than nature; yet in the part of Trissotin, in the Femmes Savantes, he performed very well. From Lausanne, where he quarrelled with several persons, he went, in 1755, to St. Jean, close to Geneva, and gave to the house he occupied the name of Les Dèlices, which it retains to this day.
But he resolved to develop his oratorical powers, and devoted every morning to intense reading. In addition, he regularly carried in his pocket a small copy of a classic for convenient reading at odd moments. It is said that he daily practised declamation before a looking-glass, closely scrutinizing his gesture, posture, and manner.
Harry at once made his escape from the drawing-room; and as he ran upstairs he could hear the General's voice upraised in declamation, and the thin tones of Lady Vandeleur planting icy repartees at every opening. How cordially he admired the wife!
Nothing can make us stranger to each other than we are henceforth. 'I shall take my rightful course, Madam, said Mr Dombey, 'undeterred, you may be sure, by any general declamation. She turned her back upon him, and, without reply, sat down before her glass. 'I place my reliance on your improved sense of duty, and more correct feeling, and better reflection, Madam, said Mr Dombey.
He is said by very sensible men who heard him, and, among others, by our friend L. Gellius who lived in his family in the time of his Consulship, to have been a sonorous, a fluent, and a spirited Speaker, and likewise, upon occasion, very pathetic, very engaging, and excessively humorous: Gellius used to add, that he applied himself very closely to his studies, and bestowed much of his time in writing and private declamation.
Augustin Daly's Life of Woffington the best life of her that has been written, and one of the most sumptuous books that have been made contains this reference to her performance of that part: "All her critics agree that her declamation was accurate and her gesture grace and nature combined; but in tragic or even dramatic speeches her voice probably had its limits, and in such scenes, being overtaxed, told against her.
The Lords Bute and Fyfe, and perhaps Loch-awe, have fallen beneath the Southron sword, and your unnatural arm; and yet do you demand what Scot would dare to tell you, that he holds the Earl of Carrick and his coadjutors as his most mortal foes?" "Ambitious man! Dost thou flatter thyself with belief that I am to be deceived by thy pompous declamation?
Her declamation was superb, if, as critics reported, there had been decline in this matter during those later years of her life, to which my own acquaintance with Rachel's acting is confined. I saw her first at the Français in 1849, and I was present at her last performance at the St. James' Theatre in 1853, having in the interval witnessed her assumption of certain of her most admired characters.
What is the use of incessant declamation? Organisation would be a thousand times better. Let quiet men who do not want mere self-advertisement tell the people what is their property and how to get it, and there will be no need of the outcry of one class against another.
Bossuet had sufficient ingenuity to construct a plausible defence of a sentiment which, however adapted to supply a theme for eloquent declamation, is not to be found in Scripture. "It must be admitted," says he, "that Mary would have been involved in the general ruin of mankind, had not the merciful Physician who heals our diseases determined to imbue her beforehand with his preventing grace.
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