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Life Compared to a Game of Cards Anonymous 289 Old Daddy Turner " 290 The Tramp " 292 The Dandy Fifth F. H. Gassaway 293 On Lincoln Walt Whitman 296 The Little Stowaway Anonymous 296 Saint Crispian's Day Shakespeare 299 The C'rrect Card George R. Sims 300 The Engineer's Story Rosa H. Thorpe 303 The Face Upon the Floor H. Antoine D'Arcy 306 The Funeral of the Flowers T. De Witt Talmage 309 Cato's Soliloquy on Immortality Joseph Addison 311 Opportunity John J. Ingalls 312 Opportunity's Reply Walter Malone 312 The Earl-king Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 313 Carcassonne M. E. W. Sherwood 314 The Musicians Anonymous 315 On the Rappahannock " 317 Como Joaquin Miller 319 Aux Italiens Owen Meredith 322

PART I
HOW TO HOLD AN AUDIENCE

To hold the interest of an audience and to successfully entertain it—whether from public platform, in fraternal organization, by after-dinner speech, or in the home circle—is a worthy accomplishment. Moreover, the memorizing of selections and rendering them before an audience is one of the best preparations for the larger and more important work of public speaking. Many of our most successful after-dinner speakers depend almost entirely upon their ability to tell a good story.

The art of reciting and story-telling has become so popular in recent years that a wide-spread demand has arisen for books of selections and suggestions for rendering them. Material suitable for encores has been particularly difficult to find. It is thought, therefore, that the present volume, containing as it does a great variety of short numbers, will meet with approval.

There is, perhaps, no talent that is more entertaining and more instructive than that of reciting aloud specimens of prose and poetry, both humorous and serious, from our best writers. Channing says:

"Is there not an amusement, having an affinity with the drama, which might be usefully introduced among us? I mean, Recitation.

"A work of genius, recited by a man of fine taste, enthusiasm, and powers of elocution, is a very pure and high gratification.

"Were this art cultivated and encouraged, great numbers, now insensible to the most beautiful compositions, might be waked up to their excellence and power.

"It is not easy to conceive of a more effectual way of spreading a refined taste through a community. The drama undoubtedly appeals more strongly to the passions than recitation; but the latter brings out the meaning of the author more. Shakespeare, worthily recited, would be better understood than on the stage.

"Recitation, sufficiently varied, so as to include pieces of chaste wit, as well as of pathos, beauty, and sublimity, is adapted to our present intellectual progress."

To recite well,