Speaking clearly. Improving voice and articulation: Фонетический практикум. Фомиченко Л.Г. - 80 стр.

80
       Look over the selections below and decide on a general rate that
fits the mood of the material. When you read aloud, however, be sure
that you vary the rate: accelerate, decelerate, hold steady.
       a) One dark and stormy night, à shi p struck à reef and sank.But
one of the sailors clung desperately to a piece of wreckage and was
finally cast up exhausted on an unknown beach. In the morning he
struggled to his feet and, rubbing his salt-encrusted eyes, looked around
to learn where he was. The only thing he saw that could have been
made by man was a gallows. «Thank God!» he shouted. «Civilization!»
      b) A majority of gunslingers from the Wild West weren’t too
bright. A bad man named Wes Hardin was determined to shoot it out
with Wild Bill Hickok. Hardin was extremely jealous of Wild Bill,
because Bill was rated as number one gunman, but Hardin was only
number two. Hardin heard that Wild Bill was in El Paso, so he rode
there, went into a popular bar and was given the corner seat — in
those days, the best seat in the house. He sat in the corner for three
days, staring into the long mirror behind the bar so that he could
instantly see anybody who came through the door. And on the fourth
day, who should enter the bar with gun drawn? Wild Bill Hickok?
No! The sheriff. And guess what Hardin did. He shot the mirror
instead of the sheriff. The sheriff then shot Hardin. You can visit his
grave in El Paso today.
      c) Tell General Howard I know what is in his heart. What he
told me before, I have in my heart, I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs
are killed. … The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes
or no. My brother, who led on the young men, is dead. It is cold and
we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My
people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no
blankets, no food. No one knows where they are — perhaps freezing to
death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many
of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear
me, my chiefs, I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the
sun now stands I will fight no more, forever. [Chief Joseph to the Nez
Perce Indians]
      d) There is one contemporary artist who refuses to go along
with all the wild and weird «modern» art — square-faced ladies with
three ears and a nose sprouting from the middle of the forehead. Phil