ORATORY. T is said on high authority that eloquence is so subtle, so mysterious, that no good definition of the term has ever been given. There is not extant anything like a complete list of the implements of oratory, the means by which emotion is expressed so as to excite emotions in others; for audiences and individuals are as varied as the degrees of passion and intelligence of the human mind. What is eloquence in one age and upon one occasion may be not less than tiresome talk or flippant bombast elsewhere; so, from this fact no specific rules of oratory are available. Oratory would not be the charming power it is if it could thus he classified and labeled, like chemists' compounds, for future use. Much of the splendor and magic of good speech consists in its surprises, and in the fact that it occasionally reveals powers of pathos, of language, or of thought, which had not been suspected. Just what oratory is no man knows, yet every one possesses it in a degree, and at certain superior moments of feeling all men are truly eloquent. In such hours of clearheaded speech-perhaps talking with a group of familiar friends-we speak convincingly and with ease, and when such conversations are analyzed a firm common sense is found.to permeate them. Courage to express one's convictions, relevancy to the subject, and truthfulness, are three prime requirements of impressive speeches. In other words, the most effective oratory in the end is that which is simple and truthful. The orator must be in earnest. He must be honest, and he must know what he is talking about. Such a man truly represents a cause, and as a great writer has said, he then stands for more than he utters-for all that HE IS. The man is more conspicuous than the speech, which is but a partial expression of the nobility of his character, an exponent of his manhood. The old books make some nice distinctions between eloquence and oratory, but they scarcely hold in modern times. It was said that oratory is artificial and acquired, while eloquence is a natural gift; that eloquence is feeling, the heart addressing the heart, while oratory is artificial, or acquired. It is no doubt true that there is a silent language in eloquence, which cannot be classified as speech. A cultivation of rhetorical pauses and stops can never prove as effectual as the unstudied movement of natural emotions, when thought takes possession of the mind and pleads by appropriate use of the countenance, and by its measured volleys and rests. The old Latin maxim is that the poet is born and the orator is made, yet oratory cannot be developed to any great degree in a mind devoid of the natural fire of eloquence; but orators are not born, for a study of their lives shows that much diligent labor was expended in perfecting themselves before they acquired distinction. It is to a certain degree true that men have varying capacities for powerful speech, but it is a delusion to believe that a man may not become a clever talker by diligence. Any man with ordinary physical and mental powers may, by close application, become at least a very entertaining and instructive speaker. This may not be oratory, but it is so like it that few will discover the difference. It approaches oratory at least as closely as art and good talent approach genius, and one definition of genius is the capacity for hard and prolonged labor. There is eloquence of various degrees, just as there are brains of various sizes and capacities. The eloquence of philosophy, as witnessed in a lecture from the great Emerson, would have been a bore to many a man who would grow red with enthusiasm within the sound of a political stump speaker's voice. So oratory is a thing of infinite degree. In modern times the old-fashioned oratory is not popular. A speech must come in the garb of the times or it is scarcely given courteous reception. The old sentences were long and involved, and the speeches were of a length and style that would now be intolerable. It is doubtful whether even a dramatic Whitefield would be accorded the success he had, if he should reappear with the old sentences and the theology of his generation. Labor-saving and time-killing devices have imparted MAGAZINE ESSAYS. 31. their spirit to the methods of our education and the manner of our speech as a result short words are popular, and sentences run in "nervous knots," impatient of being prolonged. A recent writer in the New York Sun did not miss the truth far when he said that eloquence of the future will be "a gleam of light shot into one sentence, a dart of fine reason, an eye-beam, a simple waving of the head." It is certainly true that we are less patient of piled up climaxes and cumulative perorations than our forefathers were. The spirit of the business man permeates the best political speeches of the age, and many popular ministers address sinners on questions of destiny in a crisp, matter-offact manner. The good speaker should be reasonably logical in his conclusions but never tediously so in his methods. An elaborate style filled with abstract philosophy is not suitable for public speeches to miscellaneous audiences. Such addresses should be confined to the lecture rooms of specialists as they invariably disappoint the mass of every day listeners. As a model of literary style some of Lord Macaulay's writings are unequaled. His style is vivid enough for the imagination, yet terse enough for the expression of thought. It is never necessary to read a page twice. An example from his "History of England" is in point. Observe its simple beauty: "We are under a deception similar to that which misleads the traveler in the Arabian desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry and bare; but far in advance and far in the rear is the semblance of refreshing waters. The pilgrims hasten forward, and find nothing but sand where an hour before, they were toiling through sand. A similar illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage of the long progress from poverty and barbarism to the highest degrees of opulence and civilization. But, if we ressolutely chase the mirage backward, we shall find it receding before us into the regions of fabulous antiquity. Such a style has formed the basis of many an orator's speech. It is admirably adapted to outbursts of descriptive eloquence, varying in rythm and intensity with the thought of the speaker. It would not be advisable to follow Carlyle's peculiarities or to imitate his style proper, but there are instances where his feeling is truly magnificent. At times he is intensely eloquent and a peculiar beauty may be seen in his rugged sentences. His description of the kirk or church, is an example which illustrates the idea. Notice how he relates a plain truth in a striking manner: "The church; what a word was there; richer than Golconda and the treasures of the world! In the heart of the remotest mountains rises the little kirk; the dead all slumbering round it, under their white memorial stones, in hope of a happy resurrection: dull wert thou, O reader, if never, in any hour (say of moaning midnight, when such kirk hung spectral in the sky, and being was as if swallowed up of darkness) it spoke to thee-things unspeakable, that went to thy soul's soul." It is a singular fact that many eminent speakers have possessed poor voices, although nothing is more tiresome than to hear a speaker with a defective voice. Many eminent orators have been awkward in gesticulation, although awkwardness usually excites our risibles. As a rule such speakers have charmed by the eloquence and warmth of their feelings or the matchless beauty and power of their language. Awkwardness and poor voice have never aided them, but they have succeeded with all these disadvantages. As the French say, "they have done well in spite of themselves." Colonel Ingersoll, whom many persons,-aside from all question of belief,-regard as the beau ideal of an orator, generally speaks in conversational tones but with great earnestness. He is simple in his language and very natural in his intonations. He once told me that his rule was to speak as he felt. Said he, "If wings come, fly; but never beat the air like a bat and pretend that you are going to soar." The late General James Shields, who had rare opportunities of observing the great men of the Senate in his day and who intimately knew Webster, Clay and Calhoun, once made this remark in my hearing: "The fault of our young men is flippancy in their speeches. They must learn the old maxim not many, but much They must be simple." He valued the thought of a speech first and the language second, and he held that fine thinking would usually find simple words. Elocutionists seldom become good actors or speakers, though a proper study of the science as well as the art of expressing thought and feeling, by vocal utterance and action, ought to perfect the speaker. However, for some reason a mannerism clings to very many elocutionists and they spoil their speeches by reminding one of their artificial methods at every new intonation and gesture. They violate the rule that demands naturalA striking criticism by Col. Ingersoll in a recent number of the ness. MAGAZINE ESSAYS. 33. North American Review* is worthy of notice in this connection. He says: "If you wish to know the difference between an orator and an elocutionist-between what is felt and what is said-between what the heart and brain can do together and what the brain can do alone—read Lincoln's wondrous words at Gettysburg, and then the speech of Edward Everett. The oration of Lincoln will never be forgotten. It will live until languages are dead and lips are dust. The speech of Everett wil never be read. The elocutionists believe in the virtue of voice, the sublimity of syntax, the majesty of long sentences, and the genius of gesture. The orator loves the real, the simple, the natural. He places the thought above all. He knows that the greatest ideas should be expressed in the shortest words-that the greatest statues need the least drapery." Orators should be students of nature and of books. Their reading should be of the best authors, but their own originality should never for an instant be held down by useless forms and rules. Oratory may be cultivated, but for its highest forms we must search until we find a pers on combining natural qualifications with the fruit of much toil. If a man read much, that he may speak powerfully, it is well; but he will need much practice at speaking to enable him to hide the ladders by which he climbed, to dispel the smell of "midnight oil." It is in speaking naturally, spontaneously, and without painful effort, that the greatest effects are produced. The orator must be a student of books and a student of nature, but the knowledge gained from books should be filtered through nature, that it may come with a freshness that delights, with the poetry and sublimity of a Niagara. Invention, or the appearance of invention, is the crowning glory. The orator should have confidence in his cause and in himself, and he must be honest and brave in speech. He is to convince men and make them feel with him, for eloquence is defined to be the art of convincing men by speech. A man who doubts himself or his cause cannot lead others. The orator is essentially the spokesman of à cause and he must be firm when others shake their heads in doubt and fear. Though the age tends toward this or that folly or eccentricity the orator is ever for justice, for the intellect, for man." When men in crowded and smoky cities question the good of civilization; when the church trembles lest infidelity shake its foundations; when monopolies threaten the destruc *NOTE.-The article referred to is entitled Motley and Monarch, and it appears in the North American Review for December 1885. What is said about elocutionists is so a propos that it is inserted in full. |