When we have wandered all our ways, But from this earth, this grave, this dust, My God shall raise me up, I trust. Verses written the night before his death. According to Oldys, they were found in his Bible. SIR PHILLIP SIDNEY. Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge. The Defence of Poesy. High erected thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy. Arcadia, Book I. They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts. My dear, my better half. Book III. Arcadia, Book I. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 1565-1593. Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? Hero and Leander. Quoted by Shakespeare in "As You Like It." None ever loved but at first sight they loved. Come live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That hills and valleys, dales and fields, Woods or steepy mountains, yields. Passionate Shepherd. Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies! Faustus. RICHARD HOOKER. 1553-1600. Of law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in heaven or earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power.-Ecclesiastical Polity, Book I. That to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery. -Same. BY GEO. K. MORRIS, D.D., LL. D. That some public speakers are orators and that others, though able men, are not, is universally admitted. It shall be the aim in this paper to show what makes the orator. In this attempt I shall be guided by the following simple principles: I. The quality that makes a man an orator is one not common to all speakers. 2. This quality is common to all orators of every clime and age. 3. This quality is one which appeals to the universal man not to special classes. It has been said, "There are some speakers to whom you cannot listen; some to whom you can listen, and some to whom you cannot help listening." The "you is the norma1 man. The orator is found in the last class. You cannot help listening to him. This, however is not the whole story. The normal man not only listens to the orator but he is moved while he listens. The orator is one who moves men emotionally through speech and action. His words, attitudes and movements are media by which his personality is made to affect the sensibilities of his hearers. He is effective because he knows how to touch a common susceptibility the uni versal man in every man. 4. This quality, which makes the orator is not a possession, an acquisition, but a state or condition; and is not always at his command. He cannot use this power, he cannot assume the necessary condition by simply willing to do so. If it were possible by a direct act of the will to put oneself in the state in which every word and gesture stir the sensibilities of audiences, there would be no lack of orators. There is a place for the will in oratory, but it is a subordinate one. That condition of the orator's being by which he produces. his effects is superinduced at the moment when the audience bows to its power. It is not the language used, nor the thought expressed but these plus the condition of the speaker's emotional being as he speaks. It is something out of the ordinary. Under normal conditions the orator is like other speakers - indeed he may be inferior to many. words, apparently so potent at the moment of his splendid corruscation, if spoken by an ordinary person, or by himself under ordinary conditions, would have been unmarked by any peculiar power. His This potent condition arises unbidden. The orator does not foresee its approach. If detected prematurely it is apt to vanish. The orator is absorbed in those mental and moral processes of which it is the result and which are effective because he is thus engrossed. Were he to attempt to watch the majestic operations of his subliminal self, to take account of their progress or to submit them to scientific analysis he would annul them. If the orator's power were subject directly to his will he would be able uniformly to place it in evidence; but he is not. Those speakers who have been most remarkable for power over an audience have been remarkable, also, for signal failures. Henry Ward Beecher sometimes failed. I have heard him when one of his famous lectures was listened to by a listless audience, though composed of persons of intelligence. Matthew Simpson, the eloquent Bishop who sometimes rose to sublime heights of eloquence, calling his hearers to their feet by his enchantment, at other times spoke almost tamely. On an occasion when a guest in my home this incomparable orator, knowing the interest felt by his host in this subject, introduced it into the conversation. In the course of his remarks he stated that there is something mysterious about the condition of a speaker when he causes an 66 audience to be fused, as if by magic, into one, and to be brought into willing subjection to his sway. Sometimes, he said, in his own experience, when preaching, he would remain entirely conscious of himself, and fully aware of his audience up to a point, when, as he smilingly put it, something happened;" then, instantly, all would be changed. He would feel himself transformed and find the audience convulsed with emotion. He had not willed it, nor foreseen it, and could not understand it. Every orator of similar power would probably give similar testimony. I heard Mr. Simpson when he was in his prime and saw an illustration of his remark. In later years he often spoke with less than average power. Once when listening to Frederick Douglas in his best days, I sat for many minutes wondering what could have given him his reputation for great eloquence. At length "something happened," and there was a transformation both of speaker and hearers. The effect cannot be described. I was lost to consciousness. When the spell was at last broken and I returned to myself nothing of what had been said remained in memory. Certainly it was not what the great orator had said, but what he had suddenly become that moved his audience as if it had been one person. How his instantaneously changed subjective condition was at the same moment communicated to the crowd before him it would be difficult to tell. Science has no satisfactory explanation to offer. When asked for his theory, the Boston orator, Joseph Cook, said to me, “I do not know," but he hinted at "suggestion as possibly accounting for the conditions. The late eloquent Dr. O. H. Tiffany, some years ago read a sermon at Ocean Grove which produced a profound impression on the immense audience. I did not hear it, but on my arrival the next morning I found everybody talking of the sermon, which, by many was declared to be the greatest discourse which had ever been given from that pulpit, already famous for its eloquent speakers. The following winter, I heard him read the same sermon, on a fair Sunday evening, in his church in New York City. It was read without ani mation and did not move his little audience of sixty persons. It was the great orator of the summer, and the identical sermon. Something happened "to the speaker at the Grove and not at New York. 66 Let us now ask what "happened," what always happens on such occasions to account for the presence of power almost divine, and always recognized by the audience, however composed. Whatever we may find it to be, it is certain that it constitutes the orator. The ability to induce that condition differentiates the orator from all other speakers. Even the orator when this ability is not used is no longer eloquent. Before saying what it is that " happened" let us correct some misconceptions into which students of oratory sometimes fall. 66 First then it is not the manner of orators that explains their singular power. The manner cannot be ignored it is true. It is the means by which the orator manifests the power, but is not that power. It is the product, usually, perhaps, the automatic product of the subjective condition to be explained. Did ever two orators have the same manner? The manner is the man and is distinct as his personality. If this power lay in a manner it might be assumed. Then eloquence would be a knack. Hermagoras, before Cicero's time, insisted that "Oratory is not a knack founded on practice." It is easy to copy a great orator's manner and without result. Blind Tom" could deliver one of Stephen A. Douglas's speeches, exactly imitating the "Little Giant" but it was not eloquence. The best elocution may be utterly void of power, even when founded on the example of some great orator. Did the eloquence of Demosthenes depend upon his manner? Would he have been less persuasive, had training given him another manner? Cicero became famous for eloquence while young and before he came under the influence of the Grecian schools of Rhetoric. After two years of travel and study, he returned greatly modified. He had been vehement and impetuous in delivery; now he is deliberate and self-possessed. But he is Cicero still, |
