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 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
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 PUBLIC SPEAKING 
 
 AND DEBATE 
 
 A Manual for Advocates and Agitators 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'sixty YEARS OF AN AGITATOR'S LIFE' 
 
 All who in the service of God or Man disseminate sentiments of truth 
 and equity, are agitators in the better sense of the term ' 
 
 Maxim of Progress 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 Published by GINN & COMPANY 
 
 1S97
 
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 [^// Rights Reserved.^
 
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 TO THE 
 
 REV. JOSEPH PARKER, D.D. 
 
 HIMSELF A MASTER IN THE ART 
 
 THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN TO COMMEND, WHOM THE AUTHOR 
 
 FOUND TO BE FAIR IN DISCUSSION, IN DAYS 
 
 WHEN FEW MINISTERS WERE SO ; 
 
 AND WHO IN LATER YEARS WAS HIS FRIEND, NOTWITHSTANDING 
 
 HIS DIVERGENCY IN THEOLOGICAL OPINION, 

 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION, ... 
 II. THE SOCIAL AND PUBLIC USES OF RHETORIC, 
 
 III. THE NATURE OF RHETORIC, . 
 
 IV. WHAT IS MEANT BY ELOCUTION, 
 V. REPRESENTATIVE SPEECH, 
 
 VI. LOGIC OF EVERY-DAY LIFE, 
 VII. DELIVERY, 
 
 VIII. GESTURE MEASURED BY CONVICTION, 
 IX. CONDITIONS OF EFFECTIVENESS, 
 X. LAWS OF DEBATE, 
 
 XI. PERSONALITIES THE DIGRESSIONS OF 
 XII. POLICY OF DEBATE, 
 XIII. DEFENCE OF DEBATE, . 
 XIV. THE THEORY OF EPITHETS — MORAL 
 
 RHETORICAL, . 
 XV. METHOD IN EXPRESSION 
 XVI. TACT AN ACQUISITION, 
 XVII. CONTINGENCIES OF PUBLIC MEETINGS, 
 XVIII. WRITING FOR THE PRESS, 
 XIX. SOURCES OF TASTE, 
 
 XX. PREMEDITATION IN SPEECH, . 
 XXI. REPETITION A NECESSITY, 
 
 DEBATE, 
 
 AS WELL AS 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 II 
 
 IS 
 
 26 
 
 37 
 39 
 SO 
 6o 
 
 67 
 
 75 
 
 83 
 92 
 
 102 
 
 loS 
 
 "3 
 119 
 
 124 
 
 130
 
 vni 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP 
 
 XXII. SIGNS OF MASTERY, . 
 XXIII. NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF ORATORY, 
 XXIV. ORIGINALITY IN ORATORY, 
 XXV. THE OUTSIDE MIND OF THE ORATOR, 
 XXVI. PULPIT ORATORY, 
 XXVII. PLATFORM READING, . 
 XXVIII. FIGURES OF SPEECH, . 
 XXIX. POETRY IN RELATION TO RHETORIC, 
 XXX. STYLE EXPLAINED, 
 XXXI. WHAT HAS BEEN SAID, 
 XXXII. PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY, , 
 
 INDEX, ..... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 141 
 161 
 
 180 
 197 
 
 202 
 212 
 222 
 230 
 240 
 
 2S7
 
 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Many years ago I printed an outline book on this sub- 
 ject {Public Speaki?ig and Debate) for the use of persons 
 who found learned treatises on oratory uninteresting, or 
 too profound to be intelligible. Though dealing alone 
 with the Rudiments of the art, it was reprinted in 
 America, and in 1853 the New York Trihine described 
 it as being 'unpretentious and practical.' After the ex- 
 perience of forty years, I write a new book, and trust the 
 reader will find the same qualities in it. 
 
 In 1862, the Rev. Mr Vickers of Boston, America, then 
 visiting England, informed me that he took up, in a New 
 York book-shop, a copy of a work entitled. Public Speaking 
 and Debate^ by John Bower. Upon opening it he found 
 that it was an American edition of Public Speaking and 
 Debate, by G. J. Holyoake, with the name of the author 
 borne by another. This, I hope, may be taken as proof 
 that the book was thought useful by the new author. 
 
 But a testimony of which I have always been proud was 
 that of Wendell Phillips — whom Mr Bright said to me had 
 the most eloquent voice which spoke the English tongue.' 
 Mr Phillips sent me word that he had lent ' his well-thumbed 
 copy of Public Speaking and Debate until he had lost it, upon
 
 2 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 the theory [he benevolently held] that he who most needed 
 a book had the greatest right to it.' Upon that principle, 
 Mr Phillips certainly did not require it. Still, I sent him 
 another copy. It was probably the ethical theory of debate 
 contained in it, upon which we had had personal contro- 
 versy,* which interested him. 
 
 The earliest and most generous of English critics was the 
 Rev. Dr Joseph Parker, who, when he edited the Pulpit 
 Analist, said to young preachers : ' There is Mr Holyoake's 
 Rudiments of Public Speaking and Debate. Get this book 
 if you can. I am afraid it is out of print. It is full of wise 
 and practical counsel, and rich with allusion and quotation 
 of the best kind,' in illustration of which a passage of two 
 pages was cited. Considering that Dr Parker's belief differed 
 widely from mine, of which he was well aware, seeing that 
 we had held a public debate thereupon for several nights, I 
 cite his words (though it will seem egotistical to do it), since 
 they exceed anything I could think of saying myself, to 
 the end of engaging the attention of the reader to these 
 pages, which I suppose to be the object of all intro- 
 ductions. 
 
 Another motive higher than egotism, induces me to in- 
 scribe this book as the reader sees I do. When Mr Allsop 
 proposed to supplement an annuity given me, Dr Parker 
 sent a subscription and wrote a letter to the Daily News, 
 intended to be of service to the fund. I cannot agree 
 where I would — were coincidence of belief a matter of 
 will — but an act of kindness I never forget, and I am glad 
 when I can acknowledge it. 
 
 As respects the texture of the following pages, the reader 
 will discern that it has no merit save incitement, if indeed 
 it has that. 
 
 What is called a ' systematic treatise ' is what is usually 
 looked for on the subject of public speaking. But I have 
 
 * See ' Reply to Letter of Ion ' in the Melodeon, Boston — the only 
 reply Mr Phillips told me he ever made to a European critic.
 
 INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 found those who have followed such have rarely become 
 speakers of mark, until they have freed themselves from the 
 ' system ' and trusted to themselves. A system is a sort of 
 machine, and one reared in it, is apt to be entangled in 
 wheels within wheels, when the time comes for action ; or he 
 finds that the machine, though of most excellent construc- 
 tion, will not work just when it is most wanted to do it. 
 Now, a series of chapters on the essential parts of public 
 speaking — not chained together, but capable of independent 
 use on emergency, with a springing board in each of them 
 from which a speaker of moderate activity can throw himself 
 at will, as it were, into the heart of an argument — will best 
 serve the practical student. The execution may not equal the 
 design but this is the rule on which these pages are written. 
 
 Whatever may conduce to improvement in the art and 
 character of agitation, as it is the hope of the Author this 
 book will do, may be of public service, seeing what an 
 increase of wise, reasoning voices will be heard in the land, 
 as sure-footed democracy advances. 
 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury, being apparently only 
 acquainted with the bad meaning of the term, lately spoke 
 contemptuously of ' agitators,' whereupon the Rev. Stewart 
 Headlam justly asked, ' Were not Paul, and even our Lord 
 Himself, agitators ? Surely it depends upon what you 
 agitate for, and how you agitate, as to whether an 
 " agitator " is to be condemned or praised.' Mr Headlam 
 might have asked, where would the Archbishop be but for 
 that superb, irrepressible agitator Luther? Not thought 
 much of by the archbishops of his day. 
 
 Just-minded agitation prevents the putrefaction of opinion, 
 which is as fatal to States as to Truth. Cowper wrote : — 
 
 Winds from all quarters agitate the air, 
 And fit the limpid element for use.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE SOCIAL AND PUBLIC USES OF RHETORIC 
 
 In this country, where the political genius of the people 
 lies in self-government, where liberty depends upon the 
 capacity of justly stating its claims, the art of public speaking 
 has public importance. 
 
 To be able to take a subject well in hand, like a stage- 
 coach driver does his horses, to hold the reins of argument 
 firmly, to direct and drive well home the burden of mean- 
 ing, is a power useful to every man who rises to address a 
 congregation or a council, or stands up in Parliament to 
 persuade, or on a platform to convince a meeting. 
 
 Perfect expression is even an indispensable household 
 acquisition — a social charm, an economy in explanation, 
 and hourly ministers to good understandings. In public, a 
 good speech, well-spoken, is part of the necessary defence 
 of truth and right. In one of his famous letters to Mr 
 Delane (1864), Mr Cobden remarks : — 
 
 * It is known that I am not in the habit of writing a word 
 beforehand of what I speak in public. Like other speakers, 
 practice has given me as perfect self-possession in the 
 presence of an audience, as if I were writing in my closet. 
 Now, my ever-constant and over-ruling thought while 
 addressing a public meeting — the one necessity which long 
 experience of the arts of controversialists has impressed on 
 my mind, is to avoid the possibility of being misrepresented, 
 and prevent my opponents from raising a false issue — a 
 trick of logic as old as the time of Aristotle. If I have, as 
 some favourable critics are pleased to think, sometimes 
 
 4
 
 THE SOCIAL AND PUBLIC USES OF RHETORIC 5 
 
 spoken with clearness, it is more owing to this ever-present 
 fear of misrepresentation than any other cause.' 
 
 This remarkable antobiographical passage shows how the 
 practice of rhetoric had trained great natural powers to 
 explicitness and mastery in their use. 
 
 Progression is a series of stages — individuals first, then 
 groups, then classes, then nations are raised. You can no 
 more introduce the people at once to the highest results of 
 philosophy than you can take them to the summit of a 
 monument without ascending the steps, or reach a 
 distant land without travelling to it. But it is possible to 
 impart method in classification, coherence in inferences, 
 and inculcate justice in invective. The people are not 
 waiting for new discoveries in thought ; there is more 
 wisdom extant than they master, more precepts than they 
 apply. The scaling-ladders of the wise, which they, having 
 mounted the citadel of wisdom, have kicked down, are yet 
 of service to those who are below. The author has picked 
 one of these ladders up, and reared it in these pages for 
 the use of those who have yet to rise. 
 
 In the ancient state of society, war was the only trade, 
 force the only teacher, and the battle-axe the only argu- 
 ment. A transition has, indeed, taken place ; the times, 
 and means, and ends are changed. The struggle now is 
 for income and intelligence, and most men are engaged in a 
 double battle against want and error. Provided the literary 
 sword will cut, few will quarrel about its polish. If the 
 blade has good temper, he who needs it will put up with a 
 plain hilt. 
 
 A poor man cannot rival the rich in luxury of life, but 
 he can in luxury of knowledge. He cannot furnish his 
 house as the wealthy can, but he can furnish his head. He 
 cannot found a house of note, but he may found a mind of 
 mark. Though some kingdoms may be afilicted or adorned 
 with kings, learning has always been a republic, where all 
 are equal who know.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE NATURE OF RHETORIC 
 
 Plato's definition of rhetoric is still bright and suggestive ; 
 namely : ' Rhetoric is the art of persuading the minds of 
 men.' Rhetoric is commonly regarded as a pretentious, 
 superfine, or ornate way of presenting an argument; 
 whereas rhetoric merely means the art of speaking to a 
 purpose. A rhetorician originally meant a public speaker, 
 whose object was orally to influence opinion in courts, in 
 council, or in public meetings. The highest effort of public 
 speaking is seen when the object of the speaker is to per- 
 suade the minds of men to accept some great principle, 
 or adopt some just policy in public affairs. 
 
 There were two Herberts of mark in literature — George 
 (1581) and Edward (1593). Edward is commonly spoken 
 of as Lord Herbert of Cherbury. It is he who likens 
 rhetoric to * a diamond which is of small use until it is cut 
 and polished, when its angles send forth flashes of light 
 which arrest and delight every eye.' 
 
 By reasoning we satisfy ourselves, by rhetoric we satisfy 
 others. The rhetorician is commonly, but unwisely, con- 
 sidered most perfect who carries his point by whatever 
 means. ' Men like to see the man who is a match for 
 events, and equal to any exigency.' But it is plain we must 
 make some distinction as to the manner in which a point 
 is to be carried. We may as well say that a man may 
 carry the point of life by any means, that is fill his pockets 
 
 6
 
 THE NATURE OF RHETORIC 7 
 
 by any means, as influence men by any means. A low 
 appeal to the passions we call claptrap. Dr Johnson, who 
 put morality into his definitions, said, ' Oratory is the power 
 of beating down your adversaries' arguments, and putting 
 better in their places.' 
 
 It impHes force and individuality of mind when a man 
 desires to reason out things for himself. Most men prefer 
 to be told what to think ; they are perplexed, and find them- 
 selves lost in a maze of feeling, prejudice and interests ; 
 they cannot see far, nor appreciate what is near. They 
 might have a commanding view of the field of difficulty from 
 an eminence, but eminences are not to be attained without 
 exertion, and most men are disinclined to exertion. They 
 are therefore grateful to anyone who will climb the mount 
 and tell them what he sees. But if he can do more — can 
 tell them not only what they should do and why they should 
 do it — he opens their minds, satisfies their judgment, and 
 inspires them with a new and, let us hope with Dr Johnson, 
 a right purpose. He who satisfies by right reason the 
 conscience of others, commands them without fraud or 
 force. He teaches no unmanly subjection of the under- 
 standing; he neither invokes nor needs submission to 
 authority ; he represents the only leadership consistent with 
 progress — the leadership of ideas commended by reason. 
 Such are the just aims of honest rhetoric.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHAT IS MEANT BY ELOCUTION 
 
 The literal meaning of elocution is *to speak out.* Dic- 
 tionaries and writers on rhetoric define elocution as that 
 pronunciation which is given to words when they are 
 arranged into sentences and form discourse. This concep- 
 tion of it confines it to articulation, whereas elocution 
 includes accurateness, distinctness and natural modulation 
 of words, in private as well as public life. Modulation 
 comes by emotion, but accuracy and distinctness of speech 
 come by art. 
 
 The object of public speech is persuasion. It ought to 
 be the object of private speech also. To persuade by 
 public speech requires a voice articulate and audible. That 
 is the beginning of practical influence in elocution. A 
 man will speak all his life and never notice that words 
 are merely sounds. Accustomed to see words in books, he 
 forgets, or does not realise, that words are merely sounds 
 to the hearer. The difference between the foreign language 
 and the English consists only in a different set of sounds. 
 A man wonders, when he stands by a telegraph clerk, how 
 he turns ticks into words, and does not know that the ticks 
 are sounds of words made by a machine. Chicago is a 
 fine Indian word, sounding as though written She-c^r-go. 
 If anyone should pronounce it Chick-a-go, nobody would 
 understand what place he meant ; or should he at dinner, 
 wanting tomatoes, pronounce the word tom-a-toes, the 
 waiter would not know what to give him. 
 
 A speaker must use his ears to learn what sounds he 
 
 8
 
 WHAT IS MEANT BY ELOCUTION 9 
 
 should make, and be alert with his ears to note what sounds 
 others make. People will listen to one who can be easily 
 heard. The clear, strong speaking man can command a 
 hearing. He who fills the ear carries weight. Few have 
 minds to fill — all have ears. 
 
 A letter addressed as follows was a puzzle to the best 
 readers in the Post Office for some time : — ' Serum Fridavi, 
 Londres ; ' when, by reading the address aloud, with the 
 French as well as the English sound of the vowels, it was 
 found to be — 'Sir Humphry Davy, London.' 
 
 At an Anti-Corn Law meeting held in Glasgow, in 1845, 
 I sat at half-distance from the platform. As my name had 
 been given to the Lord Provost, I was uncertain whether I 
 should not be called upon to take part in the proceedings, 
 and therefore was anxious to hear all that was said. It was 
 at this time that I first felt perfectly the annoyance of indis- 
 tinct speaking. At the Newhall Hill meetings in Birming- 
 ham I had been accustomed to hear Warwickshire orators 
 vocal, but in Glasgow I found they only spoke, and spoke 
 as though they were paid for the sound they made, and did 
 not get a good price for it. At length the Rev. Dr King 
 arose, who spoke with strong deliberateness — words well 
 conceived and well delivered. The syllables fell on the 
 ear like the steady tolling of a bell. His voice was the 
 relief of the night. Whenever I go to a public meeting, I 
 pray that one of the speakers may have Dr King's quality 
 of utterance. 
 
 There are two ways of speaking — one from the throat, the 
 other from the chest. The chest voice is louder, and lasts 
 longer. The stage voice is a chest voice, whose uniformity 
 and peculiarity everyone knows. Both actors and singers in- 
 flate the chest to deepen, strengthen, and prolong the tones. 
 
 Most grammars give a list of about twenty-two words 
 beginning with h in which the h is not sounded. These words 
 have to be spoken as though they began with a vowel. All 
 other words beginning with h must have that letter dis-
 
 lO PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 tinctly heard. In illustration of this neglect of aspiration* 
 where proper, teachers of elocution say that if the Indian 
 swallows the sword we (h)eat the poker. Care in speaking 
 the aspirate words, and in not aspirating words where the 
 h is silent, nor in words beginning with a vowel, will dis- 
 appoint novelists who, unable to delineate character in which 
 the person is identified by his mind, invent peculiarities of 
 manners or of speech. Writers of small knowledge delight 
 to sneer at those who have less, and write the names of 
 Harriet and Harry without the H. Rapid utterance and a 
 slovenliness of speaking, habitual with those who have not 
 thought upon the intention of speech, make it difficult to 
 them to aspirate when they should and avoid doing it when 
 they should not. To speak the aspirate at will, or to omit 
 it at will, comes easy to those who speak deliberately. 
 Vowels should have a bold open tone — a slight, short, 
 mincing pronunciation of the unaccented vowels is a fault 
 to be well avoided. 
 
 Audibility depends chiefly on articulation, and articulation 
 depends much on the distinctness with which we hear the 
 final consonants. They need attention as well as vowels. 
 
 W. J. Fox, the great preacher of South Place Chapel, 
 whose voice was neither loud nor strong, was heard in every 
 part, and all over Covent Garden Theatre, when he made 
 Anti-Corn Law orations there, by the clearness with which 
 he pronounced the final consonants of the words he spoke. 
 I must myself have failed in this respect when speaking 
 at the Walsall Literary Institute, and comparing the speak- 
 ing of Pitt and Mr Chamberlain as having the same quality 
 of ' overcomingness.' The report in the papers represented 
 me as charging Mr Chamberlain with ' over-cunningness,' 
 which was a sinister imputation neither in my mind nor 
 on my tongue — but the error was owing to defect of the 
 reporter's ear, or more probably to indistinctness in my 
 pronunciation. 
 
 * Aspiration is pronouncing the h with a fiill breath.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE SPEECH 
 
 To speak or debate to any advantage, a person must possess 
 some knowledge of the laws of speech. This means a prac- 
 tical idea of grammar — practical in the sense of being on a 
 level with the average capacity of mankind. As I have said 
 elsewhere, no department of knowledge is like grammar. A 
 person may conceal his ignorance of any other art — but every 
 time he speaks he publishes his ignorance of this. Other 
 arts may be practised occasionally, but the art of speaking 
 must be practised continually. Is it not strange that what 
 all must do hourly, few care to do correctly ? There can be 
 no greater imputation on the intelligence of any man, than 
 that he should talk from the cradle to the tomb, and never 
 talk well. 
 
 It is as necessary to get knowledge as to eat and drink. 
 You would not ask another to eat and drink for you. All 
 are as well able to learn as to eat, and it is quite as needful. 
 Lord Herbert, heretofore quoted, tells us that 'between 
 grammar, logic and rhetoric there exists a close and happy 
 connection, which reigns through all science and extends to 
 all the powers of eloquence.' 
 
 Everybody knows what representation means in politics. 
 A little thought of this will save a man from ordinary error. 
 To make things plain in speech it only needs that a man 
 makes up his mind as to what he is talking about. If he 
 reasons, let it be not upon hearsay, or rumour or imagination, 
 
 II
 
 12 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 but upon ascertained facts, and he will seldom go wrong. 
 What is called grammar is the same thing as the Franchise 
 Bill. It is simply the full representation of the facts of speech. 
 Daily talk is of a man, or of a woman, or of a thing and 
 of something they do. If when we speak of the man we 
 allude to the man as he, if we refer to a woman we take 
 care to say she, or if we speak of a thing we allude to the 
 thing as it, we accord each fair representation. What a 
 man or woman, or a thing does is expressed by a verb. If 
 one person does a thing we say he does it. If two persons 
 do a thing we say they do it. If it be a thing which acts, 
 as the sun, we say it shines. Just as every voter at the poll 
 says, ' That is my house on the register, and I pay the rent 
 there,' so in grammar all men and women and things have 
 pronouns and verbs and delegate words which belong to 
 them, and by which alone they can be identified and repre- 
 sented, and whoever gives them their proper representation 
 makes his meaning plain to all men. Grammar is but the 
 universal suffrage of common sense. 
 
 Inattention to conditions and care is expressed in an 
 epigram of sensible if not elegant lines : — 
 
 He started with lect'ring and ended with verse, 
 And from first to last got gradually worse ; 
 He wrote without spelling, and spoke without rule, 
 Long declaimed without knowledge, and ended a fool. 
 
 How different another, who thinks night and day, 
 Deciding what will best become him to say, 
 And how best to say it when he has made up his mind ! 
 A contrast more useful is not easy to find. 
 
 The way in which nouns (which signify names) are repre- 
 sented by pronouns (or fornouns) is shown in an admirable 
 sentence of Dr Johnson's : — 
 
 ' Pope was not content to satisfy ; he desired to excel, 
 and therefore always endeavoured to do his best ; he did 
 not court the candour, but dared the judgment of his reason,
 
 REPRESENTATIVE SPEECH 1 3 
 
 and expecting no indulgence from others, he showed none 
 to himself.^ 
 
 Without the employment of pronouns the sentence would 
 read, with many unpleasant repetitions, thus : — Pope was 
 not content to satisfy ; Pope desired to excel, and therefore 
 always endeavoured to do Pope's best ; Pope did not court 
 the candour, but dared the judgment of Pope's reader, and 
 expecting no indulgence from others, Pope showed none 
 to Pope's self. 
 
 There is the same kind of representation in verbs. Every 
 verb is connected with or actuated by some noun or pro- 
 noun, expressed or understood. 
 
 Example : — Hazlitt looked with despairing wonder on 
 Burke's style. Year after year he tried to write a single essay 
 that should please himself.' 
 
 If we inquire here who looked ? the answer is Hazlitt. 
 Who tried ? Hazlitt. Whenever a verb is found, the actor 
 must be found and both examined, to see if the two agree, 
 for every verb must be of the same number, and of the 
 same person, as the noun or pronoun with which it is con- 
 nected, whether it be expressed or merely understood. 
 
 When this representation is observed, a person is said to 
 speak grammatically. Representation is grammar. 
 
 There may be good speaking and writing with a moderate 
 knowledge of grammar. One who has authority in these 
 matters asks, — ' How would some of our fashionable writers 
 stare if they could read Thucydides or Plato ! The best 
 authors had no authority before them. Pascal and Madame 
 de Sevigne wrote before there was any French grammar, I 
 believe ; Demosthenes and Cicero before there was a Greek 
 or a Latin one.' 
 
 When I conducted classes at Crutched Friars, about 1845, 
 I wrote and printed an Act of Parliament for enforcing the 
 Queen's Enghsh. Its clauses prescribed the rules of repre- 
 sentation I have explained. 
 
 Nor did I find any difficulty in teaching little children to
 
 14 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 write little letters to their parents in a week. As soon as a 
 child can make a round O and a straight line it can make all 
 the letters of the alphabet. A is composed of three straight 
 lines, B of a line and two halves of O. A line and half O 
 makes D. G is O left open with a short Hne. E F H I K 
 L M N T V W X Y Z are all made of straight lines. J is a 
 line and half an O. P is made the same way. R is two lines 
 
 and half an 0. Q is an O and short line. S is two halves 
 of O up end on end. U is made by half an O and two up- 
 right lines. There you have the whole alphabet, from which 
 a child will select DEAR MOTHER in an hour. 
 A Child's First Writing Book I published, made this plain 
 and easy to hundreds of children fifty years ago. A child 
 will go forward himself as soon as his teacher finds for him 
 a beginning, which the little learner can see, understand, 
 and feel to be within his power. It is the same with older 
 students on the threshold of a new subject
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 LOGIC OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 
 
 The public speaker requires to know something of the 
 rudiments of reasoning, which we may call the logic of every- 
 day life. Logic is the basis of oratory, for no sensible man 
 is moved to action unless he sees a reason for it. Genius 
 in argument consists in seeing relevancies and in enabhng 
 others to see them. 
 
 Natural pride in the distinction of learning and the passion 
 for superiority, from which the learned are not exempt, lead 
 them to decry all capacity outside their own, so that common 
 sense is behttled and discouraged, and many never use or 
 cultivate the natural power they have, and cease to have 
 confidence in themselves. All the while, common sense is 
 the natural sense of mankind. It is the product of common 
 observation and experience. It is modest, plain and un- 
 sophisticated. It sees with everybody's eyes and hears 
 with everybody's ears. It has no capricious distinction, 
 no perplexities, and no mysteries. It never equivocates 
 and never trifles. Its language is always intelligible. It is 
 known by clearness of speech and singleness of purpose. 
 The most prudent of all the children of fact, it never forsakes 
 nature or reason. Some outline laws for its employment in 
 reasoning — if they can be indicated — must be better than 
 a distrustful, aimless and desultory use. 
 
 Why, in speaking, should not anyone express himself with 
 
 15
 
 l6 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 grammatical coherence and a certain bold perspicuity, if 
 not able to reach refinement and elegance ? Why, in pro- 
 nunciation, should ordinary persons not speak with a certain 
 manly openness of vowel sound and a distinct articulation, if 
 not with all elocutionary modulation ? Why should not their 
 discourse be expressed in brief, clear sentences? If their 
 punctuation went no further than placing capital letters at 
 the commencement of sentences and of proper names, and 
 periods at the conclusion of sentences, it would render their 
 writing more intelligible than are half the communications 
 they now send to the press. If they mastered only brevity 
 and abrupt directness, and learned to omit wearying prolixity, 
 they would command a hearing in many cases where now 
 they are denied one. If in logic they made a shrewd 
 mastery of plain facts — being as sure as they could, when 
 once set on surety, avoiding conjecture and supposition — 
 if they followed the methods of nature and good sense, 
 where the elaborate methods of art are hidden from them, 
 who will not admit that they would be more intelligible 
 than now, exercise power, and extort attention and esteem 
 where now they excite compassion, or outrage plain taste? 
 The people would be enabled to do these things, but that so 
 many, who prepare treatises for their guidance, alarm them 
 by the display of abstruse dissertation above their powers, 
 their means, their time, and their wants. 
 
 There is less occasion to speak of the utility of logic 
 than to show it to be easy of acquisition. John Stuart 
 Mill observes : — ' We need not seek far for a solution of the 
 question so often agitated respecting the utility of logic. If 
 a science of logic exists, or is capable of existing, it must be 
 useful. If their be rules to which every mind conforms in 
 every instance in which it judges rightly, there seems little 
 necessity for discussing whether a person is more likely to 
 observe those rules when he knows the rules, than when 
 he is unacquainted with them.' * 
 
 * System of Logic, p. I2. Second Edition.
 
 LOGIC OF EVERYDAY LIFE I7 
 
 Certainly people are not so much prejudiced against logic 
 on account of its supposed uselessness as on account of 
 its supposed difficulties. Logic has always had a good 
 reputation. The popular impression has uniformly been 
 in its favour. It has been valued like the diamond — but 
 considered, Hke that precious stone, to be of very uncertain 
 access and difficult to polish, save by experts. 
 
 Common sense — the exercise of the judgment unaided 
 by scholastic rule — being the best sense the untutored have, 
 they wisely use it, and no wonder if they laud what they are 
 constrained to employ. Doubtless they perceive that 
 common sense would be the better for being made orderly, 
 as a spirited horse is the fitter for use after it has been 
 'broken.' If common sense can be rendered disciplined 
 sense, it will have all the advantage of the trained soldier 
 over the raw recruit. 
 
 A few years ago, England was interested in an American 
 teacher of equine rhetoric, Mr Rarey, who won both money 
 and renown by giving lessons in the art of persuading the 
 minds of horses. Dean Swift, in his Gulliver's Travels, 
 shows that the kingdom of horses is in many respects a 
 more rational kingdom than the kingdom of men. The 
 horse is simple in its taste, temperate in its habits, graceful 
 in its movements, proud in spirit, and wary in conduct — 
 which is much more than can be said of many men. Mr 
 Rarey showed that he believed in the reasoning power of 
 horses, and that it is possible to persuade their minds to 
 good conduct. If horses can learn to reason, why not 
 men? 
 
 Reasoning is a simple business. To reason is to state 
 revelant facts in support of a proposition. Reason is the 
 faculty of perceiving coherences. Efiective reasoning is 
 stating them so that others cannot but see them too. 
 Reasoning on the abstrusest questions consists in arriving 
 at a remote truth by discovering its coherence with the 
 preceding facts in the same chain.
 
 l8 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 A syllogism is a peculiar form of expression, in which 
 every argument may be stated. It consists of three 
 propositions. 
 
 1. Whoever have their heads cut off ought to be allowed 
 to ask the reason why, 
 
 2. Women have their heads cut off. 
 
 3. Therefore women ought to be allowed to ask (politically 
 at least) the reason why. 
 
 This is an argument of Madame de Stael in the days of 
 the first Napoleon, in allusion to the beheading of wom.en 
 in France, without allowing them any voice in making the 
 laws which determine the offences for which they suffered. 
 
 A syllogism is constructed upon the principle (known as 
 the Dictum of Aristotle) that whatever is affirmed or denied 
 universally of a whole class of things, may be affirmed or 
 denied of anything comprehended in that class. Thus, the 
 first proposition introduces the class of persons who have 
 their heads cut off. Of this class it is affirmed that they 
 ought to be allowed to ask the reason why. But women 
 are included in the class of persons who have their heads 
 cut off, and consequently that may be affirmed of them 
 which is affirmed of the whole class, when the conclusion is 
 — that they should be allowed to ask the reason why. 
 
 Logic may be defined as the art of recognising, stating 
 and testing truth. To make a truth plain it is put in 
 the form of a syllogism. All men have common sense. 
 Peter Luton is a man. Therefore Peter Luton has common 
 sense. Now Peter may be a known idiot, but the syllogism 
 is true. The logic of the schools has nothing to do with 
 the truth of the facts, opinions, or presumptions, from which 
 an inference is derived ; but simply takes care that the 
 inference shall certainly he true if the premises be true. 
 But the chief premise in the syllogism given is not true — 
 that all men have common sense, and therefore the infer- 
 ence is not true that Peter Luton has common sense. 
 
 This is the point that the reader should consider. It
 
 LOGIC OF EVERYDAY LIFE 1 9 
 
 was Sir James Mackintosh, I think, who said that ' men fall 
 into a thousand errors by reasoning from false premises to 
 fifty they make by wrong inferences from premises they 
 employ.' The late Professor Jowett is reported to have 
 said that ' logic is neither an art nor a science, but a dodge.' 
 It is little better than a 'dodge' when it is confined to 
 making inferences from premises not known to be true. 
 An assertion that represents things as they really are, is a 
 truth — an assertion that represents things as in reality 
 they are not, is a falsehood. Truth, in sculpture, means an 
 exact similitude of some living form, chiselled in stone or 
 marble. Truth, in painting, is a natural representation on 
 canvas, or otherwise, of some person or object. In the 
 same manner, moral truth is an exact image of things set 
 forth in speech or writing. The logical definition of truth 
 is given in these words : — ' Truth is that which admits of 
 proof,' that is, an assertion or denial which can be sub- 
 stantiated by facts. 
 
 Tyranny, says Cobbett, has no enemy so formidable as 
 the pen. Why ? ' Because the pen pursues tyranny both 
 in life and beyond the grave.' How is it proved to be 
 the most formidable enemy of tyranny? From the fact 
 that tyranny has no enemy so formidable as that which 
 assails not only its existence, but its reputation, which may 
 pursue it in life and beyond the grave. Such interroga- 
 tories and replies generate the syllogistic form thus : — 
 
 1. Tyranny has no enemy so formidable as that which 
 may assail not only its existence, but its reputation, which 
 may pursue it in life and beyond the grave. 
 
 2. The pen may pursue tyranny in life and beyond the 
 grave. 
 
 3. Therefore, tyranny has no enemy so formidable as the 
 pen. 
 
 Syllogism need not begin with a universal proposition. 
 But care must be taken not to draw an infinite conclusion 
 from finite premises.
 
 20 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 In the following syllogism the chief proposition is limited : 
 
 Aristides was virtuous, 
 Aristides was a pagan, 
 
 therefore 
 Some pagan was virtuous. 
 
 The inference is limited. The proof is that some one 
 pagan was virtuous. 
 
 Induction — a mode of logic which Bacon established — 
 means reasoning from facts. A proposition is concluded to 
 be true when the number of facts relevant to it and in 
 favour of it greatly exceed all the known facts against it. 
 But the quality of the facts as well as the number must be 
 carefully weighed. "When a lady once consulted Dr Johnson 
 on the degree of turpitude to be attached to her son's 
 robbing an orchard — 'Madam,' said Johnson, 'it all de- 
 pends upon the weight of the boy. I remember my school- 
 fellow, Davy Garrick, who was always a little fellow, robbing 
 a dozen orchards with impunity, but the very first time I 
 climbed up an apple tree, for I was always a heavy boy, the 
 bough broke with me, and it was called a judgment. I 
 suppose that is why Justice is represented with a pair of 
 scales.' This may not be the precise reason why Justice 
 has a pair of scales, but the point goes to the root of the 
 matter. Without weighing there can be neither justice nor 
 fair induction. When Ali Pacha was at Janina, the case of 
 a poor woman, who accused a man of the theft of all her 
 property, was brought before him ; but the woman having 
 no witnesses, the case was discharged, as the man asserted 
 his innocence, and insisted, as a proof, that he had not a 
 farthing in the world. On their leaving his presence, Ali 
 ordered both to be weighed, and then released them without 
 further notice. A fortnight afterwards he commanded both 
 into his presence, and again weighed them ; the woman had 
 lost as much as the man had gained in weight, and Ali 
 decided that the accusation was just. Ali Pacha was the
 
 LOGIC OF EVERYDAY LIFE 21 
 
 Burlamlqui of justice; Burlamiqui was a writer on logic, who 
 insisted on attention being given to the preponderance of 
 relevant facts. 
 
 In the case of the Leigh Peerage a number of witnesses 
 were examined in the House of Lords as to the existence of 
 a certain monument in Stonely Church — ' The first witness 
 described the monument as being black ; the second spoke 
 of it as a kind of dove-colour ; the third said it was black 
 and white ; the fourth said it was originally white, but dirty, 
 when he saw it ; the fifth, differing from the others, said it 
 was blue ; the next witness described it as a light marble, 
 but said it had a dark appearance as if it had been bronzed ; 
 and the last witness spoke of it as being of a light grey colour. 
 Then, as to the form of the monument, the first witness said 
 it was oblong ; the next said it was square at the top, and 
 came down narrower to the bottom, and there rested on a 
 single truss ; the third witness described it as being square 
 at the bottom, resting upon two trusses, and went up narrower 
 and narrower to a point at the top ; the fourth witness said 
 it was angular at the top ; the next said it was square at the 
 bottom, was brought to a point in the middle, and was then 
 curved into a sort of festoon ; the sixth witness stated that it 
 was square at the top and bottom, and had a curve ; and the 
 last said it was square at the top and bottom. As to the 
 language of the inscriptions, the first witness stated that the 
 names of Thomas and Christopher Leigh were in English ; 
 the next said the inscription was not in English ; the third 
 said there was a great deal in English ; the fourth witness 
 said the whole (with the exception of the name Christopher 
 Leigh) was in a language which he did not understand ; the 
 next witness stated that the inscription was all in English, 
 except the words An?io Dommi ; and the last witness said it 
 was not in English,' 
 
 All these witnesses agree as to the fact in dispute, but 
 their variances in testimony illustrate the common inattention 
 of observation and indistinctness of memory j and this case
 
 22 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 further admonishes us that if such differences may exist as 
 to a question of fact, Uttle wonder that differences exist as to 
 matters of opinion, where intellectual capacity and informa- 
 tion are so various. 
 
 If a man looks well to the truth of the premises from 
 which he reasons, he will never go far wrong. When Pope, 
 in a moment of aberration, wrote, — 
 
 Be not the first by whom the new is tried. 
 Nor yet the last to lay the old aside, 
 
 it only wants common sense — and not much of that — to see 
 that if all men act on this advice, no one will ever try a new 
 thing or leave off an old one, and the world would stand still. , 
 
 A few years ago, a distinguished clergyman of the Univer- 
 salist denomination was accused, while in Lowell, of 'violently 
 dragging his wife from a revival meeting, and compelling her 
 to go home with him.' He replied : ' Firstly, I have never 
 attempted to influence my wife in her views, nor her choice 
 of a meeting ; secondly, my wife has not attended any of the 
 revival meetings for any purpose whatever ; thirdly, I never 
 on any occasion forbade my wife to attend a revival meet- 
 ing ; fourthly, neither my wife nor myself have any inclina- 
 tion to attend those meetings ; and fifthly, I never had a 
 wife.' 
 
 This is a fair example of confutation without creating 
 satisfaction. The clergyman gave a technical answer. The 
 questioner assumed that the lady they had in their minds 
 was his wife. She may have been his sister, or niece, or 
 housekeeper, or relative in his house, over whom he had 
 control — and used it. He would have been more instructive 
 and given more satisfaction had he denied having interfered 
 or sought to control anyone attending the meeting in ques- 
 tion. Though he had * no desire to attend ' such place, he 
 may have been there all the same. He merely fenced with 
 his reply, which is clever but not creditable. 
 
 Imagine a tramcar director, waited upon by persons who
 
 LOGIC OF EVERYDAY LIFE 23 
 
 want to know whether the new car would leave at the usual 
 time, and take up passengers at the usual places, who should 
 answer : — Firstly, we have no 'new car,' and never had; 
 secondly, we do not leave at the * usual time ' ; thirdly, we 
 do not 'take up passengers,' that is the business of the 
 police ; fourthly, we have no ' usual places.' This would be 
 a good technical reply of the official type. But having 
 regard to the interests of the company, he would explain that 
 they had taken over the rolling stock of another company, 
 and had built no 'new car' themselves; the 'usual time' 
 was now a quarter of an hour earlier ; that passengers ' step 
 up ' into the car, are not ' taken up ' ; and that they now 
 stop for passengers wherever hailed. The representative of 
 an interest is communicative and explanatory, why not the 
 representative of truth ? 
 
 The schoolmen, by teaching that logic has only to do with 
 inferences, and that if the inference is true, the thing reasoned 
 upon has to be accepted, have caused great superstitions to 
 have long life in the world. He who begins to reason with- 
 out knowing what from, is trying to get a living inference out 
 of dead premises. Be sure your premises are alive, or your 
 inferences will smell like stale fish when brought into the 
 market of debate. 
 
 Man should begin with himself. He loves truth — it is 
 the first impulse of his nature. He loves justice — the 
 bandit on the throne, as well as the bandit in the forest, 
 respects justice in some form or other. Man loves cheer- 
 fulness — it is the attribute of innocence and courage. He 
 loves fraternity — it knits society together in brotherhood. 
 These are standards in the mind of him who thinks. His 
 codes of life and judgment arise therefrom. That which ac- 
 cords with these principles is reasonable. Whatever develops 
 these principles in conduct is moral. These sentiments are 
 to be confirmed by his own observations. His experi- 
 ence in connection with these rules is the light with which 
 he may examine religions, creeds, books, systems, opinions.
 
 24 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Pope, one of the few poets who had logic in his bones, 
 
 writes : — 
 
 Say first of God above or man below, 
 
 What can we reason but from what we know ? 
 
 Definition is the soul of argument, and therefore attention 
 must be paid to it. Definition originates in accurate and 
 comprehensive observation. ' There cannot be,' says Mill, 
 * agreement about the definition of a thing, until there is 
 agreement about the thing itself. To define a thbig is to 
 select from among the whole of its properties those which shall 
 be understood to be designated atid declared by its name ; and 
 the properties must be very well known to us before we can 
 be competent to determine which of them are fittest to be 
 chosen for this purpose.' 
 
 To define a thing, says Dr Watts, we must ' ascertain with 
 what it agrees, then note the most remarkable attribute of 
 difference, and join the two together.' In fact, a valid 
 definition selects that particular in which the thing in 
 
 question differs from every other. So that it cannot be 
 
 confounded with any other. 
 
 Every man of common sense can tell upon reflection what 
 
 course of conduct would be useful if all men followed it. 
 
 At least, in affairs of daily life men can tell this, and in affairs 
 
 of public life considering the effect of a thing upon society 
 
 is a good guide. Dumont puts this very clearly in the 
 
 following questions : — 
 
 * What is it to give a good reason for a law ? It is to 
 
 show the good and the evil which that law tends to produce ; 
 
 so much good, so much argument in its favour ; so much 
 
 evil, so much argument against it.' 
 
 ' What is it to give a bad reason ? It is to allege for or 
 
 against a law, any other thing than its effects, whether good 
 
 or evil.' 
 
 ' Nothing more simple ; yet nothing more new. It is not 
 
 the principle of utility which is new ; on the contrary, it is of
 
 LOGIC OF EVERYDAY LIFE 2$ 
 
 necessity as ancient as the race of man. Whatever there is 
 of truth in morals, whatever there is of good in law, proceeds 
 from this principle.' 
 
 There are five things which young logicians mistake for 
 reasons : — (i) Antiquity of a thing is not a reason, because 
 mankind were never infallible. (2) Religious authority is 
 not a reason, for in every nation it has often been in the 
 wrong. (3) Disowning innovation is not a reason, for to 
 reject all innovation is to reject all improvement. (4) 
 Arbitrary definition is not a reason, for using a word in a 
 sense it has not been used in before, it bewilders the reader 
 or hearer by an appearance of depth and subtlety which is 
 unreal. {5) Metaphor or analogy is not a reason, they 
 illustrate an argument but do not make one. 
 
 There are three maxims in law which may be usefully 
 remembered in reasoning: — (i) Words spoken of one 
 thing ought not to be perverted to another. (2) He who 
 does not truly speak the truth is a betrayer of truth. (3) 
 Contradictions cannot be brought into being.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 DELIVERY 
 
 Delivery relates primarily to ease, audibility, and expres- 
 siveness of speaking. Expressiveness includes fervour and 
 gesture. But fervour and gesture belong to natural passion 
 rather than to care and skill. 
 
 Delivery is a carrier's term, and sounds too mechanical 
 for elocution ; nevertheless, a speech is a delivery of 
 information or incentive, and the manner of it is important. 
 Delivery is, in fact, elocution in practice. Vigorous, 
 sonorous delivery is called declamation. The speech 
 of Brutus, defending the assassination of Cassar, or that 
 of Anthony denouncing it, are declaimed on the stage. 
 Declamation is also applied to speech pompously spoken 
 without adequate force of sense — to propositions daring in 
 sound but meek in proof. Oriental speech is generally 
 graceful and fascinating declamation — ornament without 
 profit. Paul's famous declamation on charity includes no 
 reason why anyone should have charity. Many contrive to 
 do very well without it. Its beauty, its eminence as a virtue, 
 the apostle excels in setting forth. It remained for Richard 
 Hooker sixteen centuries later to show how much more any 
 man needs the charity of all men, than that all men need the 
 charity of any one man, and that it is therefore prudent to 
 establish a claim to the good-will of the world by showing 
 good-will towards it. This is the reason which commends 
 charity as a civil policy, were it not a principle of justice. 
 
 26
 
 DELIVERY 27 
 
 So much describes declamation intrinsically as regards 
 matter. As respects manner, declamation means the loud, 
 vigorous, impetuous utterance of resounding sentences. 
 But force in delivery may be obtained in other ways — where 
 there is mind behind the words. 
 
 The Rev. Robert Hall, whose talent for speaking was such 
 that, when eleven years old, he was set up to preach ex- 
 tempore to a select auditory of full-grown men, says of him- 
 self : ' To me to speak slow was ruin. You know, sir, that 
 force or momentum is conjointly as the body and the 
 velocity ; therefore, as my voice is feeble, what is wanted in 
 body must be made up in velocity.' This is a mathematical 
 figure of speech, and is more true of dynamics than rhetoric. 
 Hall's remark has misled many young speakers. Unless 
 there is strength of voice to sustain the momentum imparted, 
 indistinctness and alternations of screechings and whispers 
 will be the result. 
 
 Some years ago, we had in Parliament a momentum 
 speaker of no mean repute. It is said of Mr Macaulay (I 
 think by Francis, in his Orators of the Age), that when an 
 opening is made in a discussion in the House of Commons, 
 he rises, or rather darts up from his seat, and plunges at 
 once into the very heart of his subject without exordium or 
 apologetic preface. In fact, you have for a few seconds a 
 high-pitched voice, monotonous and rather shrill, pouring 
 forth words with inconceivable velocity ere you have become 
 aware that a new speaker, and one of no common order, has 
 broken in upon the debate. A few seconds more and 
 cheers, perhaps from all parts of the house, rouse you com- 
 pletely from your apathy, compelling you to follow that ex- 
 tremely voluble and not very enticing voice in its rapid course 
 through the subject on which the speaker is entering, with 
 a resolute determination, as it seems, never to pause. You 
 think of an express train which does not stop even at the chief 
 stations. On, on Macaulay speeds, in full reliance on his own 
 momentum, never stopping for words, never stopping for
 
 28 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 thoughts, never halting for an instant even to take breath, 
 his intellect gathering new vigour as it proceeds, hauling the 
 subject after him and all its possible attributes and illustra- 
 tions, with the strength of a giant, leaving a line of light on 
 the pathway his mind has trod, till, unexhausted and 
 apparently inexhaustible, he brings his remarkable effort 
 to a close by a peroration so highly sustained in its de- 
 clamatory power, so abounding in illustration, so admirably 
 framed to crown and clench the whole oration, that surprise, 
 if it has even begun to wear off, kindles anew, and the 
 hearer is left prostrate by the whirlwind of ideas and 
 emotions which has swept over him. A man may take this 
 liberty with elocution if he has genius to compensate for it. 
 That member must beware who attempts to charm the 
 House of Commons by a monotonous tone without 
 Macaulay's wit, his power of enlightenment and amazing 
 fecundity of illustration. 
 
 In some persons real power of speaking is marred by a 
 physical peculiarity, as in the case of the late Lord Derby, 
 which cannot be overcome by any device. A weak voice may 
 be made stronger by exercise ; stammering may be mitigated 
 as it is said Demosthenes did in his case, by declaiming 
 with stones in his mouth ; but a husky voice is incorrigible. 
 
 Lord Rosebery remarks of Pitt that 'unfriendly critics 
 said that his voice sounded as if he had worsted in his 
 mouth ; but the general testimony is that it was rich and 
 sonorous.' Pitt's voice when animated rose to sonorous- 
 ness, but he must have had worsted moments. Not even 
 ' unfriendly critics ' would invent a peculiarity which would 
 be confuted five nights a week. Such a voice is not a de- 
 fect of oratory ; where it exists, it is a defect of nature — still 
 a disadvantage. Mr Goschen speaks as though he had once 
 been a pedlar of worsted, and had accidentally swallowed a 
 ball ; or had suffered from a cold in the throat when young, 
 and the flannel intended to encase it had been inadvertently 
 put inside instead of out. This filamentariness of speech im-
 
 DELIVERY ■ 29 
 
 parts a woollen effect to many wise things he says. There 
 are times when Mr Goschen's impassioned tones expand into 
 the volume of the fog-horn, when their impressiveness 
 effaces all sense of defect. 
 
 Others have natural advantages. Lord Coleridge had 
 deliberateness of speech, and, like Lord Westbury, was 
 unresting and unerring in his choice of terms. When 
 Lord Coleridge, then Sir John Duke Coleridge, first spoke 
 in the Commons, his tones filled the House with the silvery 
 accents of a lute. Sir John Bowring says, ' The Chinese 
 shoot arrows to which a musical pipe is attached, and when 
 launched, sing in the air.' That describes Lord Coleridge's 
 sentences. 
 
 Some orators of mark on the political platform suffer 
 their voice to fall at the closing words of a sentence — 
 though in the last words lie the whole point they intend. 
 Great is the disappointment of hearers who lose interest 
 in an argument incompletely made known to them. The 
 cleverer a speaker is the more surely the sting of his mean- 
 ing will be in the tail of sentences of importance. What 
 does he speak for save to make that word clear ? Yet he 
 will drop his voice just there. Just as a man seldom writes 
 his own name plainly because, knowing it himself, he con- 
 cludes all other persons know it. Yet a proper name 
 obscurely written, like an argument whose culmination is 
 undisclosed, no one can certainly make out. This negli- 
 gence in speaking is counted defective elocution. There 
 is a vanishing point in art, but none in sentences. 
 
 Droll misapprehensions through indistinctness of utterance 
 or neglect of emphasis, are familiar to every reader. There 
 is the case of the archdeacon, whose housemaid gave notice 
 to leave because she was held up to detestation every day 
 in the morning prayers. The archdeacon read with the 
 slovenly indistinctness common with some Churchmen, the 
 words, ' O Lord, who hatest nothing that Thou hast made,' 
 sounded thus : ' O Lord, who hate&t nothing but the shone-
 
 30 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 maid ; and Mary, with her honest red elbows, said she 
 would stand it no longer. 
 
 A clergyman, who denied that emphasis was proper in 
 the pulpit, one day found his mistake by the smiles of his 
 congregation, on his reading the text : ' And he spake to 
 his sons, saying; "Saddle me, the ass, and they saddled 
 him.''^ ' He would have made the meaning clear had he, 
 instead of 'saddled him,' said 'saddled the ass.' A man 
 whom he reprimanded for swearing, replied that he did not 
 see any harm in it. ' No harm in it ? ' said the minister. 
 'Why, do you not know the commandment " Swear not at 
 a//? " ' 'I do not swear at a//,' said the man, ' I only swear 
 at those who annoy me.' 
 
 The emphasis which is suggested by the sense is the best 
 guide. Let a person make sure of the sense and his 
 emphasis will be natural and varied. By natural is meant 
 gi\dng the chief force to those words upon which the mean- 
 ing turns. For instance, in so simple a phrase as ' Come 
 here.' If you wanted the person to come, and he would 
 not, the speaker would throw a tone of entreaty into the 
 word co7Ne : but if the person spoken to did not understand 
 where he was to come to, and the speaker wanted him 
 where he stood, he would put distinctness and force into 
 the word here. But more of this in another chapter. 
 ' Sufficient unto the place — is the evil thereof?' 
 
 Attracted by the pretensions of a placard, adorned by a 
 testimonial from the Times, I went, in Glasgow, to hear 
 some professional recitations. One of them was the ' Story 
 of a Broken Heart.' The unfortunate girl, of whom it was 
 told, did not die immediately, but it struck me she would 
 have done so had she heard Mr Wilson recite her story. 
 The subject was that piece of graceful effeminacy, in which 
 Washington Irving has told the story of the proud love of 
 the daughter of Curran for the unhappy and heroic Emmet. 
 
 No one can recite with propriety what he does not feel, 
 and the key to gesture as well as to modulation is earnest-
 
 DELIVERY 31 
 
 ness. No actor can portray character \nth truth unless he 
 can realise it, and he can only realise it by conceiving it for 
 a time his own. It is said of one of the Kembles that his 
 daughter had been forbidden to marry an actor, and her 
 father was inexorable at her disobedience ; but after he had 
 seen her husband upon the stage, he relented, and forgave 
 her with this observation, ' Well, well ! I see you have not 
 disobeyed me after all ; for the man is not, and never will 
 be, an actor.' 
 
 The prompting of Lucio to Isabel, when pleading before 
 Angelo for the life of her brother, as rendered by Shake- 
 speare in 'Measure for Measure,' is one of the happiest 
 practical lessons in the art of persuasion on record. As a 
 piece of perceptive teaching, neither the rhetoric of modem 
 or of ancient times, so far as I have knowledge, has 
 produced anything so wise, so concise, and yet so com- 
 prehensive, as Hamlet's directions to his players. It is a 
 manual of delivery in miniature. 
 
 Do manners matter? is a question a public speaker 
 should put to himself. In social life, those who affect to 
 despise manners as too superfine for persons of their manly 
 taste, forget that every man has manners — good or bad. A 
 good manner is but art in doing what you have to do with 
 consideration for others. A tone means much. Even 
 laughter is an art. Some women laugh like joy. Some 
 laugh like a peal of bells. Others laugh and you feel worse 
 for having heard them. Is there such a thing as tofie in the 
 world? One would think not when we hear men cry 
 ' Matter not manner.' A man shall hate his friend, not for 
 what he says but for the imperious tone in which he says it. 
 How many malevolent purposes have been changed by a 
 kindly spoken word ; how many hearts have been broken 
 by unkind tones. 
 
 There are tones, whatever their purport may be, so en- 
 chanting that no ear would willingly forget them. Yet tone 
 is a matter of manner. All manner is but policy in the
 
 32 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 sense of being a chosen line of action. Manner is the half 
 of life. Without some refinement of manner life would not 
 be worth having. Dress to the gentleman, skill to the 
 workman, discipline to the soldier, knowledge to all — is 
 manner. Grammar is manner of speech ; poetry is manner 
 of expression ; rhetoric is the manner of the passions ; art 
 the manner of genius. 
 
 Daily watchfulness in speech is of the greatest import- 
 ance. Ordinary conversation should be well and clearly 
 spoken — whether a question, an answer, or an anecdote ; 
 every word should be carefully said. Lord Wolseley wisely 
 counselled English officers in command of Zulu or Indian 
 troops, not to conclude that they were stupid or wilful 
 because they disobeyed orders, unless they were quite sure 
 the soldiers understood what was said to them. The 
 stupidity might be on the part of the officer who was in- 
 capable of making himself understood. 
 
 Habitually audible and accurate speech will make it easy 
 to speak in public. What anyone does well in daily life, he 
 will do well in public, and have confidence that he can do it 
 well. Well or ill, everybody is making short speeches in 
 business or conversation, and a public speech is but the 
 expansion or multiplication of short speeches. 
 
 No one has a right to speak unless he has something to 
 say, and he has no right to say it publicly unless it is 
 publicly important, and what it is publicly important to say 
 should be said so distinctly and audibly that the public 
 present can hear it. 
 
 Deliberation in delivery is more difficult to acquire or 
 maintain than in former times. The world has been hurried 
 by railways. They have originated a murderous punctu- 
 ality in order to accelerate business. More deaths occur at 
 railway stations through hurry to arrive there, than on all 
 the coaches by the old and tardy traffic. 
 
 Public meetings, as a rule, have neither order nor limit. 
 Everybody is held to have a right to speak now a meeting
 
 DELIVERY 33 
 
 may number 30,000, as everyone had when a pubhc meet- 
 ing seldom numbered 300. Now, too many resolutions are 
 proposed, too many speakers appear, and speaking is hurried. 
 
 Lord Palmerston was a speaker who knew the value of 
 taking time. Once, at Tiverton, a vehement electoral 
 opponent inquired whether he would give a plain answer to 
 a plain question. To this Lord Palmerston assented. The 
 question was — Would he vote for a Radical measure of re- 
 form ? Palmerston at once answered : ' I will ' — pausing, 
 while the Liberals cheered — then adding, ' not,' whereupon 
 the Conservatives applauded ; waiting until they had done, 
 Palmerston continued, ' tell you ; ' when the wily and evasive 
 candidate retired amid laughter and distrust all round. 
 
 Without deliberateness, self-possession is unattainable, and 
 self-possession alone sometimes makes the fortune of a 
 speech; and if it does not, it conduces to the repute of 
 the speaker. 
 
 I have seen Mr John Stuart Mill in the House of 
 Commons pause in an argument until the sequence 
 occurred to him. The House would wait, as Mill's words 
 were chosen. I have noticed Lord John Russell pause 
 when the word he wanted did not occur to him. One 
 night his son. Lord Amberley, paused twice in a short, wise 
 speech, for the same reason. Being acquainted with him, 
 1 congratulated him upon the promise he gave of being a 
 Parliamentary speaker, through self-possession, and the 
 courage which waited for accuracy. A speaker should pro- 
 vide less to say than he might say at his ordinary rate of 
 speaking, so that he must fill the time allotted to him by 
 more deliberation and emphasis. Between deliberate, full- 
 toned, and energetic speaking, and feeble, indistinct and 
 spiritless utterances, there is the difference of live and dead 
 oratory. A certain energy in delivery — which prevents 
 drawling, and a slowness that avoids whirling accents, or 
 clipping half the sounds away, as hasty speaking does — 
 are conditions of elocution. A speaker should take time to 
 
 c
 
 34 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 utter well, speak trippingly without tripping. If anyone 
 
 must be extreme, he had better be heavy than hasty. A 
 
 slowness carried too far would produce tedium, but without 
 
 a certain slowness there can be no distinctness, nor will 
 
 there be time for the speaker to think and for the auditors 
 
 to apprehend the speaker's meaning. 
 
 It could never be meant that people should rush through 
 
 this world, seeing how many advantages wait on those who 
 
 take time to consider before they precipitate themselves into 
 
 action, Difliculties, which seem insuperable to the beginner, 
 
 vanish before those who have the wisdom to observe Pope's 
 
 rule : — 
 
 Learn to speak slow — all other graces 
 Will follow in their proper places. 
 
 The graces may not follow then, but slowness gives them a 
 chance of doing it if they have a mind to. Nevertheless, 
 deliberation is the beginning of power in speech. The 
 Hmit of slowness is drawling. Without a certain energetic 
 slowness there can be no certain effect, and seldom any 
 effect at all. 
 
 One who knew the House of Commons well has said : — 
 • Fellows who have been the oracles of coteries from their 
 birth — who have gone through the regular process of gold 
 medals, senior wranglerships, and double firsts — who have 
 nightly sat down amid tumultuous cheering in debating 
 societies, and can harangue with an unruffled forehead and 
 an unfaltering voice, from one end of a dinner-table to the 
 other — who on all occasions have something to say, and can 
 speak with fluency on what they know nothing about — no 
 sooner rise in the House than their spells desert them. All 
 their effrontery vanishes. Common-place ideas are rendered 
 even more uninteresting by a monotonous delivery; and 
 keenly alive, as even boobies are in those sacred walls, to 
 the ridiculous — no one appears more thoroughly aware of 
 his unexpected and astounding deficiencies than the orator 
 himself. He regains his seat, hot and hard, sultry and stiff,
 
 DELIVERY 35 
 
 with a burning cheek and an icy hand — repressing his 
 breath lest it should give evidence of an existence of which 
 he is ashamed ; and clenching his fist that the pressure 
 may secretly convince him he has not as completely 
 annihilated his stupid body as his false reputation.' * 
 
 This passage has discouraged more persons than it ought. 
 If a man goes into Parliament to make a demonstration at 
 sight he will commonly fail. But if he modestly gives it 
 information, and speaks when a sense of duty comes over 
 him, upon what he understands, he will succeed according 
 to what is in him. 
 
 One who acquired great reputation for capacity, Thomas 
 Paine, confesses that the world (when he first came to 
 America) could not have persuaded him that he should be 
 either a soldier or an author. ' If I had any talents for 
 either,' he said, ' they were buried in me, and might have 
 ever continued so had not the necessity of the times 
 dragged and driven them into action.' He was unconscious 
 of his powers, as most persons are ; hence, trusting yourself 
 to events is good. It is prudent in men not to guess their 
 abilities, but determine them by enterprise and achievement. 
 The first step to success is to try. There is no learning to 
 swim without going into the water. Had Hamlet contem- 
 plated being an orator, his soliloquies would have run 
 thus : — 
 
 To spout, or not to spout, that is the question : 
 
 Whether 'tis better for a shamefaced fellow 
 
 (With voice unmusical and gesture awkward) 
 
 To stand a mere spectator in this business, 
 
 Or have a touch at Rhetoric ? To speak — to spout 
 
 No more ; and by this effort, to say we end 
 
 That bashfulness, that nervous trepidation 
 
 Displayed in maiden speeches — 'twere a consummation 
 
 Devoutly to be wished. To read — to speechify 
 
 Before folks— perhaps to fail : ay, there's the rub ; 
 
 For from that ill success what sneers may rise, 
 
 Young Duke, by Disraeli.
 
 36 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Ere we have scrambled through the sad oration, 
 
 Must give us pause. 'Tis the same reason 
 
 That makes a novice stand in hesitation, 
 
 And gladly hide his own diminished head 
 
 Beneath some half-fledged orator's importance. 
 
 When he himself might his quietus make 
 
 By a mere recitation. Who could speeches hear. 
 
 Responded to with hearty acclamation, 
 
 And yet restrain himself from holding forth — 
 
 But for the dread of some unlucky failure, 
 
 Some unforeseen mistake — some frightful blunder — 
 
 Some vile pronunciation or inflection, 
 
 Improper emphasis or wry-necked period. 
 
 Which carping critics note, and raise the laugh, 
 
 Not to our credit — nor so soon forgot ? 
 
 We muse on this ! Then starts the pithy question : 
 
 Had we not best be mute, and hide our faults. 
 
 Than spout to publish them ? 
 
 Spout and publish them without hesitation if you wish to 
 cure them. Had Raphael feared to daub, he had never 
 been Raphael of renown. Had Canova feared to torture 
 marble, he had never been a sculptor. Had Charles Kean 
 feared to spout, he had never been an actor regarded as 
 next to Garrick. If you stammer like Demosthenes, or 
 stutter like Curran, speak on. He who hesitates to hesitate 
 will always hesitate.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 GESTURE MEASURED BY CONVICTION 
 
 As genius in ideas will compensate for the neglect of 
 elocutionaiy art in utterance, so earnestness and com- 
 manding thought will produce eloquence of effect without 
 gesture in delivery. At the same time, fitting gesture, 
 which grows out of personal animation, is an advantage. 
 To underdo it, rather than overdo it, is a safe rule. If the 
 arm moves from the shoulder, rather than from the elbow, 
 angularity of action, which is never well received, will be 
 avoided. It is better to commence a speech with moderate 
 action and leave it to the natural fervour of conviction to 
 augment it. 
 
 As a rule, a chaste, concise and energetic style is more 
 effective than a florid, turgid and prolix one ; so the judici- 
 ous employment of moderate gesture is more effective 
 upon the taste of the English people, who love modera- 
 tion, than any possible amplification of spasmodic attitudes 
 or redundancy of facial changes. He who commences 
 with moderate gesture may increase it without danger of 
 falling into exaggeration, while he who begins with affluence 
 of action exhausts his resources of motion before the moment 
 for supreme effect arrives. 
 
 Robert Hall had no oratorical action, scarcely any kind 
 of motion, excepting an occasional lifting or waving of the 
 right hand; and in his most impassioned moments only 
 an alternate retreat and advance in the pulpit by a short 
 
 37 
 
 CI- r ' y 
 
 r^ii, <L>' V-*- *L-> ^^ *
 
 38 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Step. Nor had W. J. Fox much gesture. His hands were 
 crossed before him. One or other arm was raised (I do not 
 remember to have seen both raised at once) and pointed 
 towards, rather than at, the audience. The action seemed 
 more effective from its moderation. Mr Bright had impres- 
 sive gestures, which were moderately used. Mr Gladstone's 
 striking and animated gestures are one of the charms of 
 his oratory. Gambetta was a master of gesture : but it was 
 slow, imposing, sustained by his mighty voice and well- 
 chosen words. He excelled in vigorous sentences, which no 
 compeer could express with like luminousness. His gestures 
 illustrated his sense ; they were not, as with many animated 
 speakers, a substitute for sense. 
 
 Sincerity is not always elegance, nor is earnestness always 
 grace ; nevertheless, earnestness is the best schoolmaster of 
 gesture. Awkwardness and angularity of movement is 
 forgiven to the sincere. In some, grace of gesture comes 
 by nature, some acquire it by dancing. Grace mostly 
 comes by training, but those who have it not should 
 confine themselves to few motions. Awkwardness will 
 not be so apparent then. Besides, there is another com- 
 pensation — a little gesture goes a long way when there is 
 manifest conviction behind it. However, gesture is but the 
 outward and visible ornament of inward sources of effective- 
 ness. To venture upon imitating Italian or French gesture, 
 the speaker needs Italian grace and French animation.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 CONDITIONS OF EFFECTIVENESS 
 
 Besides the effectiveness which relates to manner of 
 delivery, there is the effectiveness which depends upon 
 the mind. Effectiveness is the aim of oratory. So far 
 as it can be compassed — it can be compassed more or 
 less by calculation in statement. There may be effective- 
 ness without calculation, and effects unpremeditated are 
 sometimes marvellous. But a wise speaker does not depend 
 on chance — his strength is to foreknow. Manifest sincerity 
 in speech may be depended upon to create a good impres- 
 sion on an audience. Earnestness is a quality which on the 
 platform might degenerate into emotionalism, which, lack- 
 ing self-possession, would be fatal to public effect. Sincerity 
 is a manly, self-contained sentiment, less pretentious than 
 earnestness. Nevertheless, earnestness, when good sense 
 controls it, is a noble quality. Yet not even sincerity is 
 everything. It does not imply the truth of what is said. 
 That still requires to be proved. Some think sincerity is 
 errorless. Once everybody, save a few philosophers, be 
 Ueved it to be a sign of truth. Robespierre was sincere : 
 he was a man who made sincerity terrible. Some of his 
 speeches, not all, read like a murder. There was a guillo- 
 tine in them. His sentences dripped with blood. No 
 genius, no talent, no sincerity is to be trusted or praised — 
 unless it conduces, and is intended to conduce, to the 
 
 welfare of others. 
 
 39
 
 40 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Nevertheless, with all its limitations, sincerity and capa- 
 city annihilate personal disadvantages. I knew a rotund 
 orator, who appeared on the platform as Charles James 
 Fox must have appeared in Pitt's days — like a sugar hogs- 
 head on two props, yet upon whom the audience looked with 
 admiration while he spoke. Louis Blanc was diminutive in 
 stature, but he was so entirely a man, and his speaking was 
 so sonorous, pregnant and animated, that his small stature 
 seemed an advantage to him. Robert Hall was a preacher 
 who had ideas, as well as precision and energy of style, 
 yet the spiritual and intrinsic charm of his speech was its 
 earnestness. Foster said of Hall, ' Truth (to him) was a 
 universal element, and to enforce its claims was his con- 
 stant aim. Whether he attempted to engage the reason, 
 the affections, or the fancy, all was subsidiary to this end. 
 He was always in earnest,' as to the necessity of discerning 
 truth, explaining it, and vindicating it. 
 
 Effectiveness lies also in proportion. Not in the beauty 
 of a pillar, or the finish of a frieze, but in the commanding- 
 ness which the whole building has over the spectator — not 
 in the brilliance of a passage, but in the coherence of the 
 whole lies the effectiveness of a speech or a book. 
 
 One conspicuous element of force is a defined pur- 
 pose. Better say nothing than not to the purpose. No 
 part should attract the main attention entirely to itself. 
 The chief merit of any part is its subserviency to the whole 
 design. When parts are praised, a speaker is said to have 
 brilliance ; when the whole impresses, he is said to have 
 power. In a speech, as in a drawing on a reduced scale, all 
 the proportions have to be there. If a subject is too ex- 
 tensive for an ordinary speech, present a distinct portion 
 which shows the quahty of the whole. Hierocles carried a 
 brick in his pocket as a specimen of the house he wanted 
 to sell. It gave no idea of its situation, or convenience, 
 but it proved his confidence in the quality of its material. 
 
 Lucidity of arrangement is intent made evident to an
 
 CONDITIONS OF EFFECTIVENESS 4I 
 
 assembly, and is no mean element of effectiveness. As 
 reasoning proceeds from axioms which cannot be lost sight 
 of without confusion — so an argumentative speech has a 
 foregone object which must be disclosed to the hearers, or 
 they will be unable to follow the speaker intelligently. 
 The Encydopcedia MetropoUtatia has explained clearly the 
 advantages of this course in the following terms : — 
 
 ' In purely argumentative statement, or in the argumenta- 
 tive division of mixed statements, and especially in argu- 
 mentative speeches, it is essential that the issue to be proved 
 should be distinctly announced in the beginning, in order 
 that the tenour and drift that way of everything that is said 
 may be the better apprehended ; and it is also useful, when 
 the chain of argument is long, to give a forecast of the 
 principle bearings and junctures, whereby the attention will 
 be more easily secured and pertinently directed throughout 
 the more closely consecutive detail, and each proposition of 
 the series will be clenched in the memory by its foreknown 
 relevancy to what is to follow.' 
 
 These are well-known rules, which it were superfluous to 
 cite, except for the instruction of the young. But examples 
 may be occasionally observed of juvenile orators who will 
 conceal the end they aim at until they have led their hearers 
 through the long chain of antecedents, in order that they 
 may produce surprise by forcing a sudden acknowledgment 
 of what had not been foreseen. The disadvantage of this 
 method is that the hearer is apt to resent being trapped 
 into assent. It puzzles and provokes the hearer during its 
 statement, confounds him in the conclusion, and gives an 
 overcharged impression of the orator's ingenuity on the part 
 of those who may have attended to him sufficiently to have 
 been convinced. It is a method by which the business of 
 the argument is sacrificed to ostentation in the conduct of 
 it, and the ease and satisfaction of the auditors sacrificed to 
 the vanity of the arguer. The novehst or dramatist will 
 often conceal the secret of his plot to allure the reader to
 
 42 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 the end, and take him by surprise then, if he can. In that 
 case the story has to be entertaining up to that point, or the 
 reader will not hold on till he reaches it. Unless a speaker 
 is sure of enchanting his audience as he goes along, hearers 
 will not wait for the point of his argument, which has been 
 concealed from them. Besides, there is this difference 
 between a novel and an argument. The novel is intended 
 to amuse, the argument to convince, and when a link is lost, 
 by ignorance of its relevance, the chain of proof is dis- 
 connected. 
 
 Yet though the aim of an argument must be divulged, the 
 drift of an illustration, if brief, may be kept back. In one 
 of the Anti-Corn-Law orations of W. J. Fox in Covent 
 Garden Theatre, there occurred a striking example of this. 
 He commenced by stating the case of certain poachers, 
 related in the newspapers of that day, who had been 
 sentenced at Ashby - de - la - Zouch to considerable terms 
 of imprisonment. When to this punishment was added 
 the loss and privation to which the families of the 
 prisoners were subjected, the penalty was serious. No 
 one foresaw the relevance of the story, but which the 
 orator did not long withhold. He demanded to know ' i 
 this shall be done to the poor man who steals the rich 
 man's bird, what shall be done to the rich man who steals 
 the poor man's bread ? ' I know of no first words of any 
 speech which produced so great an effect. The argument 
 was as a match applied to a funeral pyre where the fallacies 
 of protection were burned before the eyes of the meeting. 
 
 An appeal to experience is a force in due place. ' The 
 argument,' says Emerson, ' which has not the power to reach 
 my own practice, I may well doubt will fail to reach yours. 
 I have heard an experienced counsellor say, that he never 
 feared the effect upon a jury of a lawyer who does not 
 believe in his heart that his client ought to have a verdict.' 
 Samuel Bailey, in his Revieiv of Berkeley s * Theory of 
 Vision^ says : —
 
 CONDITIONS OF EFFECTIVENESS 43 
 
 * Many years ago, I held what may be styled a derivative 
 opinion in favour of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, but having 
 in the course of a philosophical discussion had occasion to 
 explain it, I found, on attempting to state in my own 
 language the grounds on which it rested, that they no 
 longer appeared to me to be so clear and conclusive as I 
 had fancied them to be. I determined to make it the 
 subject of a patient and dispassionate examination. The 
 result has been a clear conviction in my own mind of its 
 erroneousness, and a desire to state to the philosophical 
 world the grounds on which that conviction has been 
 formed.' 
 
 This is an interesting instance of the truth of the obser- 
 vation that that statement only is fit to be made public 
 which you have come at in attempting to satisfy your own 
 understanding. 
 
 An editor of Shelley's posthumous poems apologises for 
 the publication of some fragments in a very incomplete state, 
 by remarking, ' how much more than every other poet of the 
 present day, every line and word he wrote is instinct with 
 beauty.' Let no man sit down to write with the purpose of 
 making every line and word beautiful and peculiar. Sir 
 Henry Taylor thought ' the only effect of such an endeavour 
 will be to corrupt the judgment and confound the under- 
 standing.' 
 
 Augustine Birrell, in a criticism wise in a new way, like 
 many other criticisms of his, remarks that ' Emerson writes 
 like an electrical cat, emitting sparks and shocks in every 
 sentence. The lights irradiate the forest, but disclose no 
 path.' The same critic explains what many have felt. 
 
 'You never know what Emerson will be at. His sen- 
 tences fall over you in glittering cascades, beautiful and 
 bright, and for the moment refreshing. But after a very 
 brief while the mind, having nothing to do on its own 
 account but to remain wide open and see what Emerson 
 will send it, grows first restive and then torpid. Admiration
 
 44 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 gives way to astonishment, astonishment to bewilderment, 
 and bewilderment to stupefaction.' 
 
 As a rule, men are not much in danger of being too brilliant. 
 Happily for orators, occasional phrases of power are sufficient 
 for effect and reputation. Brightness and force are attain- 
 able by him who, knowing what he wishes to say, knows 
 why it should be said. Telling the audience the reason 
 which has convinced the speaker is that explanation which 
 produces impression. It fulfils Mr J. R. Green's rule — ' it 
 takes the public into the speaker's confidence, who are 
 addressed as though they knew as much as the speaker 
 himself.' An orator will be all the more explanatory, in- 
 teresting and engaging, if he assumes in his o^ati mind that 
 his hearers know nothing upon the subject. A painting 
 all white or all black allures no eye. It is light and shade 
 that make the picture. A fixed beacon light is not seen 
 at sea as far, nor as well, as a revolving hght. 
 
 To speak, study simplicity; abjure affectation and 
 be natural. The natural voice is heard the farthest, and 
 the natural effects the soonest. ' The costly charm of the 
 ancient tragedy is that the persons speak simply, speak as 
 persons who have great good sense without knowing it.' 
 Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain 
 dealing. Sincerity and simplicity carry all before them. 
 On Thiers's first appearance in the French Chamber he 
 experienced an almost universally unfavourable reception. 
 He was diminutive, with an expression of countenance — 
 though intellectual, reflective and sarcastic — far from 
 possessing beauty. The face itself, small in form, was en- 
 cumbered with a pair of spectacles so large that, when 
 peering over the marble edge of the long narrow tribune 
 whence all speakers address the Chamber, he was described 
 as appearing suspended to the two orbs of crystal. With 
 such an exterior M. Thiers, full of the impassioned eloquence 
 of his favourite revolutionary orators, sought to impart those 
 thrilling emotions recorded of Mirabeau. The attempt pro-
 
 CONDITIONS OF EFFECTIVENESS 45 
 
 voiced derision, but only for a time. In his new sphere, as 
 in the others he had passed through, he soon outshone 
 competition. Subsiding into the oratory natural to him — 
 simple, vigorous and rapid, he proved himself one of the 
 most formidable of Parliamentary champions. 
 
 Have a clear meaning and never obscure it. A wit may 
 leave his words open to two interpretations if he intends to 
 amuse and not to deceive. Dryden, a great poet, and Otway 
 a poet also, but of lesser magnitude, lived in the same street 
 in houses facing each other. One morning Otway wrote in 
 chalk on Dryden's door the line : — 
 
 Here lives Dryden, a poet and a wit. 
 
 Dryden, on coming out, saw it, and wrote underneath it : — 
 
 Written by Otway opposite. 
 
 It has never been settled to this day whether Dryden meant 
 merely to say that the Une of praise his neighbours would see 
 written on his own door about him, was not written by him- 
 self — but written by a person living opposite ; or that Otway 
 was the opposite of ' a poet and a wit.' 
 
 But in matters of moment, which will affect themselves 
 and others, men like to know, and have a right to demand, 
 with General Ludlow, that a speaker's words shall not only 
 be such as can be understood, but such as cannot possibly 
 be misunderstood. 
 
 For eflfectiveness in speech or writing, keep clear of philo- 
 sophical fogginess and common-place sentiment. Avoid as 
 far as possible abstract terms, abstract questions, and abstract 
 ideas. Keep to palpable things, and such as pass before the 
 auditors in daily life. It is very well to entertain Utopian 
 ideas — it implies an outside mind ; but it is not convincing 
 to act altogether on Utopian principles till you are in Utopia. 
 
 Beware of the transition epoch in argument, so common 
 and so false, by which so many alarm the public at what
 
 46 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 they call the decay of faith, which is being superseded by 
 the evolution of higher truth. Transition is no new thing ; 
 it has been going on ever since time began. Transition is 
 the step of ceaseless progress. Its determined and tireless 
 tread is heard in every epoch. Transition is the change- 
 bringer of time. The hills, the ocean, the climate, society, 
 men and creeds are changing hourly and always. It is an 
 open question whether a particular change is good or bad. 
 It is reasonable to reason about it. But to talk of the 
 present time as one of transition, which the speaker has 
 found out, is no novelty of discovery. It is older than the 
 mountains. Transition is eternal. 
 
 Men so well-informed, and so self-conscious of infallibility 
 as Carlyle was, could say in the days passing over him, 
 'Few men have seen more impressive days of endless 
 calamity, disruption, dislocation, confusion worse con- 
 founded. If they are not days of endless hope too, then 
 they are days of utter despair.' Public men, priests and 
 politicians before the days of Noah, and ever since, have 
 said the same thing. It is the common jargon of Parlia- 
 ment. I have seen the sun of England set for ever 
 annually for sixty years, according to the predictions of our 
 political Cassandras. It weakens public respect for a man's 
 judgment to hear him talk thus. Foolishness destroys 
 effectiveness. 
 
 No more should be said at any time than can be said 
 well. Brevity is the instinct of art. If anything is pro- 
 longed it must be varied and perfect in every part. It is 
 a mistake to try to say everything which can be said upon 
 a subject. Confine yourself to so much as will make a 
 distinct impression. Enough is as good as a feast and 
 better, and too much is worse than a fast. 
 
 Against multitudes of words the poets have given many 
 warnings. One who knew exclaims : — 
 
 Words are like leaves ; and where they most abound, 
 Much fruit of serse beneath, is rarely found.
 
 CONDITIONS OF EFFECTIVENESS 47 
 
 There are those who, Hke Talleyrand, regard words as given 
 to us to conceal our meaning. But where the intention 
 is to make things clear, we must give heed to Moore's sug- 
 gestion — 
 
 The wise men of Egypt were secret as dummies, 
 And e'en when they most condescended to teach, 
 
 They packed up their meaning, as they did their mummies, 
 In so many wrappers, 'twas out of one's reach. 
 
 Co-operators ought to be good speakers ; their study 
 being economy, and economy in words is the source of 
 effectiveness in speech. Economy is honourable in war. 
 Wellington was a greater general than Napoleon, inasmuch 
 as he compassed great effects with a smaller expenditure 
 of men ; as he is the greatest speaker who accomplishes 
 conviction with the smallest number of words. 
 
 We can do without any article of luxury we never had, 
 but when once obtained, it is not in human nature to 
 surrender it voluntarily. Of twelve thousand clocks left on 
 trial by Sam Slick, only ten were returned. * We trust to 
 soft sawder,' said Sam, 'to get them into the house, 
 and to human nature that they never come out of it.' 
 Yet how many persons expect to produce effects upon 
 assemblies of men who never bestow half the time upon 
 the study of their natures as was given by our American 
 clock-seller. 
 
 The young speaker will do well to notice that morality 
 is better understood, at least in theory, than in former 
 days, and that the public like sincerity on the part of a 
 speaker. A life which shall illustrate what the orator 
 seeks to enforce will add materially to his influence. Some 
 will ask — May not a recommendation be a good one though 
 the giver of it be bad ? Yes ; but is it not an advantage 
 •when both are worthy ? The public may accept good advice 
 from men who will not take it themselves. But is it not the 
 object of a wise rhetoric to increase the number of men
 
 48 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 who act themselves on the advice they give ? If the public 
 should be composed of men who hear only and never 
 practise, who does not see that we may give over all exhorta- 
 tions of amendment ? Mankind reason that that which is 
 good for the public is good for individuals, since individuals 
 make up the public. And when it is seen that a man 
 does not follow his own advice, it is concluded that 
 either he is a simpleton, and consequently is not to be 
 heeded, or that he is secretly conscious of som.e inapplica- 
 bility in his own recommendations, and therefore to be 
 suspected. 
 
 The moral existence of men is made up of a few trains 
 of thought, which, from the cradle to the grave, are excited 
 and re-excited again and again. These leading ideas rule 
 despotically over conduct, and, whoever awakens these, 
 influence those whom he addresses. It is in these leading 
 ideas that we see the source of character. These features 
 the rhetorician studies. When Napoleon in Egypt was 
 threatened by his disaffected generals, he vanquished them 
 by an appeal to three traits in their character — their 
 pride, their honour and their bravery. Walking among 
 them, he exclaimed : ' You are too many to assassinate me, 
 and too few to intimidate me.' The fury of the men was 
 subdued to admiration, and they turned away, exclaiming, 
 
 * Damn him, how brave he is.' It is said the heart has no 
 avenue so open as that of flattery, which, like some enchant- 
 ment, lays its guards asleep. But flattery which succeeds 
 with the intelligent requires art. If honest, it is excellent. 
 A famous politician, at a Royal Academy dinner, listening to 
 insincere praise which others called 'clever,' he answered, 
 
 * I call it hellish.' 
 
 Youth should lay the foundation of eloquence in char- 
 acter and honesty. Let him speak for the right ; let him 
 not borrow the language of idle gentlemen or self-complacent 
 scholars, much less that of sensualists, absorbed in greed of 
 purse and palate ; let him speak for the absent, defend the
 
 CONDITIONS OF EFFECTIVENESS 49 
 
 friendless, the poor, the slave, the prisoner and the lost. Let 
 him look upon opposition as opportunity ; he is one who 
 cannot be defeated or put down. Let him feel that it is 
 not the people who are in fault for not being convinced 
 but the speaker who cannot convince them.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 LAWS O F DEBATE 
 
 Debate is a larger question than is generally understood. 
 Every man is debating daily, either with himself or someone 
 else. A man debates questions with his household or with 
 friends. Whenever a difference of opinion arises oetween 
 two persons, they instinctively debate it together. This 
 term has, also, a public signification, and is applied to 
 discussions in Parliament and formal debates on public 
 platforms. Correspondence in newspapers, reviews and 
 periodicals often takes the form of controversy. All forms 
 of controversy, where one person seeks to justify his 
 opinion against the differing opinion of another, is debate ; 
 for intellectual life is a perpetual discussion. Conversation 
 is often a friendly debate. Error of idea is everywhere an 
 antagonist 
 
 Some people are so disquieted by contrariety of opinion 
 that they fear the fate of the Catholic and Jew, who debated 
 together the grounds of their faiths, and ended by the Jew 
 becoming a Catholic and the Catholic a Jew. Some fear 
 discussion because they are like the judge who said he 
 understood a case when he had heard only one side — it was 
 the other side which perplexed him. The risk of this 
 perplexity he must undergo who would be wise. 
 
 Before taking part in debate, a man has to vindicate to 
 himself the uses of debate. 
 
 I. It creates two-sided people. 
 
 50
 
 LAWS OF DEBATE 5 1 
 
 2. It instils toleration. 
 
 3. It proves truth which may be trusted. 
 
 4. It puts into the mind the sense of reasoned truth. 
 
 5. It sows the seeds of new truth. 
 
 Those who object to these things may as well keep clear 
 of debate, for they will misuse it and distrust it. 
 
 The first rules to be observed in taking part in debate is : — 
 
 1. To state your case. 
 
 2. To clear your case. 
 
 3. To prove your case. 
 
 4. And then sit down. 
 
 There was once an old doctor, the lecturer on logic and 
 rhetoric at a Scotch university, who received the fees from 
 the pupils on entering, who used to say to them, when they 
 had finished their term, that there were only two rules to 
 follow — ' One was, when you have anything to say, say it in 
 as few words as you can ; the other is, when you've said it, 
 hold your tongue.' 
 
 General Ludlow held that a man should say what he 
 means and mean what he says. This is as true in debate 
 as in morals. In debate, you must not only say what you 
 mean — but know what you mean. The audience will soon 
 find out if you do not know it. 
 
 I. The speaker must state his case that the hearers may 
 understand to what he asks their attention ; without this 
 information they cannot judge what his object is, nor tell 
 when he is relevant or when he digresses. In stating your 
 case give the other side of the case — if you know it. The 
 contrast will make your meaning clear, and show that you 
 know what your case is. There is a fine instance in the 
 writings of Toulmin Smith* — ' Decentralisation or adminis- 
 tration by localities, is that system of government under 
 which the greatest number of minds, knowing most about 
 the special matter in hand, having the greatest opportunities 
 of knowing about it, and having the greatest interests in its 
 * Local Self- Governmeni, pp. 395 to 409,
 
 52 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 well-working, have the management of it or control over it. 
 Centrahsation or administration by departments is that 
 system of government under which the smallest number of 
 minds, knowing the least about the special matter in hand, 
 having the fewest opportunities of knowing about it, and 
 having the smallest interest in its well-working, have the 
 management of it or control over it.' 
 
 2. Then the speaker must clear his case — showing plainly 
 what he is aiming at, making his question quite distinct, 
 that it may not be mixed up with something likely to be 
 advanced by another disputant. He must free his main 
 terms from ambiguity, so that ignorance cannot mistake 
 what he intends, nor an adversary pervert his meaning. On 
 a certain occasion a witness said he knew the accused ' the 
 moment he obtained a full-faced view of his back.' A back 
 may have its peculiarities, but a 'full-faced' view of it is 
 difficult to obtain. General Grant said of his rival for the 
 presidency (General Hancock) that, sitting behind him, ' you 
 knew when he was pleased, for you could see him laugh 
 behind his ears.' I have seen other Hancocks do this. 
 
 3. A speaker must next prove his case, so that the reasons 
 of his argument may be evident. Here he should adduce 
 facts which cannot well be disputed in support of his con- 
 tention, and employ, if he can, such illustrations as make 
 his meaning clearer. 
 
 4. Having done all he can to put the hearer in posses- 
 sion of his case — he gives place to his adversary within 
 the allotted time — if the time be prescribed. 
 
 A barrister will occasionally state a complex case to the 
 jury before him, beginning with the simplest circumstances, 
 continuing with the more difficult, arranging the facts in 
 such order that the series throw light on the most obscure 
 points — that the whole case may be fully understood. 
 When he feels this to be accomplished he returns, recapitu- 
 lates, selects those points he wishes to have most weight, 
 puts them before the jury freshly, prominently, and as forcibly
 
 LAWS OF DEBATE 53 
 
 as he can. If his brief affords it, and he has no scruples, he 
 can, like Charles Phillips, in his defence of Courvoisier for 
 the murder of Lord William Russell, seek to fix the guilt 
 on an innocent man ; or, like Sir Fitzroy Kelly, shed tears 
 to attest his belief that Tawell was innocent, whom he knew 
 to be guilty. But he who does this loses evermore the 
 confidence of those who know it. 
 
 In debate, it is a great point to have the main point in 
 mind, and never to lose sight of it. An argument is like a 
 picture which has a point to which all lines converge. It 
 was O'Connell who said an orator should always know 
 what he is aiming at, for when a man aims at nothing 
 he is almost sure to hit it. 
 
 Young debating societies have a tendency not to know 
 what the point is, and to wander from it when they do 
 know it. Upon the chairman is cast the trouble of dis- 
 cerning what the main points are in the mind of the person 
 who opens the debate, and if this has not been made clear 
 to the chairman, he should ascertain what the main points 
 meant to be debated are, and state them himself to the meet- 
 ing before the discussion commences. Having once made 
 the question unquestionably plain, he should remind every 
 speaker of it who forgets it, and point out to him when he is 
 wandering therefrom. But a chairman should not use much 
 strictness in doing this, because some speakers cannot see 
 a point, and cannot keep to it if they do. Therefore, if they 
 were strictly called to order they would be incapable of 
 speaking at all. But though it might be desirable, for the 
 sake of affording young speakers practice, and of training a 
 .society in the habits of debate, to allow disputants to speak 
 in the best way they can, the meeting should be incident- 
 ally kept informed when the question is getting mixed up 
 with something else. In a debate, if speakers introduce 
 irrelevant subjects, the good or evil of these different 
 subjects will be entered upon. Other speakers arise and 
 combat what other speakers have said upon these subjects,
 
 54 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 and in less than half an hour hardly anybody remembers 
 what the actual subject before the meeting was. Now, the 
 i< business of disputants is to discuss the speech of the opener 
 of the debate, rather than the speeches of each other. 
 What other speakers say should be referred to only, 
 or mainly, so far as it relates to the topic before the 
 meeting. Discussion is excellent discipline in the art of 
 discovering what a point is and what relates to it. Dis- 
 cussion is always valuable, inasmuch as it elicits contrariety 
 of opinion that nobody could suspect, and misconceptions 
 which nobody could imagine. No person can be said 
 to entirely understand any subject until he has debated it 
 with sharp-witted people. In the art of seeing all round 
 a question, a night in a discussion room will do more for a 
 man than a month in a library, that is, supposing the 
 president has sufficient knowledge of the speakers before 
 him to bring their various powers into play, and at the same 
 time supposing that the speakers have powers which the 
 president can elicit and bring into action. 
 
 No opponent should be accepted whose sincerity cannot 
 be assumed, since it ought not to be questioned in debate. 
 To give an adversary credit for good faith is economy in 
 reasoning, since you have only to refute his principles — not 
 himself — which leaves you all your time and force for the 
 greater and more useful task. Find no fault with his 
 grammar, manner, intentions, tone. Attend only to the 
 I matter. Hear all things without impatience and without 
 ' manifest emotion. Let your opponent fully exhaust his 
 matter. Encourage him to say whatever he thinks relevant. 
 Many persons believe in the validity and magnitude of 
 their positions, because they have never been permitted to 
 state them to others — and when they have once delivered 
 themselves of their opinions, they often find for the first 
 time how insignificant they are. There are some persons 
 whom nobody can confute but themselves. When you 
 distinguish such, your proper business is to let them do it.
 
 LAWS OF DEBATE 55 
 
 Learn to satisfy yourself and to present a conclusive state- 
 ment of your opinions, and when you have done so, have 
 the courage to abide by it. If you cannot trust your state- 
 ment to be canvassed by others — if you feel anxious to add 
 some additional remark at every step — suspect your know- 
 ledge of your own case and amend it on further reflection. l 
 Master as completely as you can your opponent's theories, 
 and state his case with manifest fairness, and, if possible, 
 state it with more force against yourself than your opponent 
 did. The observance of this rule will teach you two things 
 — your opponent's strength or weakness, and your own also. 
 If you cannot state your opponent's case you do not know 
 it, and if you do not know it you are not in a fit position to 
 argue against it. If you dare not state your opponent's case 
 in its greatest force, you feel it to be stronger than your own, 
 and in that case you ought not to argue against it. 
 
 The course here suggested will be as useful to truth as to 
 the disputant. Great prejudice may often be disarmed by 
 daring it. In this manner. Gibbon delivered his argument 
 in favour of an hereditary monarchy. * Of the various 
 forms of government which have prevailed in this world, 
 an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope 
 for ridicule. Is it possible to relate, without an indignant 
 smile, that, on the father's decease, the property of a nation, 
 like that of a drove of oxen, descends to his infant son, as 
 yet unknown to mankind and to himself; and that the 
 bravest warriors and the wisest statesmen, relinquishing 
 their natural right to empire, approach the royal cradle 
 with bended knees and protestations of inviolable fidelity ? 
 Satire and declamation may paint these obvious topics in 
 the most dazzling colours, but our serious thoughts will 
 respect a useful prejudice that establishes a rule of succes- 
 sion independent of the passions of mankind ; and we shall 
 cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient which deprives the 
 multitude of the dangerous, and indeed the ideal power of 
 giving themselves a master.'
 
 56 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 In Gibbon's days the discovery of a removable master 
 had not been made. 
 
 Debate should have for its object the vindication of 
 some truth seriously disputed. The Dutchman, who re- 
 garded debate as a duty, being pressed as to the value of a 
 dog for whose loss he had brought an action, said, 'No- 
 thing; but let him pay for it.' When his adversary was 
 asked whether it was true that he killed the dog, he said, 
 'To be sure I did, but let him J>rove it,' which was foolish, 
 but not more silly than many disputants of pretension, who 
 will dispute for disputation sake, where there is nothing real 
 or useful to contend for. 
 
 For the adjustment of a difference a man should under- 
 state his case — should make no material assertion unaccom- 
 panied by the proof — make the fairest allowance for his 
 rival's excitement (if he be excited), put a fair interpreta- 
 tion on his words and acts. All whose suffrages are worth 
 having will make just judgment. The reason of so many 
 departures from this rule is the want of courage, or the 
 want of sense. It is the opinion of the ignorant that if 
 a man does not bluster and retort, he is deficient in spirit. 
 This apprehension often betrays weak men into violence, 
 and to prove themselves independent they become rude 
 and insolent — whereas courage pursues its own way with- 
 out ostentation, preserves its independence, corrects mis- 
 representation, repairs any injury it may have unwittingly 
 done, and answers slander (if there be slander) with the truth. 
 No wise man answers a fool according to his folly. He shows 
 that it t's folly, and abandons it to die by its own hands. 
 
 Hamilton's Parliamentary Logic gives maxims, which 
 that experienced tactician had treasured up, observed, or 
 invented, many unworthy, some shrewd : — 
 
 ' State what you censure by the soft names of those who 
 would apologise for it. 
 
 ' In putting a question to your adversary, let it be the lasf 
 thing you say.
 
 LAWS OF DEBATE. 57 
 
 ' Distinguish real from avowed reasons of a thing. This 
 makes a fine and brilliant fund of argument. 
 
 'Upon every argument consider the misrepresentations 
 which your opponent will probably make of it. 
 
 ' If your case is too bad, call in aid the party : if the party 
 is bad, call in aid the cause.* 
 
 ' Nothing disgusts a popular assembly more than being 
 apprised of your intention to speak long.' 
 
 Having had experience in the ways of adversaries — the 
 unscrupulous and the fair — I noticed the rules they ordin- 
 arily followed, and found, as Wordsworth's little girl said 
 of her brothers and sisters, ' We are seven,' which were 
 these : — 
 
 1. To show that the objection made against what you 
 mainly said is wrong, and that you were in the right. For 
 this course to succeed one must be very clear upon the 
 subject, and make it very clear to others that it is the 
 objector alone who is in error. If this cannot be done, the 
 matter requires some consideration. 
 
 2. Not to take any notice of the objection raised ; but if 
 he who advances it is a person whose opinion has weight, 
 his objection will have force, and tell against you, whether 
 you take notice of it, or not. 
 
 3. To notice the objection made, and affect to see no- 
 thing in it. But it is necessary to bear in mind that, if other 
 people happen to see something in it, your alleged want of 
 penetration will not serve you. 
 
 4. To admit there is ' something in it,' but maintain that it 
 is a mere misapprehension of your meaning. In that case, 
 you must explain what your meaning was, or that expedient 
 will not answer, 
 
 5. To allege that your own statement is open to two 
 distinct interpretations, and argue that your critic has 
 
 * ' If neither is good,' says Hamilton, 'wound your opponent,' which 
 may be Parliamentary, but is discreditable in the speaker and a waste 
 of public time.
 
 58 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 adopted the wrong one. This course, however, is attended 
 with some risk ; since it is the duty of a speaker to be aware 
 of double meanings, to choose one, and leave the hearer in 
 no manner of doubt which sense was intended, and to fix 
 that sense so that the meaning could not be intelligently 
 misunderstood. 
 
 6. Admit that your statement was open to some objec- 
 tion, making light of it, giving the hearer the impression it 
 was very unimportant, and that your critic could not have 
 anything very serious on his mind to make so * much ado 
 about nothing' — by which means the unobservant hearer 
 will be hardly sensible that you have fallen into any error 
 at all, and even be disposed to regard the objector to what 
 you have said, as a trivial and captious commentator. But 
 the intelligent observer will distrust you. 
 
 7. The remaining course open is to admit frankly you 
 were in the wrong. Careless phraseology, an inaccurate 
 argument, or a conflicting statement (whether fallen into 
 unawares or not), is an imposition upon the mind of the 
 hearer, and a waste of language, since it weakens and 
 obscures the proper argument. Therefore, the right thing 
 is to express yourself under obligations to an auditor who 
 pays you the great compliment of considering what you have 
 said, and takes the trouble to amend what has been unwit- 
 tingly left defective. 
 
 Persons, really honest-minded, do often find a difficulty 
 in frankly admitting that they have made a mistake ; but it 
 is far better to cultivate the habit of admitting an error, 
 which you see to be such, than to foolishly persist that you 
 are right, and to persist in the foolishness of the mis-state- 
 ment which everybody sees to be so, and which you ought 
 to see yourself. To try to create the impression that you 
 are never in error, is to pretend to infallibility — it is to 
 pretend that you know everything, that you know it always, 
 and that you are so perfect that you never forget it or over- 
 look it. Everybody knows that there never was any person
 
 LAWS OF DEBATE 59 
 
 of this description ; and to pretend to be, or to imagine that 
 you are, such a person is to betray to every reflecting reader 
 that you are ignorant as well as conceited. A real lover of 
 truth is glad to have any error into which he may have 
 fallen pointed out, that he may avoid it in the future.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 PERSONALITIES THE DIGRESSIONS OF DEBATE 
 
 Controversy, though the pathway to truth and final test of it, 
 is an unwelcome word in many ears. This is because it is so 
 often protracted and unsatisfactory. It is protracted through 
 digression, and unsatisfactory, being so often disfigured by 
 personalities, which mainly cause digression and ill-feeling. 
 Things evil, as well as things good, do not come by chance. 
 Disease as well as health has its conditions ; and personali- 
 ties, however capricious and irregular they may seem, have 
 their laws. St Jerome said : ' If an offence come out of 
 the truth, better the offence come than that the truth be 
 concealed.' There is no natural offence in truth. The 
 offence is generally put into it by personalities, which 
 cause digressions from the truth into hateful and dis- 
 honouring imputations. 
 
 The Edinburgh News lately turned to the file of London 
 papers as they existed in the pure and happy days of a four- 
 penny stamp, and found a licence of speech quite edifying. 
 Thus the Times calls its neighbour, the Morning Chronicle^ 
 'that squirt of filthy water,' and the Chronicle, not to be 
 behind, calls the Post 'that slop-pail of corruption.' The 
 Standard describes the Giobe as ' our blubber-head contem- 
 porary.' The Morning Herald accosts its neighbour, the 
 Courier, as 'that spavined old hack,' while the Morning 
 Advertiser hurls its wrath against the Times as ' that bully of 
 
 60
 
 PERSONALITIES THE DIGRESSIONS OF DEBATE 6 1 
 
 Berkshire and braggadocio of Printing House Square.' The 
 Times, not to be outdone, commenced one of its leaders on 
 the 13th of June 1835, with' The Liberal liars,' and then 
 turning on the Chronicle, continues, ' A disgraceful morning 
 print, which actually feeds on falsehood and lies'; then 
 going into the subject, it adds, 'The smaller rascal, Mr 
 Gingall, copies the paragraph from the larger blackguard.' 
 The Times of the same date, elsewhere referring to its 
 opponent, says, ' The community must be shocked to know 
 that there are such beings as these scribblers out of the 
 treadmill, and because every exposure of the ragamuffins 
 gives to foreigners an additional proof that there have crept 
 into the press of this country a number of scoundrels, who 
 not only are unfit for the society of gentlemen, but who 
 would be a disgrace to the vilest coteries of Europe.' To 
 this the Stajidard retorts, ' It can scarcely be doubted that 
 the habits of writing down to the ignorance and below the 
 brutality of the rabble, which the Times has acquired by 
 long experience, acting, of course, upon original ignorance 
 and intuitive brutality, has rendered this journal a more 
 powerful organ of excitement than a whole workshop of 
 railers.' 
 
 This was the way in which ' gentlemen wrote for gentle- 
 men ' in those days ; and all agreed in one thing, that the 
 abolition of the fourpenny stamp would lower the press, as 
 though it could fall into a lower depth than that in which the 
 fourpenny stamp writers burrowed. The press has been freed 
 from all taxation, and the standard of the cheap press is far 
 higher than in its dearest days. The working-class have 
 found a better way of expression. Nevertheless, the poli- 
 tical and ecclesiastical controversy of our 'belters' still 
 presents samples of the old manner. 
 
 Literature has not always had a civil tongue in its head, 
 and was ready to assist political animosity. Bute pensioned 
 Dr Johnson and Dr Shebbeare, which caused the wits to say 
 he had pensioned a He-bear and a She-bear. Dr Shebbeare
 
 62 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 had been in the pillory and lost his ears, which was the 
 point of these Unes — 
 
 Witness, ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares, 
 List to my call, for some of you have ears. 
 
 Byron and Shelley disagreed widely on several questions, 
 but that made no difference in their regard for each other. 
 Byron had hatreds — Shelley had fanaticisms. Vegetarianism 
 was one. Byron did not hesitate to deny outright Shelley's 
 coreal ideal. Byron sang — 
 
 Man's a carnivorous production, 
 
 And must have meals ; at least one meal a day. 
 He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction, 
 
 But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey ; 
 Although his anatomical construction 
 
 Bears vegetables in a grumbling way, 
 Your labouring people think, beyond all question, 
 
 Beef, veal and mutton better for digestion. 
 
 Shelley, walking down Bond Street, composing a poem 
 and munching a new roll for his dinner, would be likely to 
 produce dyspeptic verse that day. Shelley wrote no line of 
 malice in reply to Byron. But then these poets were 
 gentlemen. 
 
 One way to disarm personalities when they come is to 
 brave them. To court them is fatal to yourself; to retaliate 
 fatal to union. The partisan of a cause ought to be able 
 to dare all opinions. And all opinions might be dared by 
 those in the right. There can be no quarrel unless two 
 parties engage in it. And it is always in the power of one 
 party to make a quarrel difficult by refusing to be a party to 
 it. No man can quarrel with another without the other's 
 consent. Hence the veto of peace, if not of amity, is always ■ 
 in the hands of one of the disputants. It is often a duty; 
 it is often indispensable to notice individual error. But the 
 discharge of such a duty would not be so distasteful to the 
 public as it now is, were it not for the personally disparaging
 
 PERSONALITIES THE DIGRESSIONS OF DEBATE 6$ 
 
 manner in which it is generally done. If, when objections 
 to a public man must be made, the points were fairly selected 
 and urged, without ill-will, the criticism would be felt 
 to be useful and tolerable. Instead of this course a mis- 
 cellaneous fire is often extended to every imaginable fault, 
 and conjectures called in when facts are exhausted, until 
 what was, or should be, public instruction becomes a 
 gratification of private resentment. 
 
 Malevolence is not necessary on the platform, nor in 
 the press. Canadian journalists told me that Mr Goldwin 
 Smith, by showing in his own writing how a man of genius 
 could be effective without employing dishonouring epithets, 
 had raised the character of the whole Canadian press. 
 
 It is not just to refer to a man's lameness of body ; but 
 lameness of mind may be complained of, because that is 
 remediable. A lame man would not enter himself in a 
 public race with agile men, and if he enters into public 
 controversy he must be assumed to have mental nimbleness. 
 But, if he is always behind in his argument, his deficiency 
 in pace may be ascribed to natural causes — to lameness 
 of understanding. Misfortunes of nature are indefensible 
 allusions. Canning has not been forgiven for alluding 
 to a political opponent as the 'revered and ruptured 
 Ogden.' The permanent reason for avoiding outrage is 
 that the mugwumps who can imitate nothing else, can 
 imitate unpleasantnesses. 
 
 The debater should keep a sharp eye on an opponent 
 who introduces personalities. It is the device by which an 
 astute adversary allures his assailant from his gun — so that 
 he is not at hand to discharge it — when the enemy is in 
 front of it. 
 
 Civilisation has imposed laws on contests, and even on 
 war. An invading army must not poison the wells of the 
 enemy; a duellist must stand at the assigned distance 
 before he fires ; a prize-fighter is forbidden to hit below 
 the belt ; neither man, nor horse, nor boat is allowed to
 
 64 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 foul a competitor in a race. But in controversy there is 
 no law, save that of honour, to prevent an adversary 
 assailing an opponent by dishonouring imputations. 
 
 Once, in the United States Assembly, a member in 
 audience, being weary of listening to the member in pos- 
 session of the floor, rose and said, ' Mr Speaker, I should 
 like to know how long that blackguard is to go on tiring me 
 to death in this manner.' In the Irish House of Commons, 
 Mr Grattan said of Mr Corrie, ' I will not call him villain, 
 \ because he is a Chancellor of the Exchequer; I will not 
 call him liar, because he is a Privy Councillor ; but I will 
 say of him, that he is one who has taken advantage of the 
 privileges of this House to utter language to which, in any 
 other place, my answer would have been a blow.' A duel 
 was the immediate result. And if a duel was intended 
 the language was well chosen for the purpose. 
 
 De Morgan relates that the late Professor Vince was once 
 arguing at Cambridge against duelling, and some one said, 
 'Well, but, Professor, what would you do if anyone called 
 you a liar ? ' ' Sir,' said the fine old fellow, ' I should tell 
 him to prove it, and if he did prove it, I should be ashamed 
 of myself, and if he didn't he ought to be ashamed of 
 himself.' 
 
 The obvious laws to be observed in controversy seem 
 to be these : — 
 
 1. To consult the improvement of those opposed to you, 
 ^)^ and to this end argue not for resentment, or gratification, 
 
 or pride, or vanity, but for their enlightenment. 
 
 2. When surmising motives do not surmise the worst, 
 but adopt the best construction the case admits. 
 
 3. To distinguish between the personalities which impugn 
 the judgment and those that criminate character, and not to 
 advance accusations affecting the judgment of an adversary 
 without distinct and indisputable proof; and never to 
 assail character (where it must be done) on suspicion, pro- 
 bability, belief or hkelihood.
 
 PERSONALITIES THE DIGRESSIONS OF DEBATE 65 
 
 4. Never make an incriminating imputation unless some 
 public good is to come out of it. It is not enough that 
 a charge is true, it must be useful to prefer it before it can 
 be justifiably made. 
 
 5. Be so sure of your case as to be able to defy the 
 judgment of mankind, and when assailed, maintain self- 
 respect in reply, not forgetting justice to those to whom 
 you are opposed. 
 
 Leigh Hunt prophesied long ago that the old philosophic 
 conviction would revive among us, that ' the errors of man- 
 kind arise rather from the want of knowledge than from 
 defect of goodness.' Stupidity can be informed, ignorance 
 can be enlightened, but the collision of interest, passion 
 and self-will, can destroy association, until men acquire 
 justice in speech, and equity towards others. 
 
 The necessity of enforcing this most practical part of 
 rhetoric (the Rhetoric of Dispute), which is taught in no 
 School, Mechanics' or Literary Institution, is evidenced in 
 the fact that an impartial, impersonal and dispassionate tone 
 is in many eyes almost fatal to prosperity in newspaper and 
 periodical literature. To the uneducated populace nothing 
 that is just seems spirited. He who is not offensively per- 
 sonal is pronounced tame. The rancorous are most relished. 
 The reason is that most men, when stung by a sense of 
 injury, are naturally precipitated from extreme to extreme. 
 Their opinions, when sincere, are not produced by the 
 ordinary law of intellectual births, by induction or inference, 
 but are equivocally generated by the heat of fervid emotion, 
 wrought upon by some sense of unbearable oppression 
 But all this changes with the growth of knowledge. Art 
 discards the gaudy colours of the savage : so rhetoric discards 
 savage invective. Civilisation implies a sense of proportion. 
 
 Personalities, even those which relate to defects of under- 
 standing, are allowable within the limits of not impugning 
 sanity ; but not personal allusions which relate to defect of 
 honour, or veracity. If you call a man an idiot, you pass 
 
 E
 
 66 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 the limit of allowable personalities of the mind. He who 
 thinks another an idiot, should be silent with regard to him. 
 If a person be an idiot it is of no use arguing with him. 
 He is incapable of reasoning. To use such a term towards 
 an adversary is to stop debate — if you believe what you say. 
 The moment this word is said the friends of the alleged 
 imbecile are up in arms to resent the insult to his under- 
 standing, and probably the ' idiot ' himself leaps up to retort 
 upon his accuser. Then there is an end of the subject in 
 debate. Partisans digress from it to join in the vindica- 
 tion of the assailed, or of the assailant. 
 
 The moment one person accuses another of want of 
 honour or veracity, the reply is a blow, or a duel, which are 
 held to be justifiable. If the term is believed it destroys 
 the accused, and he feels justified in destroying his accuser. 
 Dishonouring charges should properly go before a magistrate. 
 A charge of personal dishonour is a breach of the peace, 
 and the law court, and not the platform, is the more fit- 
 ting place to make it To introduce offensive accusation 
 is to terminate debate by a pernicious digression, and 
 arouses recrimination and passion, through which the rays 
 of truth penetrate not. This consequence is so well under- 
 stood that he who causes such digression may be suspected 
 of intending it. 
 
 The mischief of personalities which offend is that persons 
 who cannot argue can recriminate. A hundred persons can 
 make imputations for ten who can reason. The discovery 
 of truth in the maze of words and diversity of view requires 
 concentration of attention. But irrelevancies require no 
 thought and are popular with the majority of hearers who 
 have not reflected on these things, or to whom irrelevancies 
 are a relief.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 POLICY OF DEBATE 
 
 There are three points of policy in debate. 
 
 1. The first is the search for the truth — its recognition 
 
 when found, whether in the mouth of your adversary, or 
 
 elsewhere. As Dr Johnson says in his ' Irene ' : — 
 
 Be virtuous ends pursued by virtuous means, 
 Nor think the intention sanctifies the deed. 
 
 No talent, no genius is entitled to esteem, except as the use 
 to which it is put is conducive to the welfare of all. 
 
 2. Since the adversary is the friend of truth, he should 
 never be outraged or humiliated, or he will withdraw himself 
 from the arena, or his friends will if he does not. Then 
 debate is ended and discredited in public estimation. 
 
 3. Because discussion is the agency of establishing truth, 
 the credit of debate should always be in the minds of both 
 disputants. Be not contemptuous or impatient of those 
 whose faculties are not ' on sight,' or perhaps non-existent. 
 I would listen a reasonable time to a madman. * Light is 
 still light, whether it pass through coloured glass or even a 
 cracked window.' 
 
 Whether ridicule and satire may be employed in debate, 
 are questions of judgment as well as rule. ' Cicero con- 
 descended to employ ridicule against certain chimeras.' 
 'Condescended' is Gibbon's word, admitting or implying 
 that ridicule is at best but one of the lower forms of argu- 
 ment. Satire, in the hands of Lucian, was. Gibbon thought, 
 
 67
 
 68 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 a much more adequate as well as a more efficacious weapon. 
 Shaftesbury regarded ridicule as 'one of those principal 
 lights ' under which things are to be viewed in order to their 
 full recognition. Truth, it is supposed, may bear all lights. 
 So it will, but the holders of the ridiculed truth will not. 
 Most things, owing to time or circumstance — some intrin- 
 sically — have an absurd side. But it requires dexterity to 
 show it without giving offence. In politics it requires con- 
 summate art to employ ridicule without outraging those held 
 up to laughter. In religion it is never successful, if the 
 object is conversion. Instructive ridicule is so difificult ; and 
 foolish ridicule is so easy, and commonly coarse and buffoon- 
 ish, that, without the instinct and cultivation of art, ridicule 
 should not be attempted. One rule is clear — a cause in a 
 minority should never ridicule the cause of the majority. The 
 wise profit by Coleridge's warning ; ' Truth is a good dog, 
 but beware of barking too closely at the heels of error, lest 
 you get your brains kicked out.' Those in the majority, 
 political and ecclesiastical, employ ridicule against the 
 minority, without scruple or mercy, but are furious when it 
 is employed against themselves, and resent it dangerously. 
 Only now and then a man of genius does it on good part 
 and amusingly. It is said by omniscient and self-complacent 
 writers, that 'to argue with folly is to make it feel important.' 
 But what one may deem folly may be matter of honest and 
 serious conviction on the part of others. The subject of our 
 ridicule, or satire, may be sacred to them : and there is 
 neither sense nor self-respect in inflicting pain, outrage or 
 humiliation upon sincere persons, however foolish we may 
 deem them. A master in advocacy, John Stuart Mill, held 
 that, ' in general, opinions, contrary to those received, can 
 only obtain a hearing by studied moderation of language 
 and the most cautious avoidance of unnecessary offence, from 
 which they hardly ever deviate, even in the slightest degree, 
 without losing ground.' Sarcasm is mocking, and when 
 without bitterness is enlivening. Ridicule holds persons or
 
 POLICY OF DEBATE 69 
 
 things up to laughter or contempt. Satire is diverting 
 
 since it reflects on the intellectual oversight of adversaries. 
 
 Ridicule is more common, because malice may inspire it. 
 
 Satire is more difficult, since it is futile without wit. 
 
 Satire, like a polished razor keen, 
 
 Wounds with a touch which is scarcely felt or seen. 
 
 Sarcasm, ridicule and satire have always been regarded as 
 
 bright weapons of controversy, but they require to be used 
 
 with judgment and, above all, with good temper. 
 
 It is well to avoid words which may mean more than you 
 can prove. Be chary of saying a thing is ' very ' good or 
 ' very ' exact, when it may be merely good, and perhaps not 
 that : its exactness may hardly come up to the average, when 
 looked into. ' Most ' is as dangerous as ' very.' It requires 
 wide knowledge to say a thing is * most ' excellent. The word 
 'none ' and 'all,' 'every' and ' always,' should be used very 
 warily. It may require you to go over all mankind, over all 
 time, and every event, to justify such wide-reaching terms. 
 
 If you invite opposition, do it with circumspection. The 
 value of free speech is too great to be trifled with. Seek 
 conflict only with sincere men. Concede to your opponent 
 the first word and the last. Let him appoint the chairman. 
 Let him speak double time if he desires it. Debate is 
 objected to as an exhibition in which disputants try to 
 surprise, outwit, take advantage of, and discomfit each other. 
 To obviate this objection, explain to your opponent, before- 
 hand if you can, the outline of the course you intend to pursue, 
 acquaint him with the books you shall quote, the authorities 
 you shall cite, the propositions you shall endeavour to prove, 
 and the concessions you shall ask. And do this without ex- 
 pecting the same at his hands. He will not now be taken un- 
 awares. He will be pre-warned and pre-armed. He will have 
 time to prepare, and if the truth is in him, it ought to come out. 
 
 If you feel that you cannot give all these advantages to 
 your opponent, suspect yourself and your side of the 
 question. Every conscientious and decided man beUeves
 
 70 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 his views to be true, and if consistent he believes them to 
 be impregnable. Neither in minutes, months nor years 
 are they to be refuted. Then a man so persuaded may 
 concede advantages to his adversary, and enable him to arm 
 himself beforehand. 
 
 In another particular discussions were esteemed unsatis- 
 factory. When statement and reply have been made, then 
 came the reply to the reply, and then the reply to that, till 
 the cavil seemed perplexing, tiresome and endless. 
 
 Now, the object of discussion is not the vexatious chase 
 of an opponent, but the contrastive statement of opinion. 
 Therefore endeavour to select main points, to state them 
 strongly and clearly, and when your opponent replies be con- 
 tent to leave his arguments side by side with your own, for 
 the judgment of the auditors. Do not disparage an 
 opponent, mis-state his views, or strain his words, and 
 thus, for the sake of a verbal triumph, produce ill-feel- 
 ing. Your sole business is with what he says, not how he 
 says it, nor why he says it. Your aim should be that the 
 audience should lose sight of the speakers, and be possessed 
 with the subject ; and that those who come the partisans of 
 persons shall depart the partisans of principles. The victory 
 in a debate lies not in lowering an opponent, but in raising 
 the subject in public estimation. Controversial wisdom lies 
 not in destroying the adversary, but in destroying his error 
 — not in making him ridiculous, but in making the audience 
 wise. 
 
 A principle is a pathway. Deviation is error and waste of 
 time. Intellectual courtesy to persons is consideration for 
 others ; it is conceding to others the right of acting on their 
 convictions. But courtesy does not apply to giving up 
 your own conviction nor in concealing it. He who is with- 
 out principle is without any guide, not knowing what to do 
 himself. Relinquishing or concealing personal principle is 
 being useless to others, who are instructed by knowing their 
 neighbours' path as well as knowing their own.
 
 POLICY OF DEBATE 7 1 
 
 Never invent opponents — never invent the opinions of 
 opponents. Take real ones. Tiie dangerous preference of 
 imagination to reality is perhaps nowhere so apparent as in 
 the construction of controversial books. Authors satisfy 
 themselves with inventing the arguments of their opponents, 
 when the easiest and most satisfactory course is to extract 
 the raost powerful reasoning the other side has produced ; 
 by this course real objectors can be answered instead of. 
 fictit.ous ones. 
 
 A perpetual device, or error of controversialists, is to state 
 as a fact against an adversary their i?iference from his 
 doctrines, and declare that he means what they say. After 
 a while, if the accusers have a powerful party on their side, 
 tiiey will assert that the very terms used, in such inference, 
 were the original language of their adversary. This used to 
 be constantly done with applause in political, ecclesiastical 
 and sectarian controversy. The practice has not wholly died 
 out yet. The late Mr Delane inferred from Mr Cobden's 
 expressed opinion in favour of land reform, that he would 
 parcel out the land of the country among the people, and 
 said in the Tifiies that Mr Cobden advised this course — 
 which was never in Mr Cobden's mind nor in his words. 
 Mr Delane put forth his own inference as Mr Cobden's 
 actual avowal, which he indignantly and successfully re- 
 pudiated in letters which became famous. 
 
 Controversialists make much ado about the onus probandi, 
 meaning the burden of proof, which rests with him who 
 makes an assertion. He who denies what is asserted is 
 often, without reason, called upon to prove his negative. 
 Beyond remarking that it is the province of the assertor to 
 prove, accept the logically unfair demand and give the 
 reasons why you hold the negative opinion. This meets 
 the case as far as a negationist can meet it. It continues 
 the discussion, and compels it to proceed, and gives the 
 negationist the opportunity of becoming the assailant by 
 request of his adversary.
 
 72 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Debate requires self-possession — a power to think on 
 your legs. But even in debate the victory is oftener 
 with the foregone than with the impromptu thinker. A 
 man who knows his subject well will be forearmed. He 
 alone can distinctly see the points in dispute, and the nature 
 of the proof or disproof necessary to decide the question. 
 
 Two persons of opposite opinions often mistake the way 
 of coming to a common understanding : as, for instance, 
 when one speaks at the other instead of explaining his own 
 views to him. Each expects the other to come over to him, 
 which neither is inclined to do, nor intends to do. A, in 
 expecting B to come to him, assumes that on the part of bis 
 opponent there exists a predisposition for his views. This 
 should never be assumed. It is the first endeavour of a 
 foreseeing propagandist to create it if it does not exist, and 
 strengthen it if it does — and whether it exists or not, he 
 should always reason as though it did not. The business 
 of A, the converter, is to meet B on the platform B stands 
 upon, to examine his principles, study his views and turn of 
 thought until he finds some common ground, if such there 
 be, of faith, morals, opinion, or practice, with which he 
 can identify himself. 
 
 There is no easier method of commencing a conversation 
 than by asking a question. There is no safer introduction 
 to an argument than by asking an opponent what he means, 
 where his meaning is doubtful. Time and circumstance 
 have given new usage, new senses, and new associations of 
 idea, to words that once had but one meaning. Most 
 words have now many meanings. Where the sense in 
 which a word is used is open to doubt — do not assume a 
 meaning, but inquire the sense in which an opponent 
 employs it. 
 
 The Socratic method of disputation or artful questioning 
 (of which Zeno the Eleatic was the author), by which an 
 opponent is entrapped into concessions, and thus confuted, 
 IS rather fit for wranglers and sophists than reasoners,.
 
 POLICY OF DEBATE 73 
 
 There is ground for believing that Socrates conde- 
 scended to this course often at the expense of ingenuous- 
 ness. It is said in his defence that he did it not as the 
 sophists, for the sake of confounding virtue, but for the 
 purer purpose of confounding dexterous vice. It is, how- 
 ever, beneath the dignity of a reasoner to betray his 
 opponent into the truth. 
 
 Questioning, however, is an essential instrument. A 
 high authority, Dr Arnold, has put this in a useful light : — 
 *An inquiring spirit is not a presumptuous one, but the 
 very contrary. He whose whole recorded life was intended 
 to be our perfect example, is described as gaining instruc- 
 tion in the temple by hearing and asking questions — the 
 one is almost useless without the other. We should ask 
 questions of our books and of ourselves ', what is its 
 purpose — by what means it proceeds to effect that purpose 
 — whether we fully understand the one — whether we go 
 along with the other — do the arguments satisfy us — do the 
 descriptions convey lively and distinct images to us^do we 
 understand all the allusions to persons or things ? In 
 short, does our mind act over again from the writer's 
 guidance what his acted before? do we reason as he 
 reasoned, conceive as he conceived, think and feel as he 
 thought and felt ? or if not, can we discern where and how 
 far we do not, and can we tell why we do not ? ' 
 
 Questioning has also a place in rhetoric as well as in 
 research. Frankly conducted, it is a mode of conviction 
 without offence. To whatever an opponent urges, with 
 which we do not agree, of course we have some objection. 
 Put this objection incidentally, or ask as a question, what 
 answer can be given to it ? This is a good conversational 
 mode of debate, where the improvement of an opponent, 
 rather than a triumph over him, is the object. It is not 
 showy, but it is informing. 
 
 In a similar way confidence may be acquired by diffident 
 speakers. A novitiate conversationalist is shy of taking
 
 74 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 part in debating a topic, lest he should not be able to 
 sustain himself. To such I have said— put your argument 
 in the form of an objection which some would urge, and 
 beg some one of the company to tell you what he would 
 say in reply. If to this answer you have an objection 
 further, put that also in the questioning form; for a man 
 would be able to ask a question who would never be able to 
 make a speech. Wise members of Parliament know this. 
 Once in conversation, the diffident will speak freely enough 
 — perhaps too freely. A coward will fight when he grows 
 warm in strife. By questioning a novice may learn the best 
 answers others can give to his own argument, and without 
 exposure learn his own weakness or strength, or that of 
 others. 
 
 In interpreting the words of an adversary, he who replies 
 has to put some construction upon it. It is safest to put 
 the best. He is nearly always wrong who puts the worst, 
 whether in debate or in daily life. To put the best con- 
 struction possible on a proposition in dispute is to raise 
 debate to a higher level and maintain it there.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 DEFENCE OF DEBATE 
 
 Speaking a few years ago at a Liverpool college, Mr 
 Gladstone, who is always for fairness to adversaries, 
 said : ' The day had gone by when reticence or railing at 
 opponents was regarded as a sufficient defence of opinion. 
 Assailants of religious tenets must be met by reason and not 
 by railing.' In words to this effect he counselled that 
 adversaries should be met by argument. Mr Gladstone is 
 as much an ecclesiastical as a political authority, and no one 
 else of his eminence as a Christian has, in my time, justified 
 reasoning controversy. It is only those who, consciously or 
 unconsciously, lack confidence in the truth of their opinions, 
 who decry honest discussion. To him who believes he has 
 the truth, opposition is his opportunity. He who under- 
 stands that the sincere adversary is the friend of truth will 
 find debate a great advantage. Your opponent may be the 
 enemy of your opinions, but he is the friend of your improve- 
 ment. The more ably he confronts you the more he serves 
 you. The gods, it is said, have not given to mortals the 
 privilege of seeing themselves as others see them ; but, by a 
 happy compensation in human affairs, it is given to adver- 
 saries to supply what the gods deny. They afford that 
 indispensable light of contrast which enables you to discover 
 the truth if hidden from you, or the opportunity to display 
 the truth if you possess it. ' A good writer,' says Godwin, 
 ' must have ductility of thought that shall enable him to put 
 
 75
 
 76 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 himself in the place of his reader, and not suffer him to take 
 it for granted, because he understands himself, that every 
 one who comes to him for information will understand him. 
 He must view his phrases on all sides, and be aware of all 
 the senses of which they are susceptible.' But this faciHty 
 can nowhere be so certainly acquired as in debate. 
 
 A master of debate amid orators of renown — Edmund 
 Burke, said : ' He that wrestles with us strengthens our 
 nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. 
 This amiable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate 
 acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it 
 in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial.' 
 
 Discussion commences without prepossession, and ends 
 without dogmatism when each disputant is anxious to explain 
 as well as to defend his opinions. As an established truth 
 is that which is generally received after it has been generally 
 examined, it is evident that, though truth may be discovered 
 by research, it can only be established by debate. 
 
 The only verification of truth possible, is when proposi- 
 tions supposed to be true are subjected to criticism. The 
 most competent writers (as Samuel Bailey, to wit) on the 
 means of ascertaining Truth, agree that, while true things 
 are true in themselves, and may come to be accepted with- 
 out controversy, no one can be sure of the truth of very 
 important propositions until they have been openly, freely, 
 and universally discussed in a fair field of inquiry. All 
 Milton asked was ' a free and open encounter ' for truth, and 
 no one could doubt its victoriousness. Like all intrepid 
 advocates of a cause in a minority, Milton was too sanguine. 
 A ' free and open ' encounter is not enough — it should be a 
 fair encounter also. If disputants are unequally matched 
 as to powers of expression, extent of knowledge or means of 
 obtaining it, or leisure for preparation for the encounter — 
 truth for that time may not obtain the advantage. People 
 seem not to think that debaters should be as equally 
 matched as may be. A savage undrilled against a soldier
 
 DEFENCE OF DEBATE ^^ 
 
 trained — a racer lame against one swift of foot — a village 
 spouter against a London actor — a pedagogue against a 
 professor — would be no fair encounter however 'free and 
 open ' it might be. 
 
 That is no fight — as everybody knows — 
 Where only one side deals the blows, 
 And the other has to bear them. 
 
 It is because common-sense conditions of fairness are 
 overlooked in discussion that many decry debate as un- 
 instructive or disappointing. The sureness of a truth is 
 known only when it obtains acceptance after every competent 
 person has been heard, who has anything to say against it. 
 Freedom of thought, and the free and equal criticism of it, is 
 a condition of truth and progress. It is the well-understood 
 interest of every community to permit, to encourage, and to 
 give every man who can think, a chance of adding to the 
 sum of Truth. At the same time, no person can hope to 
 obtain from men of thought that indispensable criticism 
 which they can give, unless the advocate of truth is himself 
 studiously fair and friendly in speech. 
 
 Every man, said Walpole, and later, Pitt, has his price. 
 Whether either had sounded the venality of patriotism and 
 fixed the market price of his own virtue I know not. If Pitt 
 was incorruptible, as is believed, he should not have said 
 what he did. But with more truth and less offensiveness it 
 may be said that every man has his reason, which, when 
 once presented to him, will sway him ; and to find this out 
 is the problem rhetoric has to solve. I am not more 
 favourable than Hood to the plan of ' dropping truth gently, 
 as if it were china, and likely to break.' But if a fair case 
 be so stated as not to mortify others by arrogance, nor 
 annoy by ceaseless importunity, nor disgust by seeming 
 vanity, but accompanied by evident indications of dis- 
 interested sincerity, it will generally prove acceptable. It is 
 not the truth men hate, but the disagreeable auxiliaries
 
 78 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 which SO often attend its enunciation. Bacon, I think it is, 
 who says in his regal manner : * Whosoever has his mind 
 fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding 
 do clarify and break up, in the communicating and dis- 
 coursing with another ; he tosseth his thoughts more easily ; 
 he marshalleth them more orderly ; he seeth how they look 
 when they are turned into words ; finally, he waxeth wiser 
 than himself; and that more by an hour's discourse than 
 by a day's meditation.' 
 
 Very few people are capable of charity without compromise, 
 or can distinguish between them. Charity recognises how 
 a man may come by his error without being conscious of it. 
 Compromise is suffering some error to remain, out of 
 courtesy or expediency, in order to obtain co-operation in 
 carrying into practice a portion of truth which would other- 
 wise be rejected. 
 
 It is of use trying to find a common ground for 
 debate. He who cannot find it, cannot convert. How 
 can persons, any more than bodies, cohere, who never 
 touch ? So long as each denies to the other a share of reason 
 on his side — so long as each maintains an infallibility of 
 pretension to complete truth — they both assume what is 
 contrary to the nature of things, and exclude the common 
 ground which must be established between them, where 
 truth and error can join issue. There are few impassable 
 gulfs between contending men or contending opinions but 
 such as are dug by pride and passion. All have a common 
 consciousness of impression — a common nature to investi- 
 gate — a common sincerity to actutate us — truth is our 
 common object, and we have a common interest in dis- 
 covering it. Nature made us friends : it is mostly false 
 pride or false impressions that make us enemies. Thus 
 common ground exists between most disputants. The 
 common ground which exists is not one which policy makes, 
 but one that nature provides. 
 
 These remarks regard conviction as depending upon truth
 
 DEFENCE OF DEBATE 79 
 
 not upon forms of procedure. Nothing is recommended 
 here which is inconsistent with truth — no cunning question- 
 ing, no sophistical entrapment. The sole precepts are those 
 of condescension and contrast. From a common ground 
 of agreement, you have a common point of sight, from 
 which all objects are seen in the same light ; and a clear 
 plane is obtained on which principles can be drawn, and a 
 perfect outline of truth and error displayed. He who has 
 the truth will make it plain "by relevant elucidation. 
 Differences are often made wider by irrelevant, repulsive 
 debate. Differences which did not exist are often created 
 in this way. All honest men desire the truth, and there is 
 a way in which they can find it. The understandings of 
 men commonly run in a given channel — each thinker looks 
 as it were through a telescope of his own. It is only in 
 debate that he sees it through the telescope of his opponent, 
 which clarifies his own views. Let no man conclude be- 
 cause no immediate change of opinion is manifest in 
 debate, that none has taken place. The life of thought 
 may be begun. Seed brought from Egypt was found 
 to grow more than eighteen centuries after it was 
 garnered. 
 
 The supreme advantage of debate is that it compels a 
 man to think. A man is not a man unless he is a thinker — 
 he is a fool having no ideas of his own. If he happens to 
 live among men who do think, he browses, like an animal, 
 on their ideas. He is a sort of kept-man, being supported 
 by the thoughts of others. He is what in England we call 
 a pauper, who subsists upon out-door relief allowed him by 
 men of intellect. Nevertheless, there are persons in every 
 assembly who, like Curran, have powers and know it not ; 
 or, like Macklin, who was more than forty years old before 
 
 he knew that 
 
 He was the Jew 
 
 Whom Shakespeare drew. 
 
 Thousands have powers unsuspected by themselves or
 
 8o PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Others. Some may be compared to that daughter of the 
 first Duke of Marlbrough— 
 
 All nature's charms in Sunderland appear, 
 Bright as her eyes, and as her reason clear ; 
 Yet still their force, to men not safely known. 
 Seems undiscovered to herself alone. 
 
 The defence of debate — like that of national education — 
 is that it discovers and trains latent talent for the service 
 and exaltation of the nation. 
 
 Oral examination surpasses all other forms. Discussion 
 after many discourses would be of great public value. The 
 argument against debate, that it would lead to strife and dis- 
 cord, is one reason why it should be practised. Men are 
 childish intellectually, while in that state in which debate 
 must be prohibited. If they be children, train them in 
 the art of debate until they are translated into men. To 
 admit debate after an address, it is said, enables factious 
 individuals to destroy the effect of what has been said. It 
 is often the fault of the speaker if anyone is able to efface 
 the effect of his speech. 
 
 As a general rule, discussions, set and accidental, are good. 
 A twofold reality by means of debate is brought to bear on the 
 public understanding, more exciting than that of any other 
 intellectual agency. An opinion that is worth holding is 
 worth diffusing, and to be diffused it must be thought about ; 
 and when men think on true principles they become 
 adherents — but only those adherents are worth having 
 who have thought over both sides, and discussion alone 
 makes them do that. True, men may read on both sides ; 
 but it seldom happens that men who are impressed by one 
 side care to read the other. In discussions they are obliged 
 to hear the other side. If men do read both sides, unless 
 they read a ' discussion,' they do not find all the facts on 
 one side specially considered on the other. In a discussion 
 read, unless read at one sitting, the strength of any impres-
 
 DEFENCE OF DEBATE 8 I 
 
 sion and the clearness of the argument on one side is partly 
 lost before the opponent's side is perused. But in an oral 
 debate, the relation of fact to fact is more complete — 
 the pro and con are heard successively, the light of contrast 
 is full and clear, and both sides are weighed at the same 
 time, when the eye of the mind is sharply fixed on the 
 balance. If the disputants are intellectual gladiators so 
 much the better, provided they are in earnest. The 
 stronger they are, the mightier and the more instructive 
 the conflict. It is said that people come out of such dis- 
 cussions as they go into them, that the same partisans 
 shout or hiss on the same side all through. This is not 
 always true, and no matter if it is. The work of conviction 
 is often done though the audience may not show it. They 
 may break your head, and afterwards own you were right. 
 Human pride forbids the confession, but change is effected 
 in spite of pride. But if an audience remain the same 
 at night, they will not be the same the next morning. 
 Conviction is begun in discussion which is not ended 
 there. He who hastily changes his views is to be suspected 
 of weakness, or carelessness, or caprice. The steady, in- 
 quiring and deliberate thinker is the safest convert. 
 
 It is a maxim of the schoolmen that we never really know 
 what a thing is, unless we are also able to give a sufficient 
 account of its opposite. This is the maxim of contrast that 
 enters into all effective persuasion. Professor Bain, in his 
 ' Essay on Early Philosophy,' remarks : — 
 
 The essence of the Dialectic Method is to place side 
 by side with every doctrine and its reasons, all opposing 
 doctrines and their reasons, allowing these to be stated in 
 full by the persons holding them. No doctrine is to be 
 held as expounded, far less proved, unless it stands in 
 parallel array to every other counter-theory, with all that 
 can be said for each. For a short time this system was 
 actually maintained and practised ; but the execution of 
 Socrates gave it its first check, and the natural intolerance 
 
 F
 
 82 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 of mankind rendered its continuance impossible. Since the 
 Reformation, struggles have been made to regain for the 
 discussion of questions generally — philosophical, political, 
 moral and religious, the two-sided procedure of the law- 
 courts, and 'perhaps never more strenuously than now.' 
 Remember that — 
 
 Through mutual intercourse and mutual aid, 
 
 Great deeds are done, and great discoveries made ; 
 
 The wise new wisdom on the wise bestow, 
 
 Whilst the lone thinker's thoughts come slight and slow. 
 
 Persons whom you take to be wise and choose to think 
 honest, will arrest discussion and conceal their own ignor- 
 ance by insisting that the point in dispute is a mere affair 
 of terms. 'What's in a name?' they say. Everything. 
 Truth is in the right name. The wrong name misleads. 
 Difference in terms means difference of ideas. To one who 
 says he means the same as you, only under a different name, 
 ask him to take your name and thus indicate the unity of 
 his idea. He will do nothing of the kind, and you will soon 
 see there is a difference in his mind. But for debate he 
 would go on believing there was none. 
 
 It is no mean excellence in debate that it alone relieves a 
 man of honourable conscience of responsibility. How can 
 anyone bear the idea of putting forth opinions for which 
 others, who adopt them, must in this life or the next be 
 answerable — and he accords them no opportunity of the 
 self-defence of debate ? He who is not infallible must often 
 be in error, even where he is most earnest, and he is answer- 
 able for whatever he says or does which influences the life 
 of others. Discussion alone can save him from the con- 
 sequences of his advocacy, so far as it may be erroneous.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE THEORY OF EPITHETS — MORAL AS WELL AS RHETORICAL 
 
 The question of epithets cover so wide a range of morals, 
 manner of mind as well as policy of speech, that several 
 considerations are necessary to adequately understanding it. 
 At every step an observing student is admonished how con- 
 scientiously a man will say things he will one day wish he 
 could recall. Carlton tells truly — 
 
 Boys flying kites haul in their white-winged birds ; 
 You can't do that way when you're flying words. 
 Careful with fire is good advice we know ; 
 Careful with words is ten times doubly so, 
 Thoughts unexpress'd may sometimes fall back dead, 
 But God Himself can't kill them once they're said. 
 
 Many enter the quagmire of recrimination without ade- 
 quate reflection. The question is commonly put, ' Ought 
 we not to state all we know to be true ? ' Not unless it 
 can be shown to be useful. Every man knows a thousand 
 things which are true, but which it would advantage 
 nobody to hear. When we speak, the rule is absolute 
 that we speak the truth, but what truth we will voluntarily 
 communicate good sense must be the judge. If all truth 
 must be published, without regard to fitness or justice, 
 William Rufus, who drew a tooth a day from a rich Jew's 
 head, to induce him. to tell truly where his treasures were 
 concealed, was a great moral philosopher. ' Well, but 
 what a man believes to be true and useful may he not 
 
 83
 
 84 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 State ? ' will be asked by some. Not unless he can prove 
 it. If every man stated his suspicions, no character would 
 be safe from aspersion, all society would be a school 
 of scandal. Suspicion is the food of slander. There is 
 already more evil in existence than the virtuous are likely 
 soon to correct, and little necessity exists for suspicion to 
 supply hypothetical cases. 'But,' observes the reader, 'if 
 two disputants have respectively proved the fitness of the 
 epithets they have mutually appUed, are they not justified 
 in having used them ? ' Better leave that to the audience, 
 unless, as has been said, the object is to end the discussion, 
 for the auditors assured they have two rascals before 
 them, will leave the room. No disputant should unite the 
 offices of witness, jury and judge, giving his own evidence, 
 returning his own verdict, and pronouncing the sentence 
 in his own favour. It is this habit which has been the 
 discredit of religious, political and literary discussions. 
 Lawyers are the philosophers of disputes, and have wisely 
 taken out of the hands of interest, petulance and prejudice, 
 the power of deciding upon their own case. Yet disputants 
 will do that unhesitatingly with regard to each other, which, 
 in a court of justice, would long tax the patience and dis- 
 cernment of twelve disinterested, dispassionate men. The 
 difficulty of being right as to epithets shows the necessity of 
 being sparing in their use. Epithets are more safely applied 
 to the characterisation of opinions than of persons. If you 
 accuse certain stones of a certain property which is not 
 possessed by all, the exceptional stones will not be scandal- 
 ised, as the same number of men would whom you happened 
 to include in a carelessly-worded, disparaging, general asser- 
 tion. The wrongly accused are not pacified by your saying, 
 ' Oh, I did not mean you \ I meant to allow that there were 
 exceptions.' Never forget that ' all ' means everyone. 
 
 It is a wise maxim in law — in rhetoric as well — that ten 
 guilty men had better escape than that one innocent man 
 should suffer. So with personal judgments. The one
 
 THE THEORY OF EPITHETS 85 
 
 innocent man condemned will do both judge and justice 
 more harm than the ten guilty who escape. 
 
 Persons who deem duels with daggers or pistols absurd 
 and murderous, will fight duels with their tongues or pens, 
 though tragedies of domestic alienation, or public hatred and 
 wreck of parties frequently follow therefrom. Since the 
 perfect style of public invective can no longer be employed, 
 why should the habit still linger ? After Grattan had 
 denounced Corrie as a liar, all progress in discussion was 
 arrested until the two orators had attempted to murder 
 each other. 
 
 Professor A. de Morgan, in his reply to Sir W. Hamilton, 
 in their discussion on the origination of Formal Logic, 
 makes these useful remarks : — 
 
 'In the days of swords it was one of the objects of 
 public policy to prevent people from sticking them into each 
 other's bodies on trivial grounds. We now wear pens ; and 
 it is as great a point to hinder ourselves from sticking them 
 into each other's characters, without serious and well-con- 
 sidered reasons. To this end I have always considered it 
 as one of the first and most special rules, that conviction of 
 the truth of a charge is no sufficient reason for its promulga- 
 tion. I assert that no one is justified in accusing another 
 until he has his proof ready ; and that in the interval, if 
 indeed it be right that there should be any interval between 
 the charge and the attempt at substantiation, all the leisure 
 and energies of the accuser are the property of the accused.' 
 
 Improvement and not mortification of person or detraction 
 of character should govern the employment of epithets as well 
 as arguments. Disagreements are human and inevitable. 
 Differences are in themselves as natural and as innocent as 
 variation in form, colour or strength. It is the manner in 
 which those who differ seek to adjust their differences that 
 constitutes any disgrace there may be in any divergence of 
 opinion or belief. Philosophy has been preached to us in 
 vain, if we ever take up arms against an opponent without at
 
 86 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 the same time keeping justice to him in view, as well as our 
 own defence. To promote the welfare of those who pro- 
 bably hate us, is generous but difficult. Addison called his 
 opponents 'miscreants,' Dr Clarke 'crazy,' Paley 'insane,' 
 which did not produce amity or instruction. The profit of 
 controversy lies in contrast of argument ever fresh and 
 instructive. Recrimination, if common to both disputants, 
 has, like the common quantities in an equation, to be struck 
 out of the dispute as only making delay in finding the 
 true result. Epithets are better confined to error. Even 
 in Parliament the Speaker seems to possess no diction- 
 ary of personal epithets. Members are not always checked 
 when they use inadmissible terms, and when attention has 
 been called to them the Speaker, for the time being, has not 
 always been ready with a definition of the disputed word, 
 and has sometimes been wrong when he has given it. 
 Leaders of the House have sometimes been unready in 
 supplying a decisive meaning, which shows that there is no 
 Parliamentary Code of epithets in existence, and neither 
 Sir Erskine May nor Mr Palgrave, who have written on 
 Parliamentary procedure and practice, appear to have com- 
 piled any such work. Mr Gladstone, who appears to know 
 the meaning of every word, and never errs in terms of 
 imputation, might compile such a code at will. Indeed, 
 one might be made from episodes in his speeches. Take 
 two instances. Sir Stafford Northcote one day complained 
 of what Mr Gladstone had just said. ' Of what do you 
 complain?' Mr Gladstone asked. 'Of misrepresentation,' 
 answered Sir Stafford. 'The right honourable gentleman 
 does not mend the matter by that rather rude expression.' 
 Misrepresentation implies an intentional perversion of 
 another's meaning. Speaking in reply to Lord R. Churchill, 
 Mr Gladstone remarked — ' My reference was this. The 
 noble lord distinctly accused me and accused the Liberal 
 party of traducing an adversary. It is impossible to con- 
 ceive a charge more disgraceful. It is a charge which
 
 THE THEORY OF EPITHETS 87 
 
 implies falsehood in the first place. There is no traducing 
 by error. Traducing is a wilful act, and that wilful act is 
 imputed to me by the noble lord.' 
 
 A few examples of the meaning of terms disparaging or 
 dishonouring may show the student the sort of attention 
 which epithets meant to wound (the kind here considered) 
 require. 
 
 Liar means that a person says what is not true and knows 
 it to be untrue, and that he consciously and deliberately 
 says what he does say with a view to deceive. 'Liar' is 
 a favourite epithet with the lowest class of opponents. It 
 puts a man who uses it out of any court, save a court of law. 
 No court of honour would adjudicate upon it. It should be 
 referred to a court of scavengers, whose business it would 
 be to remove it. The term is not a matter of taste ; it is a 
 breach of the peace, and would be resented by a blow, or a 
 duel, or contempt, which would keep him inexorably at a dis- 
 tance who used it. If a man thought his adversary was not 
 to be believed on his word he might say so. But then he 
 puts an end to the controversy, which it is useless to con- 
 tinue when one disputant does not believe what the other 
 says. It is like cheating at cards. The playing is over as 
 soon as the charge of cheating is made. One who wrote 
 with authority said, if one says to another ' You lied there,' 
 and we regard only the principal signification of that expres- 
 sion, it is the same thing as if he had said to him, ' You 
 know the contrary of what you say.' But besides this 
 principal signification, these words convey an idea of con- 
 tempt and outrage ; and they inspire the belief that he who 
 uttered them would not hesitate to do us harm, which 
 renders them offensive and injurious. 
 
 The minor terms of turpitude are many, which contain 
 dishonouring imputations. Of such is the term ' traduce.' 
 To say another traduces you, implies that he vilifies and 
 defames you, not only falsely but knowingly. I have seen 
 a memorial addressed to Lord Palmerston, in which he was
 
 88 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 accused of 'duplicity.' The term killed the memorial. 
 What Minister could look at a request from persons who 
 affixed to him the stigma of double dealing ? To charge an 
 opponent with ' quibbling ' is to say he knows the truth is 
 against him, and that he seeks to evade it. To accuse an 
 adversary of ' garbling ' is equally offensive. It means that he 
 knowingly quotes what gives a false impression. It is lawful 
 to warn an opponent that what he imputes to you, you regard 
 as insulting ; but to charge him with insulting you is to charge 
 him with an intentional outrage upon you, and if he be a 
 person of self-respect he will not hold further intercourse with 
 one while he persists in the charge. A ' falsehood ' is not 
 only something untrue, but known to be untrue by the teller. 
 If it is not intended to imply this, the statement must be de- 
 scribed as untrue, erroneous, or founded on misinformation. 
 
 Any man of reflection can tell by one test whether a term 
 is fit to be applied to another by asking himself v/hether 
 he would submit to have it applied to himself. No term 
 that imphes consciousness of moral wrong can be used 
 towards another without offence. But there are a class 
 of words which relate to errors of the mind which touch 
 a man's capacity, and not his honour, which may be used. 
 A sensible man is instructed by the most penetrating criti- 
 cism or characterisations of his inconsistencies or narrow- 
 ness of knowledge. To say a man is economical in the 
 use of truth refers to the smallness of his hoard of it, and 
 not to a fraudulent reservation of it. It may be allowable 
 to refer to malformation in the mind in which the backbone 
 of fact is evidently crooked. I have said to an adversary 
 whom I did not intend to accuse of wilful misrepresenta- 
 tion, that he had a ' refracting mind.' The straightest stick 
 put into a pail of water appears bent, and the straightest 
 fact put before some minds will appear distorted ; the 
 trouble being with the medium and not with the intent. 
 
 Take a familiar instance of the difficulties of explicit 
 expression. 'I said the gentleman lied, it is true. I am
 
 THE THEORY OF EPITHETS 89 
 
 sorry for it.' What is true? Did the gentleman lie? I 
 said I was sorry for it. Does it mean he did not lie, and 
 that I was sorry I said he did, or that it is true he did lie, 
 and that I am sorry to have to admit it ? This is a case 
 which shows how difficult it is sometimes to say straight off 
 what is intended. 
 
 If men understood half the trouble there is in making out 
 what the truth really is, and half the trouble there is in 
 making it plain to others, so that they cannot possibly 
 misunderstand it, there would not be half the anger or half 
 the wonder there now is, when one person differs from 
 another in opinion — and more hesitancy in applying dis- 
 paraging epithets upon first impressions. 
 
 There is a point of extreme interest attaching to this 
 question which it may be useful to mention, but irrelevant 
 to discuss. What is to be done with persons who make 
 dishonouring imputations? Should they be noticed? If 
 persons ' of no importance ' — as Oscar Wilde would say — 
 should be raised from their noisome obscurity by reference 
 to them as though they were authorities on manners and 
 their opinion had weight, imputation would be good policy 
 for the obscure. Should a man like Thackeray, having 
 cause of offence against Edmund Yates, withdraw from his 
 club unless Mr Yates was expelled ? When a person who 
 has a character to lose, uses aspersive words towards 
 another, it seems sufficient to show they were unfounded, 
 when their untruth must be admitted, and it is the asperser 
 who is damaged and not the aspersed. The asperser is 
 regarded as belonging to a class who have no sense of 
 honour in the use of terms. 
 
 When a young man, I was appointed secretary to the 
 Garibaldi Committee. Hearing one day an inquiry as to 
 the accounts, I made them up and sent a cheque for the 
 balance to the treasurer; whereupon a member of the 
 committee, then in Parliament and afterwards in the 
 Cabinet, came down and expressed vehement indignation,
 
 90 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 saying gentlemen were not as other people who go by 
 suspicion, but act on facts, and what I had done was an 
 imputation upon them — adding, in a cordial tone, 
 * Remember, if I had not had great respect for you I would 
 not have taken the trouble to express this resentment.' 
 The storm broke in a compliment. But I never forgot 
 the lesson that with a sensible man personal dissent from 
 you, and the rectification of your error, depends upon the 
 respect in which an adversary holds the person to be put 
 right. In a society a good deal turns upon how far a man 
 should tolerate the comradeship of those who have made 
 aspersive charges. Excellent and most useful members 
 of a party will resign and leave it very much the poorer 
 by their loss, because of some offensive thing said of them. 
 We see this done in the House of Commons, and some- 
 times those driven from their party seek to destroy it in 
 resentment. Why is it that some dishonouring epithet 
 used by some coarse-minded, ill-tempered, inconsiderate 
 member of a party should have conceded to it the power 
 of driving its best members out of it, and even of breaking 
 it up? This is not the place to pursue the subject, but 
 so much as is said may serve to show the danger that lurks 
 in evil epithets and phrases. 
 
 It is worth while asking — Cannot honour protect itself; 
 cannot it stand upon its own well-earned repute without the 
 hot explosion which a vicious epithet often calls forth ? 
 Lord Coleridge had the most silvery tongue on the Bench, 
 but if assailed he could defend himself with words which 
 had vitriol in them and burnt where they fell ; yet he did 
 not intend that the object of his resentment should believe 
 all he said. How often are noble friendships cancelled, 
 acts of kindness and generosity obliterated, and all for a 
 word, probably spoken in choler, or under excitement, 
 misinformation, or pressure of care which paralyse, if not 
 unhinge, the mind. There is a good deal of empty, mean, 
 timid pride which goes by the name of * honour.'
 
 THE THEORY OF EPITHETS 9I 
 
 Let two persons talk together with all deliberation and 
 caution, and note how many expletives they employ — how 
 many errors they commit — how insequential are their 
 thoughts, and often how inexact their language. How few 
 ready writers or speakers are precise — how few are continu- 
 ously coherent — how much is said which is never meant, 
 even by those who are careful ! How few acquire the 
 habit of thinking before they speak ! Does not the lawyer, 
 whose life is a study of accuracy, find the carefully debated 
 Act of Parliament open to three or four interpretations? 
 And does not the philosopher daily regret the vagueness of 
 human language ? Then on what principle of good sense 
 can men, without careful inquiry as to the actual meaning 
 of others, hurl at them noxious epithets? All might 
 usefully bear in mind the Arab saying (which, indeed, is the 
 moral of this chapter) lately rendered by Constantia Brooks 
 in the Cetiiury : — 
 
 Remember, three things come not back ; 
 The arrow sent upon its track — 
 It will not swerve, it will not stay 
 Its speed ; it flies to wound or slay. 
 
 The spoken word, so soon forgot 
 By thee ; but it has perished not ; 
 In other hearts 'tis living still, 
 And doing work for good or ill. 
 
 And the lost opportunity, 
 
 That Cometh back no more to thee. 
 
 In vain thou weepest, in vain dost yearn, 
 
 Those three will never more return.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 METHOD IN EXPRESSION 
 
 Method is policy in statement, and relates mainly to 
 arrangement of the parts of a discourse. When I was a 
 Social Missionary in Robert Owen's days, one of my 
 colleagues was a tailor — Mr Speir — who had only such 
 knowledge as a person of his occupation could acquire him- 
 self; but he had so fine a faculty of method that what he 
 did know relating to any subject he spoke upon, was set 
 forth with such masterly lucidity — each succeeding part 
 following from the preceding one — that he produced more 
 conviction than other lecturers with many times his know- 
 ledge. When I was a learner and a listener to lectures in 
 the Birmingham Mechanics' Institution, I observed that 
 when a man of great repute in his department addressed 
 us, he was the simplest and most lucid of all — said the 
 least, and taught us most. 
 
 Coleridge asks, ' What is it that first strikes us, and strikes 
 us at once, in a man of education, and which, among edu- 
 cated men, so instantly distinguishes the man of superior 
 mind? Not always the weight or novelty of his remarks, 
 nor always the interest of the facts which he communicates 
 — for the subject of conversation may chance to be trivial, 
 and its duration to be short. Still less can any just admira- 
 tion arise from any peculiarity in his words and phrases. 
 The true cause of the impression made on us is that his 
 mind is methodical. We perceive this in the unpremedi- 
 
 92
 
 METHOD IN EXPRESSION 93 
 
 tated and evidently habitual arrangement of his words, 
 flowing spontaneously and necessarily from the clearness of 
 the leading idea, from which distinctness of mental vision, 
 when men are fully accustomed to it, they obtain a habit 
 of foreseeing at the beginning of every sentence how it 
 is to end, and how all its parts may be brought out in the 
 best and most orderly succession. However irregular and 
 desultory the conversation may happen to be, there is 
 method in the fragments.' Those who try it will find that 
 a little method is worth a great deal of memory. 
 
 'Since custom,' says the wise Bacon, *is the principal 
 magistrate of a man's life, let him, by all means, endeavour 
 to obtain good customs.' Digressiveness is the natural 
 action of the human faculties, till custom or habit come in 
 to give them a settled direction. Man is as liable, and 
 more liable, to be influenced by the last impression than by 
 any preceding one ; and the liability of man is the char- 
 acteristic of children. The teacher knows this. It is the 
 object of discipline to check the tendency to digression, and 
 give stability to method. A man may be made to perceive 
 method, but not to follow it, without the power of disciphne. 
 A child accustomed to it will go to bed in the dark with 
 peace and pleasure, but all the rhetoric in the world would 
 not accomplish the same end without habit. Nothing but 
 habit will give the power of habit. 
 
 Drawing characters in novels or dramas is a matter of 
 method. An original character of general interest is not 
 easily conceived. Heroes or heroines must have some 
 characteristic of speech or — better and more difficult to 
 sustain — some manner of mind, by which the reader knows 
 them whenever they appear. The method of the successful 
 author is to keep these characteristics in sight. Coleridge 
 thought that 'the character of Hamlet is decided by the 
 constant recurrence, in the midst of every pursuit, of philo- 
 sophic reflections.' Mrs Quickly's talk is marked by that 
 lively incoherence so common with garrulous women,
 
 94 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 whereby the last idea suggests the successor, each carrying 
 the speaker further from the original subject. After this 
 manner : — ' Speaking of tails — we always like them that 
 end well — Hogg's for instance — speaking of hogs — we 
 saw one of these animals the other day lying in the gutter, 
 and in the opposite one a well-dressed man ; the former 
 had a ring in his nose, the latter had a ring on his finger. 
 The man was drunk, the hog was sober. A man is known 
 by the company he keeps.' As Dr Caius clips English, 
 some of Bulwer's characters amplify periods, Scott makes 
 Dominie Sampson exclaim 'Prodigious.' Dickens's Sam 
 Weller talks droll slang. In other and highest forms of 
 art, an overwhelming passion pervades a character, or an 
 intellectual idiosyncrasy is the peculiar quality, leading the 
 possessor to look at everything in a given light. But what- 
 ever may be the feature fixed upon, its methodical working 
 out constitutes individuality of character. 
 
 In the preceding paragraph the reader has met with this 
 sentence : ' We saw the other day one of these animals (a 
 pig) lying in the gutter, and in the opposite one a well- 
 dressed man ; the former had a ring in his nose, the latter 
 had a ring on his finger.' He who would cultivate direct- 
 ness and vigour of speech, his method should be to avoid 
 these hateful trouble-giving words 'former' and 'latter,' 
 and even ' one ' and ' other,' as representing things cited, 
 unless they are close at hand and immediately before the 
 eyes, as in Hamlet's remark, ' look on this picture and on 
 that.' ' Former ' and ' latter ' are always detestable, as they 
 interrupt attention while it goes back to look for the thing 
 referred to. Suppose the pig sentence above quoted was 
 put thus : We saw the other day a pig lying in the gutter, 
 and in the opposite gutters well-dressed man. The//^ had 
 a ring in his nose — the man had a ring on his finger. Here 
 is methodical directness, and no doubts raised as to whether 
 ' one ' refers to pig or gutter, and no doubt as to the two 
 animals referred to.
 
 METHOD IN EXPRESSION 95 
 
 Next to those who talk as though they would never come 
 to the point, are a class of bores who talk as though they 
 did not know what the point was. Before they have pro- 
 ceeded far in telling a story, they stumble upon some Mr 
 * What's-his-name,' whom they have forgotten, and, though 
 it does not matter whether he had a name or not, the 
 narrative is made to stand still until they have gone 
 through the tiresome and fruitless task of trying to re- 
 member the name — in which they never succeed. 
 
 When Fadladeen is asked his critical opinion on the 
 poem of Feramoz he commences thus : — ' In order to 
 convey with clearness my opinion of the story this young 
 man has related, it is necessary to take a review of all the 
 stories that ever were told — ' ' My good Fadladeen ! ' 
 exclaimed Lalla Rookh, interrupting him, ' we really do not 
 deserve that you should give yourself so much trouble. 
 Your opinion of the poem we have just heard will, no 
 doubt, be abundantly edifying, without further waste of 
 your valuable erudition.' 'If that be all,' replied the 
 critic — evidently mortified at not being allowed to show 
 how much he knew — 'if that be all that is required, the 
 matter is easily dispatched.' He then proceeded to 
 analyse the poem. The wit of Moore here satirises a 
 discursiveness common to the learned as well as to the 
 uninstructed. 
 
 Prolixity, says Bentham, may be where redundancy is 
 not. Prolixity may arise, not only from the multifarious 
 insertion of unnecessary articles, but from the conservation 
 of too many necessary ones in a sentence ; as a workman 
 may be overladen not only with rubbish, which is of no use 
 for him to carry, but with materials the most useful and 
 necessary, when heaped up into loads too heavy for him 
 at once. There is a limit to the lifting powers of each 
 man, beyond which all attempts only charge him with a 
 burthen to him immovable. There is in like manner a 
 limit to the grasping power of man's apprehension, beyond
 
 96 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 which, if you add article to article, the whole shrinks from 
 under his utmost efforts. 'Too much is seldom enough,' 
 say the Authors of Guesses at Truth. 'Pumping after 
 your bucket is full prevents it keeping so.' It belongs to 
 method to limit information to the capacity of the hearers 
 to deal with it, as well as to the capacity of the speaker to 
 dispense it. The mind is often stricken with a palsy of 
 thought ; sometimes with a paralysis by weight of informa- 
 tion which prevents it thinking. It was probably know- 
 ledge of this nature that made Hobbes exclaim, 'If I 
 read as much as my neighbours I should be as ignorant 
 as they are.' The word 'cramming' excludes a selection 
 of knowledge for choice in use. Cramming is filling the 
 mind with all the information relating to many subjects, so 
 that thought has no room or power to move on any. It 
 was said — when he became querulous — by Mr Somer- 
 ville, the ' Whistler at the Plough,' that Mr Cobden em- 
 ployed him to cram him on Corn-Law questions. If Mr 
 Cobden employed him to collect outlying facts for him, he 
 did wisely. Cobden always kept his mind disengaged and 
 free to deal with relevant facts, as was manifest in his judg- 
 ment and decision in what he brought forward in argument. 
 Mr Spurgeon wisely employed a reader at the British 
 Museum to look up for him droll sayings of humorous 
 preachers, which he used with a discretion and fitness 
 which made them his own. It is method which directs an 
 orator in the uses of illustration, and keeps them from 
 becoming the substance instead of the light of a discourse. 
 
 Method in common things is often important. A good 
 deal may depend on how you place your facts. Some years 
 ago it was the custom in Glasgow, when a fire broke out in 
 the evening, for the police to enter the theatre and announce 
 the fire and the locality, that if any person concerned was 
 present, he might be apprised of his impending loss. On 
 one occasion, when the watch commenced to announce 
 ' Fire — 45 Candleriggs,' the audience took alarm at the
 
 METHOD IN EXPRESSION 97 
 
 word ' Fire,' and concluded that it applied to the theatre. 
 A rush ensued, which prevented the full notice being heard, 
 and several persons lost their lives. The inversion of the 
 order of announcement, '45 Candleriggs on Fire,' would 
 have prevented the disaster. But afterwards, the practice of 
 such announcements was forbidden, as though it were im- 
 possible to reform the rhetoric of policemen. 
 
 A like want of method appeared on the tombstone of a 
 preacher who died in India, which ran thus : ' Sacred to the 
 memory of the Rev. David Zelus, who, after twenty years of 
 unremitting labour as a missionary, was accidentally shot by 
 his steward.' Then followed the line, 'Well done, thou 
 good and faithful servant.' The object was not to praise 
 the man for killing his minister, but the line was so placed 
 as to do it. 
 
 What eloquence is more touching, as a rule, than that 
 of a simple tale of actual wrong ? Dispassionateness gives 
 the air of truth. Controlled passion leads us to suspect 
 the partisan. Invective is the twin brother of exaggeration. 
 The suffrage of mankind is always on the side of dignity. 
 When a man feels that he has a strong case, his hearers have 
 less excitement and no self-returned verdict. A man who 
 thinks he has a clear case can safely leave it to the judg- 
 ment of others. No barrister makes a long speech to the 
 jury when the evidence is all on his side. Sir Fitzroy Kelly 
 never shed tears except when he had Tawell to defend, who 
 had confessed his crime to him, nor did Sergeant Phillips 
 weep save when he knew Courvoisier guilty. 
 
 As has been said, earnestness is an element of force ; but 
 earnestness must go only as far as the hearers will believe 
 it to be real. No assembly is moved by an intensity they 
 do not feel to be well founded and cannot share. It is not 
 only in vain you say more than your hearers will believe ; it 
 is against you. For those who distrust your judgment cease 
 to be under your influence. 
 
 Art in statement is like cultivated taste in exhibiting 
 
 G
 
 98 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 treasures. The picture or statuette must be seen with the 
 glory of space around it. All crowding is distraction and 
 detraction. Multiplicity is not magnificence, as the unedu- 
 cated think. Details have but a limited place in statement. 
 Out of place they are meaner things crowding about the 
 nobler, hiding the proportions of beauty, distracting, tor- 
 menting and outraging the trained eye or ear. As the 
 mariner sees a revolving light easier than a fixed one, so 
 an object alternately dark and light is seen more clearly 
 and noticed longer than uniformity of brightness. In the 
 English International Exhibition there were ten tim.es more 
 objects of art and of industrial invention and skill than in 
 the French Exhibition of the same character. But the 
 French produced ten times more effect than we did, because 
 the English less understand that space is a part of splendour. 
 Thus in literature and eloquence, as well as in art, it is a 
 rule of method to let the main points be distinctly seen 
 without impediraentary obstacles or the shadow of an alien 
 attraction. Bear in mind that diversion is dispersion of 
 power. 
 
 On the principle of method, things related should go to- 
 gether, and this relationship kept in view not only assists 
 the understanding of the hearer, but aids the memory of the 
 speaker. Forty-two years ago (October 1854), the Quar- 
 terly Review gave the following instance without showing 
 or knowing its origin or lesson. Macklin, himself a great 
 actor, one evening gave a lecture on ' Memory in Connec- 
 tion with Oratory,' and said that he had a system of memory 
 by which he could repeat anything after once hearing it. 
 Whereupon Foote, a wit of that day, handed him a paper, 
 asking him to read it and then repeat it from memory. 
 The paper contained these words : — 
 
 ' So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf, to 
 make an apple-pie : and at the same time a great she-bear, 
 coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. " What ? 
 No soap," So he died, and she very imprudently married
 
 METHOD IN EXPRESSION 99 
 
 the barber, and there were present the Picninnies, and the 
 Joblillies, and the GarceUes, and the grand Panjandrum 
 himself, with the little round button at top; and they all 
 fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gun- 
 powder ran out at the heels of their boots.' 
 
 Macklin's Art of Memory failed him straightway. The 
 utter disconnection of every idea presented with that which 
 went before — the total absence of all relationship defeated 
 him. Relationship, the principle of method, is the hand- 
 maid of memory. The very rudiment of method is to have 
 a point and keep to it — that is, to let the march of speech 
 lead direct to it. Remember, the shortest distance to any 
 point is a straight line. One who knew says : ' Keep always 
 to the point, or with an eye upon it ; ' and instead of saying 
 things to make people stare and wonder, say what will with- 
 hold them hereafter from wondering and staring. To make 
 remote things tangible, common things extensively useful, 
 useful things common, is philosophy. 
 
 If you wish a traveller to reach a distant town — by a way 
 unknown to him — you endeavour to select for him a way 
 free from cross-roads, lest he may turn aside and lose him- 
 self. An exordium should be of this character, that the 
 understanding may pass uninterruptedly into the heart of 
 the subject. Motley terms, questionable assertions, disput- 
 able dogmas, are the cross-roads; so much like the real 
 road that the traveller after truth often loses himself before 
 he is half way on his journey. 
 
 A discerning writer, John Morley, I think, in his book 
 on Burke, says : — ' Of the effect of the want of method 
 in neutraUsing the most magnificent powers, Burke is a 
 remarkable instance. As an orator, Burke dazzled his 
 hearers, then distracted them, and finished by fatiguing 
 or offending them. And it was not uncouth elocution 
 and exterior only which impaired the efficacy of his 
 speeches. Burke almost always deserted his subject 
 before he was abandoned by his audience. In the
 
 lOO PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 progress of a long discourse he was never satisfied with 
 proving that which was principally in question, or with 
 enforcing the single measure which it was his business and 
 avowed purpose to enforce — he diverged to a thousand 
 collateral topics — he demonstrated as many disputed pro- 
 positions — he established principles in all directions — he 
 illuminated the whole horizon with his magnificent, but 
 scattered, lights. Having too many points to prove, his 
 auditors in their turn forgot that they had undergone the 
 process of conviction upon any.' 
 
 But how can method in oratory be better illustrated than 
 in the following passage from a morning sermon at South 
 Place Chapel, London, delivered by W. J. Fox when he was 
 preacher there : — 
 
 ' From the dawn of intellect and freedom Greece has been 
 a watchword on the earth. There rose the social spirit to 
 soften and refine her chosen race, and shelter as in a nest 
 her gentleness from the rushing storm of barbarism ; there 
 liberty first built her mountain throne, first called the waves 
 her own, and shouted across them a proud defiance to 
 despotism's banded myriads ; there the arts and graces 
 danced around humanity, and stored man's home with 
 comforts, and strewed his path with roses, and bound his 
 brows with myrtle, and fashioned for him the breathing 
 statue, and summoned him to temples of snowy marble, and 
 charmed his senses with all forms of eloquence, and threw 
 over his final sleep their veil of loveliness; there sprung 
 poetry, like their own fabled goddess, mature at once from 
 the teeming intellect, gilt with arts and armour that defy the 
 assaults of time and subdue the heart of man ; there match- 
 less orators gave the world a model of perfect eloquence, 
 the soul the instrument on which they played, and every 
 passion of our nature but a tone which the master's touch 
 called forth at will ; there lived and taught the philosophers 
 of bower and porch, of pride and pleasure, of deep specula- 
 tion, and of useful action, who developed all the acuteness
 
 METHOD IN EXPRESSION lOI 
 
 and refinement, and excursiveness, and energy of mind, and 
 were the glory of their country when their country was the 
 glory of the earth.' 
 
 Here the student discerns the hand of a master of 
 method. There was no cheering at the close of this 
 splendid period, but the rustle of dresses and stir of admira- 
 tion as the congregation, who had bent forward, sat upright 
 again, told of the enchantment diffused by the brilliant 
 relevance of the preacher.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 TACT AN ACQUISITION 
 
 No one can have tact who has not taste. How can a man 
 tell which is the best thing to do who has no intelligent, 
 preferences ? Tact consists in graceful conciliation. 
 
 The distinction between method and tact is illustrated by 
 the following practical remarks of Paley :— ' For the purpose 
 of addressing different understandings— for the purpose of 
 sentiment — for the purpose of exciting admiration of our 
 subject we diversify our views, we multiply examples. 
 [This is tact.] But for the purpose of strict argument one 
 clear instance is sufficient; and not only sufficient, but 
 capable, perhaps, of generating a firmer assurance than 
 what can arise from a divided attention.' [This is method.] 
 When an opponent urges an objection, one way of reply- 
 ing to it is to prove that the assertion contained in the 
 objection is not true. Another is to show that if even the 
 assertion be true, it is no objection to the position taken. 
 It sometimes happens that the argument advanced against 
 an opponent is really an argument in his favour. Tact 
 discovers and avails itself of these advantages. Method 
 arranges the materials, tact applies the resources of 
 reasoning. 
 
 An obituary notice of Sir William FoUct said :— ' We 
 do not mean that at any period of his life he could be 
 described as a scientific lawyer. His professional position 
 was attribirtcd neither to the superiority of his professional 
 
 102
 
 TACT AN ACQUISITION IO3 
 
 knowledge nor to any talent above his contemporaries. In 
 Parliament he displayed no stores of political, literary and 
 economical information, nor versatility, nor vigorous in- 
 vective. It must be admitted that he was neither an orator, 
 nor a man of genius, nor a man of learning, apart from the 
 speciality of his profession. He had neither passion, nor 
 imagination of the fancy or of the heart. In what, then, 
 lay his barristerial superiority ? His great skill consisted 
 in presenting his case in the most harmonious and fair- 
 purposed aspect. If there was anything false or fraudulent, 
 a hitch, or a blot in his cause, he kept it dexterously out of 
 view, or hurried it trippingly over, but if the blot was on the 
 other side, he had the eye of the lynx and the scent of the 
 hound to detect and run down his gam.e. He had the 
 greatest skill in reading an aflSdavit, and could play the 
 "artful dodger" in a style looking so like gentlemanly 
 candour, that you could not find fault ; but in reading an 
 affidavit on the opposite side, he was cunning of fence.' 
 
 Such an example illustrates legal tact. Tact so employed 
 may denote a clever lawyer, but a very indifferent man. 
 
 Thom, the weaver poet, told a story in the best vein of 
 Scotch shrewdness. He was one day recounting an anec- 
 dote of Inverarie, or old Aberdeen — the point of the story 
 rested on a particular word spoken in a fitting place. When 
 he came to it he hesitated, as though at a loss for the term. 
 ' What is it you say under these circumstances ? ' he asked ; 
 ' not this — nor that,' he remarked, as he went over three or 
 four terms by way of trial, as each was endeavouring to 
 assist him. 'Ah,' he added, apparently benevolent towards 
 the difficulty into which he had thrown his hearers, 'we 
 
 say ! for want of a better word.' This of course 
 
 was the word wanted, the happiest phrase the language 
 afforded. He 'gained several things thus. He enhvened 
 a narrative by an exciting digression, which increased 
 the force and point of the climax. He created a difficulty 
 for his auditors, who, when suddenly asked, would be
 
 I04 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 unable to find a term which seemed denied to his happy 
 resource, or, finding it, would distrust it and not have 
 the courage to present it to such a fastidious epithetist. 
 Thorn thus exalted himself by finding what appeared 
 out of their power, and excited an indefinite wonder 
 at his own skill in bringing a story to so felicitous 
 an end by the employment of a make-shift phrase. What 
 would he have done if he could have found the right 
 one ? was naturally thought. This was tact. It was a case 
 analogous to that given by Dickens in one of his early 
 papers, where the president of a Club, at an apparent loss 
 for a word, asks, ' What is that you give a man who is de- 
 prived of a salary which he has received all his life for doing 
 nothing ; or, perhaps worse, for obstructing pubhc improve- 
 ment ? ' ' Compensation,' suggested the Vice. 
 
 To do by design what Thom did without it is necessary 
 to choose some rare and happy word to use in some intended 
 remarks, and keep in memory two or three other words which 
 might be tolerable in that place. Hesitate on coming to the 
 right term, inquire for it, and repeat the inferior words one 
 by one and dismiss them ; then name, as though it was just 
 thought of, the fitting word. Spontaneity is the charm of 
 the incident ; but all is spoiled if calculation is perceived in 
 it. As a device such experiments are useful to the student, 
 as practice in aptitude, since the difficulty of finding the 
 right word at a critical point constantly occurs, when 
 hesitation is not artifice but inevitable. As an artifice it 
 begets distrust. 
 
 There is tact in the use of phrases free from any objection, 
 E. S. Dallas cites Sainte Beuve as throwing out his meaning 
 in a happy phrase, which being insufficient, he tries another. 
 That is not quite right. By one phrase which falls short, 
 by another that goes too far, and others which are beside 
 the mark, he indicates what he would be at. 
 
 It is the judicious application of means that constitutes 
 tact. In journalism tact is indispensable. The history of
 
 TACT AN ACQUISITION 10$ 
 
 Mr Murray's daily paper, the Representative^ published for 
 six or eight months, is proof that unlimited command of 
 capital, great literary ability in every branch of knowledge, 
 and the highest patronage, are all insufficient to establish 
 a paper without tact. Mr Murray's regal and legal, ermined 
 and coroneted, lay and clerical, civil and military friends, 
 lacked that essential gift, or the editor did. 
 
 There is tact in reply, as when a gentleman who had 
 been out shooting over a friend's estate with ill-success, and 
 was anxious to learn the gamekeeper's opinion, inquired 
 ingratiatingly whether he had ever seen a worse shot. 
 The gamekeeper, unwilling to make an admission which 
 might be discomforting to his master's guest, answered, 
 ' Oh, yes, I have met with many much worse, for you misses 
 them so cleanly.' An Irishman being asked by two ladies 
 * which he thought the older ? ' saw, with the quickness of 
 his race, that if he made a distinction he should get 
 into trouble with one of them, replied brightly, 'To tell 
 you the truth, you each look younger than the other,' 
 With such an assurance both were satisfied. Douglas 
 Jerrold excelled in extricating himself from a difficulty 
 on the spur of the moment. Overtaking one whom he 
 took to be a familiar friend, he slapped him on the 
 back. The gentleman turned round, looking as black as 
 a judge's hanging cap. Jerrold said, * I beg your pardon, 
 I thought I knew you — but I'm glad I don't.' Tact of 
 this kind depends on brightness and self - possession, 
 qualities capable of cultivation. 
 
 It never occurs to some people that gaiety of mind is a 
 charm on the platform as well as in the household. They 
 do not understand that cheerfulness is a duty towards others, 
 and tells upon an audience as well as upon friends. The 
 grave are always dull. They belong to the charnel-house 
 side of life. Others have hedgehog manners, and prick all 
 who approach them. Hedgehogs are good roasted, but 
 nobody thinks of embracing one in its natural state. No
 
 I06 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 one doubts that a moderate sense of tact would alter 
 this. 
 
 The tact of consideration for others — in the respect of 
 personal courtesies — goes a long way in politics, as in social 
 life. The effect of the want of it Lord Lytton depicts in his 
 ' New Timon ' in describing Lord John Russell : — 
 
 How formed to lead, if not too proud to please, 
 His fame would fire you, but his manners freeze ; 
 Like or dislike, he does not care a jot. 
 He wants your vote, but your affections not ; 
 Yet human hearts need sun, as well as oats, — 
 So cold a climate plays the deuce with votes ; 
 And while his doctrines ripen day by day. 
 His frost-bit party pines itself away. 
 
 Public geniality had been good policy. Lord Lytton 
 measured political duty by the standard of fashion, which 
 regulates votes, not by principle, but by the courtesies of 
 ministers. That Lord Russell had amenity of manners 
 when duties of State left him leisure, is proved by his light- 
 hearted and changeless friendship for men like Thomas 
 Moore and Leigh Hunt, whose spirits were all sunshine. 
 
 Lately, when a distinguished peer explained a passage in 
 a speech which was construed against him by adversaries, 
 Mr Courtney said a man might do three things. ' The first 
 was to stick to the assertion. Any fool could do that : but 
 all the same, very few fools did. Second, he might say 
 openly that when he came to reflect he found that his 
 words went further than his thoughts. That was the heroic 
 method. The third way was not withdrawing the words 
 but attenuating the meaning.' The best tact in a difficulty 
 of misapprehension is frankness — substituting unmistakable 
 words. 
 
 Everybody knows the difference between things said or 
 done anyhow, and said or done with consideration. 
 
 Hearts in love use their own tongues ; 
 Let every eye negotiate for itself, 
 And trust no agent.
 
 TACT AN ACQUISITION 10/ 
 
 Shakespeare understood tact in love. 
 
 Everyone has tact, more or less, when they are interested 
 — and reflection and good sense will make it an acquisition. 
 It has been well said that no one learns to think by getting 
 rules for thinking, but by getting materials for thought.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 CONTINGENCIES OF PUBLIC MEETINGS 
 
 It is of no mean importance to an orator or speaker, who is 
 invited to address a meeting, to make himself acquainted 
 how that meeting is Hkely to be conducted, and who are 
 announced, or are likely, to address it. If there are many 
 speakers, he who speaks first, or second,, or at any time, 
 must be brief, in courtesy to others. If the speakers are not 
 brief, the orator who has decided upon, and arranged the 
 order of his arguments, will find that he has to drop out, one 
 by one, points he deems important. It is the duty of a 
 chairman to take care that the meeting — unless one of 
 unusual importance in the eyes of the auditors — should not 
 exceed two or two and a half hours. It is the duty of the 
 chairman to see the list of speakers invited to address the 
 meeting, and arrange with the convenors of the meeting 
 what time should be given to each, and notify to each that 
 when that time is nearly up he will make known the same 
 to him. Not one chairman in ten ever does this, nor reflects 
 that, as the audience is responsible to him for maintaining 
 order in the meeting, he is responsible to the audience for 
 keeping time on the platform. For want of this thought 
 half an hour of time is commonly wasted, which to a meeting 
 of five hundred persons means a loss of twenty-five days of 
 ten hours each. In fact, meetings are frequently prolonged 
 till eleven o'clock, which might have been concluded at ten, 
 which to an audience of a thou.sand persons implies a loss 
 
 loS
 
 CONTINGENCIES OF PUBLIC MEETINGS IO9 
 
 of fifty working days of ten hours. This needless extension 
 of the duration of the meeting means the adulteration of 
 the proceedings, by prolixity, decrease of animation, and 
 weariness to hearers, who become less inclined to attend 
 meetings which no one knows when they will end. The 
 speaker who is called upon late should understand these 
 contingencies, and take them into account by speaking with 
 what directness and energy he can. I have heard Mr Bright 
 kindle a fire of enthusiasm at a Birmingham meeting which 
 was breaking up late and listlessly. But this is only possible 
 to orators of the type of those who Mark Antony said once 
 stirred the stones of Rome. Under such circumstances the 
 ordinary speaker would be ineffectual ; and late speakers at 
 exhausted meetings will do well to say little or nothing — for 
 a speech which would be successful when the meeting was 
 fresh or unwearied, will command no attention later. 
 
 Sometimes a special paper is read at a meeting, under an 
 announcement that no paper is to exceed twenty minutes in 
 length. It will probably extend to forty or fifty minutes ; and 
 those who gave the pledge that twenty minutes should be its 
 limit will actually print the extended paper and deliver it to 
 the appointed reader, although they see that no one could 
 gabble through it audibly in the prescribed period. Thus the 
 succeeding commenters on the paper confront an assembly 
 of wearied and baffled listeners, who have failed to retain its 
 excess of matter in their minds. It is well that succeeding 
 speakers understand this, lest they interpret the listlessness 
 of the hearers as indifference to them. There is another 
 liability from which a speaker whose voice is not loud must 
 protect himself, by profiting from what he may know of the 
 vocal capacity of others likely to precede him. If he is 
 allotted to follow a Boanerges (a son of thunder) of the plat- 
 form, the contrast will be against him — say what he will. 
 But if he speaks before them he will be heard on his merits. 
 
 Frequently, a public meeting is called to consider and 
 discuss some question of importance. Then the trouble is
 
 no PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 cast upon the chairman of discerning what the main point 
 or points are which he should state to the meeting — since 
 it is his duty to see that speakers keep to them. Anyone 
 intending to speak should get clear ideas on the subject 
 himself, since he will speak most effectively who knows what 
 the question is and keeps to it. The business of those who 
 speak at conference or discussion is to consider alone the 
 question stated by the chairman or other responsible person 
 — the reader of a paper or the opener of the question — and 
 not the speeches of others, except so far as they relate to the 
 main point at issue. A speaker who understands these 
 things can attain ascendency in the meeting, for all are ready 
 to applaud anyone who sees clearly, clears up confusion, 
 and leads distracted public attention back to the point. 
 
 When a speech or lecture is thrown open to criticism, 
 each critic commonly expects to occupy the same time as 
 the speaker, which often prevents more than one being heard 
 in reply. In co-operative meetings this is prudently pre- 
 vented by limiting the time of each speaker. It is not the 
 work of any one speaker, but the work of many, to appraise 
 and comment upon a whole lecture or paper, and each 
 critic should select a leading point, and ten minutes would 
 afford time for an effective objection if one could be raised. 
 A speaker, therefore, who has talent by which he can 
 advance a cause, or add to the pubUc information, should 
 seek, beforehand, conditions which give him a fair oppor- 
 tunity consistent with the fair chances of others. 
 
 At public meetings, where opposing parties often struggle 
 to be heard, confusion, delay and ill-feeling might be 
 obviated by each party pre-appointing a representative of 
 ability, in whom confidence could be reposed, to speak on 
 their behalf, and by those calling the meeting being made • 
 acquainted with and consenting to the arrangement — the 
 views of half a dozen parties could be advocated, where 
 the views of one are often heard but inadequately and im- 
 patiently now.
 
 CONTINGENCIES OF PUBLIC MEETINGS III 
 
 Sometimes a speaker is confused and disconcerted at a 
 public meeting by hearing loud calls for another person to 
 speak, and thinks — as I have known a reverend orator do — 
 the audience are impatient with him and want to hear some 
 one else. All the while it was the plot of an ambitious 
 publicist, who had personal admirers whom he besought 
 to attend meetings and call for him, giving the impression 
 that he was in public demand. There is the story of the 
 auditor, at an American meeting, who kept calling, 'Mr 
 Corkles; let Mr Corkles speak.' At length the Chairman 
 said, ' Can't you be quiet ? Mr Corkles is now speaking.* 
 ' That Mr Corkles ? ' said the astonished interrupter, ' why, 
 that is the man who gave me a half-dollar to holler otrt his 
 name.' 
 
 A case occurred at a northern meeting some time ago, 
 where the hall was so crowded that those wedged far in 
 wished they were outside. One man who tried in vain to 
 make his way to the door, and for whom no one would 
 make an opening, began to call out, ' What did Mr Gladstone 
 say ? What did Mr Gladstone say ? ' until the speaker on 
 the platform could not be heard and the audience were 
 incensed. Whereupon cries arose, 'Turn him out,' and 
 the man so anxious to hear ' what Mr Gladstone said,' was 
 turned out. When one who had assisted in his ejection 
 said to him, ' What was it Mr Gladstone said ? ' 'I have 
 no idea,' was the answer. ' Then why did you call out ? ' 
 The reply was, ' Because I w^anted to get out ; when by my 
 becoming an interrupter everybody made way for me.' If 
 the arts and expedients of public meetings are understood 
 by a speaker, he will not be needlessly perturbed by inter- 
 ruptions. Many persons cry out whose object is not at 
 once apparent, and whose intentions are not at all implied 
 in what they say. 
 
 Public meetings in the country, and in the town also, are 
 conducted on the crudest principles. If many men were 
 disposed to take part in the meeting, it would be impossible
 
 112 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 that any business could be transacted under several days. 
 The assumption that every man has a right to be heard 
 could not be acted upon if half who usually attend public 
 meetings were to enforce that ' right.' In Saxon days, when 
 a public meeting consisted of a small number of persons 
 under a tree, every one having the right to speak caused no 
 inconvenience. It is strange that this right should remain 
 in force after looo years, when public meetings consist of 
 30,000 persons, as was the case at Bingley Hall, Birmingham, 
 when Mr Gladstone spoke there. Had each person present 
 claimed the right to be heard, and insisted on it, the meeting 
 had lasted six months.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 WRITING FOR THE PRESS 
 
 Every public speaker or debater is likely, sooner or later, 
 to come in contact with the press. He will need it to 
 assist in making known his view, or in vindicating himself 
 against the adverse criticisms of opponents, or in correcting 
 erroneous reports of what he has said. Even John Arthur 
 Roebuck, the most direct speaker of his day, had to do 
 this. Even Mr Cobden, whom it was difficult to mis- 
 construe or misunderstand, had to do this. Even Mr 
 Gladstone, the most circumambient speaker of all — that 
 is, he travels all round his main idea, and not only explains 
 it, but illustrates its purport — has had to write to the press, 
 from time to time, in vindication of his meaning. There- 
 fore humbler speakers, who may one day be pubHcists, may 
 be interested in knowing something of the art of communi- 
 cating to the press, with fewer of those disappointments 
 usually ascribed to editorial malevolence or neglect of 
 rising genius, when the fault is in the writer. 
 
 Every attempt at expressing opinion by the pen, how- 
 ever ill it may succeed, is a part of the process of self- 
 education, and often the only mode available to the poor. 
 Whatever shall render this more practicable and common 
 among the people does good, and to this end a few rules 
 are submitted for the guidance of correspondents un- 
 accustomed to write to the press. Literature is a re- 
 public where all eminence is honourable, where none can 
 
 H
 
 114 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 attain distinction save by effort and patience, which are 
 the chief forces of genius. But by reason of the necessary 
 conditions of admission being overlooked, many sustain 
 disappointment, which to them is inexplicable. The con- 
 ditions which are very simple, I have heretofore expressed 
 for students thus : — 
 
 I. Use large note-size paper, because a larger sheet 
 covers the printer's case, and hinders his work. 2. Do not 
 write on the back of the paper, as while one side is being 
 ' set up ' what is written on the back cannot be ' gone on 
 with.' 3. Write with dark-black ink, for an editor will 
 read with reluctance what he sees with difficulty, and the 
 compositor, for the same reason, will dislike to set it up. 
 4. Always write a plain, bold hand j if you send an undis- 
 tinguishable scrawl, it will be thrown aside until the editor 
 has leisure to make it out, which may not be until the 
 'interest of the article has passed away,' and it may be 
 too late to print it. 5. Remember, that whatever gives 
 an editor trouble at his desk, may double expense in 
 the printing office ; the printers and readers waste time in 
 deciphering bad MS., and out of any failure in interpreta- 
 tion commonly grows a charge against the journal for ' mis- 
 representing ' the writer. 6. If you know that the editor 
 will take any trouble to oblige you, and you have no 
 scruples, give him any trouble you please. If you are rich, 
 and can send the printers a guinea for making out your 
 letter, you may scrawl like a gentleman. If you have a 
 great name, so that the responsibihty of anything you 
 write will attach to yourself and not reflect on the paper, 
 express yourself how you will ; you may scribble with a 
 pin on butter paper, and the editor will try to make it 
 out. But if the editor is under no obligation to you, 
 if you have no guineas to spare, if you are not so popular 
 that anything must be printed that bears your name, you 
 had better cleave to good sense, good taste, clear expres- 
 sion, black ink, and a plain hand. If you cannot write
 
 WRITING FOR THE PRESS II5 
 
 plainly, have your communication copied by someone who 
 can. Never fear that an editor will omit or abridge your 
 communication without cause. If it have value he will be 
 glad of it. If it contains only relevant facts, and be, as 
 all relations of facts ought to be, briefly told, without 
 declamation, digression, or personal imputation on others, 
 it will be impossible to abridge it. A well-written letter 
 or narrative is incapable of being altered or abbreviated 
 for the better. Hardly anything is ever refused, if well 
 written. The artistic taste of an editor for the literary 
 perfection of his paper is a ruUng passion, stronger than 
 personal feeling or political prejudice, and next to the 
 love of fair play he is attracted by a communication 
 which is well expressed. 
 
 It is common with new writers to put all they have to 
 say into one sentence. A long sentence is most diffi- 
 cult to construct clearly — and that is what the inex- 
 perienced first attempt, though not knowing how to 
 separate distinct pieces of information. After a while, 
 young writers discover that every separate idea should 
 be separately expressed, in separate sentences. Long 
 sentences are wearisome to read, difficult to understand, 
 and almost impossible to correct. This fault in writing 
 prevents many useful articles from appearing in print 
 Editors cannot find time for re-writing such papers. It 
 is a common complaint that editors strike out the 'best 
 parts' of papers sent them. They do this seldomer than 
 is supposed, for editors in their own interest are com- 
 monly good judges of the 'best parts' of letters or 
 other communications calculated to interest or allure 
 readers. 
 
 In Mavor's History of Greece, which used to be a 
 common school-book for young students, may be read in 
 Chapter XI. such sentences as the following : — 
 
 ' Nicias asked merely for quarter for the miserable remains 
 of his troops who had not perished in the Asinarius, or
 
 Il6 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 upon its banks.' No one need be at loss to discover the 
 superfluous information given that Nicias asked for quarter 
 for 'those who had not perished.' No general asks for 
 quarter for those who have. The same writer tells us that 
 'discipline yielded to the pressure of necessity. They 
 hurried down the steep in confusion and without order, 
 and trod one another to death in the stream.' Necessity is 
 all ' pressure,' and it is not necessary to specify the essence 
 of a thing as operative. It is needless to tell us, that men 
 all 'in confusion' 'were without order.' It had been 
 better for Mavor's History and his own reputation had 
 some editor put his pen through his superfluous words. 
 
 When we discover a number of emphatic words employed, 
 we know the writer or speaker has no sense of measure. 
 ' When Rigby,' says Disraeli, ' was of opinion he had made 
 a point, you may be sure the hit was in italics, that last 
 resource of the forcible feebles.' ' Ordinarily,' says Schlegel, 
 ' men entertain a very erroneous notion of criticism, and 
 understand by it nothing more than a certain shrewdness in 
 detecting and exposing the faults of a work of art. Art 
 cannot exist without nature, and man can give nothing to 
 his fellow-men but himself.' This explains all the student 
 need take to heart at this point. If he will give ' himself,' 
 in his communications he will be interesting. Cobbett said, 
 'the secret of good writing is to talk with the pen.' If a 
 writer will put down his sentences in the free, natural, 
 unaffected v/ay he would speak them to a friend in talking 
 over what interests him, he will find favour with editors. 
 If a man is dull, and his dulness is absolute, perfect, 
 complete in all its parts, and coherent — he will often obtain 
 a hearing, like Mirabeau's head, whose entire ugliness 
 endered it alluring. Perfect stupidity or relevant, unaffected 
 good sense will win attention. It is the mixture that gives 
 editors trouble. Delane, the editor of the Times, once 
 struck out a weak sentence and an irrelevant remark in a 
 letter of mine to my great advantage. I was very grateful
 
 WRITING FOR THE PRESS II7 
 
 for it. But it is rarely an editor will do this. The writer 
 is almost sure to charge him with emasculating his com- 
 munication, and rather than risk this, the editor leaves 
 out the letter. 
 
 One thing the correspondent of a newspaper should bear 
 in mind is— not to make any dishonouring imputation upon 
 the persons he writes about. Even if he thinks he has 
 been wilfully misrepresented by an adversary, a reporter, or 
 by the editor, he had better not say so. First, because he 
 can hardly ever be sure of it. Second, because he can 
 hardly ever prove it, and it is a serious thing to make a 
 charge of dishonourable wilfulness, if you cannot prove it. 
 Third, because human capacity for seeing things the wrong 
 way, and drawing the wrong conclusion from the plainest 
 premises, is so universally diffused among mankind that 
 you can hardly ever be quite sure that a perversion of 
 what has been said is really wilful. The Dutch proverb 
 says, ' It is misapprehension which brings lies to town.' 
 Now, the power of honest misapprehension is very strong 
 in well-meaning people. Besides, the editor has to be 
 consulted. To publish a personal imputation might render 
 him liable to an action, and he may not like it. If he 
 inserted the imputation, the person assailed might claim 
 the right of reply and might give his assailant ' as good as 
 he had sent,' which might convert the journal into a bear 
 garden, and the readers might not like this. 
 
 Finally, it may be worth while to consider what kind of 
 person the editor to whom you write is. If he has strong 
 prejudices, it is wisdom to say as little as you can which 
 may excite him, and as much as you can which may 
 conciliate him. If you wanted to borrow half a guinea you 
 would not think of asking the first person you met, but 
 would cast about among all the persons you knew for one 
 likely to have half a guinea about him, and give some 
 thought as to the best way of addressing him likeliest to 
 induce him to part with the same. An editor's compliance
 
 Il8 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 with your request may in one way or other, sooner or later, 
 be worth many half-guineas to the writer. Thus editors 
 are worthy of consideration in the way in which they are 
 addressed, and especially in the nature and expression of 
 the communication sent to them.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 SOURCES OF TASTE 
 
 Taste is a part of good oratory, and is no mean equipment 
 of a great speaker. No man goes far in a speech without 
 betraying to the auditor his coarseness or refinement. A 
 man may be an orator without taste and command ap- 
 plause, but he never commands respect without it. An 
 orator may ruin a cause by a single phrase. A secretary of 
 a great political party in Manchester lost the election of its 
 candidates by a single expression which wounded the self- 
 respect of the city. When Mr Blaine was presidential 
 candidate in America his election was lost by one of his 
 advocates, the Rev. Dr Burchard, who had coined an 
 alliterative phrase, which he thought much of, but had 
 never thought how it would be regarded by the great 
 assembly to whom it was addressed. The publicans, the 
 Catholics, and the southern party had been won over in 
 sufficient numbers to give Blaine a majority, when Dr 
 Burchard must say that Blaine would be victorious over 
 'Rum, Romanism and Rebellion.' This rendered the 
 publicans furious, the Catholics indignant, the south 
 vindictive ; and so Blaine's majority was dissolved by this 
 odious and high-sounding phrase. The phrase cited was 
 said to be * bad taste.' But bad taste means bad judgment, 
 bad knowledge, and disregard for the feelings of others. 
 To assail the self-respect of adversaries is not an act of 
 taste — it is an outrage. Taste is preference and selection 
 
 119
 
 120 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 in personal things, of that which neither annoys nor harms 
 others. Persons who seek to excuse or escape the responsi- 
 bility of the preferences of themselves or others, will say 
 'there is no accounting for tastes.' Yes, there is. Taste 
 has its roots in habit, in education, and has its laws and 
 standards. Town Councillors who put and keep up 
 hideousness in the town they are appointed to improve, no 
 sooner visit the Continent than they acquire taste in streets 
 and picturesque open spaces. Space is the first condition 
 of a fine street. If dignity cannot be given to a town, 
 gleams of brightness may be let into it, and it need not have 
 raonotonousness perpetuated in it. Bad taste in towns can be 
 accounted for. It is owing to the ignorance of its chief 
 inhabitants. 
 
 Taste in writing has its laws. There must be distinctness. 
 There is writing so elegant that it cannot be read. The first 
 law of writing is that every letter is distinct in form from 
 every other letter. One form of letter should be decided 
 on and not departed from. Neatness and plainness follow. 
 Taste in writing is founded on the standard that it can be 
 read easily without trouble or effort, and no single letter in 
 it can be mistaken for any other letter. 
 
 Taste in truth depends on accuracy, clearness, vitalness — 
 that is its usefulness and relevance. 
 
 Taste in books is determined by width of margin, clear- 
 ness of type, strength and durability of paper, apart from 
 the binding and contents. 
 
 Taste in mind has conditions of vividness, perspicacity, 
 force, the sense of proportion, veracity and integrity. 
 
 Taste in manliness has reference to symmetry, grace of 
 movement, resilience and health. 
 
 Taste, therefore, is not wantonness of choice, but depends 
 on knowledge; and there would be better taste were it 
 understood that the quality of taste is the outward and 
 visible sign by which a person betrays his attainments. 
 
 Taste in oratory has also its laws and conditions. One is
 
 SOURCES OF TASTE 121 
 
 that no illustration should be used without reference to the 
 subject. If the object is to lower the pretension of a person 
 or thing, the illustration should do it. If the purpose is to 
 exalt, the illustration should elevate it. I knew an agitator 
 of no mean qualities of mind defend himself before a judge, 
 by quoting the simile of Bishop Warburton, who compared 
 critics of his way of thinking, to swine, which, though not 
 popular animals, were yet useful in routing up acorns and 
 fertilising trees. For the defendant to compare himself to 
 unsavoury swine was to confirm the court in its unpleasant 
 impression of him; whereas his interest was to exalt the 
 character and services of the agitator, whom he might have 
 compared to the explorer, who risks his reputation, and not 
 unfrequently life or liberty, to discover new advantages or 
 opportunities for his countrymen, who may never know him, 
 and if they do neither regard him nor requite him. Such an 
 illustration would be in good taste, having regard to the de- 
 fendant's purpose. The first illustration was in bad taste, 
 and he who used it, who was an orator by nature, would have 
 seen it to be so had he reflected ; by which I want the student 
 to see that one of the conditions of good taste is reflection. 
 
 Proportion is also a form of taste. To those who have that 
 sense in art or eloquence, disproportion is an outrage, and 
 he who is guilty of it loses the power of being impressive. 
 Measured and relevant words intensify rather than decrease 
 vividness and imagination. We are told of Dante that, great 
 and various as his power of creating pictures in a few lines 
 unquestionably was, he owed that power to the directness, 
 simplicity and intensity of his language. In him 'the 
 invisible becomes visible,' as Leigh Hunt said, — ' darkness 
 becomes palpable, silence describes a character, a word acts 
 as a flash of lightning, which displays some gloomy neigh- 
 bourhood where a tower is standing, with dreadful faces at 
 the window.' 
 
 ' In good prose ' (says Frederic Schlegel) ' every word 
 should be underlined ' — that is, every word should be the
 
 122 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 right word ; and then no word would be righter than 
 another. It comes to the same thing, where all words are 
 italics, one may as well use roman. There are no italics 
 in Plato, because there are no unnecessary or unimportant 
 words. It is a sign of taste in writing or speaking that it 
 needs few italicised or emphatic words. 
 
 Taste is also part of the art of commendation. Most 
 persons carry a stock of hate on hand. Censure is always 
 ready-made. But praise is a different thing. It only pro- 
 ceeds from generosity or gratitude, and those are deliberate 
 sentiments. A man may rage without art, but he cannot 
 applaud sensibly without it. This is why the quahty of a 
 man's mind is more easily seen in his praise than in his 
 censure. Defamation shows his feeling, praise his under- 
 standing ; and, if he wishes to give an idea of his strong 
 sense of a service rendered him, he can best do it by show- 
 ing that he accurately estimates it, and this is the only 
 praise anyone, not vain, cares to receive, or which is an 
 actual tribute to him. who receives it. Taste in praise is rare. 
 Its principle is that there can be no praise except from 
 equals or superiors who can measure the difficulties over- 
 come in the attainment of excellence. Inferiors may admire. 
 Mrs Barbauld recognised this in her admirable line in 
 reference to the inadequacy of the creature professing to 
 praise the Creator. She, as Hooker had suggested before 
 her, wrote — 
 
 Silence is our least injurious praise. 
 
 Taste in manners is no mean attainment, and goes for 
 much in the public estimation of the orator. ' Do manners 
 matter ? ' ask some who have not thought much upon the 
 subject. There is reason to think manners do matter. The 
 proverb says, ' Manners make the man.' No careful speak- 
 ing man would say tliis. There are persons whose manners 
 are coarse or brutal at times, quick, hasty, abrupt and in- 
 considerate, who are yet tender, full of feeling for others
 
 SOURCES OF TASTE 1 23 
 
 and generous. There are others who are all suavity and 
 courtesy, whose souls are base and selfish. Men must be 
 judged by what they do, as well as by what they seem. 
 Nevertheless, good manners are good as far as they go. 
 Everybody knows this ; even those who affect to despise 
 courtesy as servility or mealy-mouthedness, are quickly 
 stung themselves and irritated and implacable, if they find 
 themselves treated with discourtesy. Bad manners give a 
 bad impression of a good heart, and a bad presentment 
 gives a bad impression of a good cause. 
 
 A definition should not only help you to find a thing, 
 but help you to know it when you do find it. How many 
 definitions of politeness and good breeding have been 
 given, but who has defined it in such words of light and 
 guidance as Swift, who said, 'Whoever makes the fewest 
 persons uneasy, is the bes bred man in the company.' 
 
 Politeness is thoughtfulness for others and forgetfulness 
 of yourself. Good breeding is consideration for the pleasure 
 of those about you. It is the same in palace and cottage ; 
 in the highest assembly and the lowest ; in Parliament or a 
 town council ,' in pulpit or on the platform ; at the fireside 
 or in the street. It is possible to all in the workshops, in 
 the mill, or in the store. It is not rank, it is not wealth, it 
 is not learning that constitutes good breeding. Good breed- 
 ing is good feeling, and it is good taste to remember it.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 PREMEDITATION IN SPEECH 
 
 Premeditation is but thoughtfulness in speech, and he 
 who speaks without thought will soon have hearers who will 
 pay him no attention. He who speaks without preparing 
 what he will say is but a gambler in oratory who trusts to 
 the right dice turning up as he proceeds. Preparation is 
 premeditation. 
 
 A book is not written — a poem is not written, a play is 
 not planned, a picture is not painted — without premedita- 
 tion. If they are, the book will lack arrangement — the poem 
 will be wanting in grace, the play will be deficient in con- 
 struction, and the picture will not be the best expression of 
 the artist's powers. Of course there are exceptions. Inspira- 
 tion may come like a flash of light and reveal a remarkable 
 design ; but though premeditation is not in it, and could 
 not produce it, meditation alone can perfect the design. 
 Speeches are the better for premeditation. Even sermons 
 are improved by it. A young candidate for holy orders 
 had to preach his trial sermon before Archbishop VVhately. 
 That experienced prelate discovered crudeness of arrange- 
 ment and want of finish of expression in what he heard, 
 and asked the young preacher whether he was accustomed 
 to prepare his discourses. He answered that he was not, 
 as he trusted to the divine promise — ' In the hour in which 
 you have to speak it shall be given to you what you shall. 
 say.' The Archbishop remarked that that promise was 
 
 124
 
 PREMEDITATION IN SPEECH 125 
 
 given to the Apostles, and unless he was sure that he was 
 an apostle it might not apply to him. The candidate had 
 trust and piety, without which preaching is ineffective, but 
 the shrewd prelate knew that without preparation piety 
 could seldom commend its cause in the pulpit. 
 
 Orators of renown have not disdained to premeditate 
 their speeches, both in Parliament and on the platform. 
 Porson said that 'Pitt carefully considered his sentences 
 before he uttered them, but that Fox threw himself into 
 the middle of his, and left it to God Almighty to get him 
 out again.' But those who lack the splendid confidence of 
 Charles James Fox had better acquire that sureness in speech 
 affirmed of a certain French speaker, whose sentences were 
 like cats — when showered into the air they found their feet 
 without trouble. 
 
 There is reason to believe that the greatest masters of 
 oratory have been sensible of the value, and have practised 
 premeditation. It is only the young, would-be speaker who 
 expects to be great without effort, or whose vanity leads 
 him to impose upon others the belief that he is perfect at 
 will — and needs no preparation. One of the biographers 
 of Canning tells us that he was himself fastidious to excess 
 about the slightest terms of expression. He would correct 
 his speeches and amend their verbal graces. He was not 
 singular in this. Burke, whom he is said to have closely 
 studied, did the same. Sheridan always prepared his 
 speeches ; the highly-wrought passages in his speech on the 
 Hastings impeachment were written beforehand and com- 
 mitted to memory, and the differences were so marked that 
 the audience could readily distinguish between the ex- 
 temporaneous passages and those that were premeditated. 
 Canning's alterations were frequently so minute and exten- 
 sive that the printers found it easier to recompose the 
 matter afresh in type than to correct it. This is to be 
 amendment mad. Frugality in revision is as much a mark 
 of sanity as frugality in metaphors.
 
 126 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Oratory in this country is less good than it would be, 
 owing to the foolish contempt for ' cut-and-dried speeches,' 
 till it has come to be considered a sign of weakness for a 
 man to think before he speaks. Those who travelled with 
 Shiel when he spoke in the country, could hear him in the 
 morning repeating his intended oration in his dressing-room. 
 Disraeli said in the Young Duke, ' Mr Shiel's speech in 
 Kent was a fine oration, and the boobies who taunted him 
 for having got it by rote were not aware that in doing so 
 he wisely followed the example of Pericles, Demosthenes, 
 Lycias, Isocrates, Hortensius, Cicero, Caesar, and every 
 great orator of antiquity.' 
 
 The orations or compositions of Demosthenes are not 
 distinguished by ornament and splendour. It is an energy 
 of thought which raises him above his species. He appears 
 not to attend to words, but to things. We forget the orator, 
 and think of the subject. Demades says, that Demosthenes 
 spoke better on some few occasions when he spoke unpre- 
 meditatedly. Probably he spoke well in some of these 
 instances, but it was the result of power acquired by the 
 habit of preparation. As a general rule, he who thinks 
 twice before speaking once, will speak twice the better 
 for it when he has no time to think. 
 
 When Macaulay was about to address the House of 
 Commons his anxious and restless manner betrayed his 
 intention. Still, he was regardless of the laugh of the 
 witlings, and continued intent on his effort. This is the 
 real courage that does things well — the courage that is 
 neither laughed nor frowned from its purpose. 
 
 Macaulay spoke early in the evening, before the jarring of 
 the debate confused him, or long attention enfeebled his 
 powers. When the great Lord Chatham was to appear in 
 public he took much pains about his dress, and in his last 
 speech he arranged his flannels in graceful folds. He was 
 carried into the House when near death. It need not then 
 detract from our respect for Erskine, says Lord Campbell
 
 PREMEDITATION IN SPEECH 12/ 
 
 in his Lives of the Chancellors^ that * when he went down into 
 the country on special retainers, he examined the court the 
 night before the trial, in order to select the most advan- 
 tageous place for addressing the jury. On the cause being 
 called, the crowded audience were perhaps kept waiting a 
 few minutes before the celebrated stranger made his appear- 
 ance; a particularly nice wig, and a pair of new yellow 
 gloves, distinguished and embellished his person beyond 
 the ordinary costume of the barrister of the circuit.' 
 
 Amid the applause bestowed upon premeditation, it 
 would not be just to omit the ridicule with which it has 
 been visited by Sydney Smith, who said, ' It is only by the 
 fresh feelings of the heart that mankind can be very power- 
 fully affected. What can be more ludicrous than an orator 
 delivering stale indignation and ■ fervour of a week old ? 
 turning over whole pages of violent passions, written out in 
 German text; reading the trophes and apostrophes into 
 which he is hurried by the ardour of his mind, and so 
 affected at a preconcerted line and page that he is unable 
 to proceed any further.' True, 'it is only by the fresh 
 feelings of the heart that mankind can be very powerfully 
 affected.' But nature is always fresh ; and he who repro- 
 duces nature will always be effective. Macready never 
 stabbed his daughter to preserve her honour. Yet every 
 man was moved at his Virginius. As Othello, Macready's 
 ' indignation ' at lago was a glory of the stage for years ; 
 yet men were as much affected by its intensity as on the 
 first day when he displayed it. The speech of Antony 
 over the dead body of Caesar was ' written in German 
 text ' in thed ays of Queen Elizabeth ; it was * cut and dried ' 
 near three hundred years ago. Yet, whatever our satirical 
 canon may say, the idea of premeditation is extinguished 
 by the charm of perfect expression, and the passion ex- 
 cited, in those capable of realising its fitness and force, is 
 fresh to every generation of hearers. Lord Brougham 
 wrote out the last passages of his speech for the defence
 
 128 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 of Queen Caroline nine times. Its effect was a triumph 
 of preparation. 
 
 When Dr Black had a class of young men at the Reform 
 Association, he disciplined them in rhetoric by causing each 
 to marshal his discourse on a chosen theme under certain 
 heads. These once gone over, he required these heads to 
 be spoken upon by inversion, beginning probably with the 
 peroration, continuing with the argument, taking afterwards 
 the statement, or other division belonging to the theme, 
 and ending with the exordium. Not until a member could 
 speak well on any one head, and in any order, was he 
 deemed master of his subject. 
 
 Professor de Morgan remarks in a paper which he fur- 
 nished to Dr Lardner's Geometry, that to number the parts 
 of propositions is the only way of understanding them. To 
 identify details and grasp the whole are the two indices of 
 proficiency. 
 
 Margaret Fuller relates how backwoodsmen of America, 
 whom she visited, would sit by their log-fire at night and 
 tell 'rough pieces out of their lives.' This disintegration 
 of events by men strong of will and full of matter, in order 
 to set distinct parts before auditors, is a sign of that power 
 which we call mastery. Ability is, always, power under 
 command. 
 
 Elsewhere, in describing Colonel John Hay's account of 
 Abraham Lincoln, I have said : — It has never been made 
 so clear in what way, and by what qualities, the gaunt 
 rail-splitter attained the Presidency. His speeches show 
 that he excelled in seeing all the way into a State problem 
 and in power of perfect statement of it. His account of 
 his self-education is one by which many students may 
 profit to-day. Lincoln said, ' When a child I used to get 
 irritated when anyone talked to me in a way I could not 
 understand j that always disturbed my temper, and has ever 
 since.' He ' hunted after the idea in a dark saying ' until 
 he thought he had caught it, and was not satisfied until he
 
 PREMEDITATION IN SPEECH 1 29 
 
 had put it into language 'plain enough for any boy to 
 understand it.' That was Lincoln's answer as to how he 
 acquired the art of ' putting things ' — which does not come 
 by nature, but by education. In studying law-books, he 
 came upon the word ' demonstrate,' which excited his 
 curiosity, and he studied Euclid until he had mastered 
 what demonstration meant in geometry, and afterwards 
 applied the knowledge in argument. 
 
 Gather relevant knowledge anywhere. Every man is 
 indebted to others for much information. No man knows 
 everything by his own research and verification, unless it be 
 Mr Gladstone. 
 
 Preparation is power; nor does the hesitation which 
 the desire of exactness sometimes begets, tell against the 
 speaker. Mr T. P. O'Connor says of Mr Sexton on a 
 famous occasion : — 
 
 ' He spoke, I say, slowly — but at the same time it was 
 evident that he had his mind well fixed on the end which 
 he wished to reach. Nothing adds so much to the effec- 
 tiveness of oratory as the sense that the man who is address- 
 ing you, is thinking at the very moment he is speaking. 
 You have the sense of watching the visible working of his 
 inner mind ; and you are far more deeply impressed than by 
 the glib facility which does not pause, does not stumble, does 
 not hesitate, because the speaker does not stop to think.' 
 
 Humanity is the instrument upon which the orator has 
 to play, and he had better learn what notes it is capable 
 of before he begins. Experience in Parliament and on the 
 platform will soon teach any observer, that few speakers are 
 worth hearing who do not prepare, and prepare carefully, 
 what they want to say. 
 
 In writing we may be brief and suggestive, because 
 each word remains to be pondered over. But that which 
 falls on the ear not being so permanent as that which falls 
 on paper, fulness, premeditation and varied treatment are 
 indispensable. 
 
 I
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 REPETITION A NECESSITY 
 
 Repetition has its uses and necessities, and is excellent 
 in a speaker, provided he does not repeat himself. Few- 
 persons, as a rule, ever understand any new thing on its 
 first saying. It is by many repetitions in many forms that 
 a new idea is comprehended. Leaders of opinion, even of 
 the soberer sort, have within my knowledge been so 
 captivated by reason, as to overlook the conditions under 
 which reason acts. They have been so moved when the 
 reason of a thing has become plain to them, that they have 
 had no doubt that all men could be at once convinced by 
 the same exposition of the facts. The processes of educa- 
 tion should have taught them differently. First elementary 
 principles are acquired, then successive stages are reached 
 until the whole subject looms before the mind, impressing 
 it by its completeness. Every step, though with less pre- 
 cision, like the steps in Euclid, recall and repeat wliat has 
 gone before. 
 
 The repetition here explained and commended is varia- 
 tion in statement, and means presenting the same idea 
 under different aspects. Every important principle has 
 many relations and applications. To trace these and show 
 them is to recall the cardinal idea without wearying the 
 hearer, who, indeed, is often charmed with the range of view 
 which reveals the same fact operative in divers circum- 
 stances. Bishop Hall said of moderation that it was the 
 
 no
 
 REPETITION A NECESSITY I3I 
 
 'silken string running through the pearl chain of all our 
 virtues.' To trace this silken cord wherever it runs in the 
 channels of possible applications, is the kind of repetition 
 meant in this chapter. It keeps one idea always in view 
 under a brilliant diversity which instructs and charms. 
 There is a 'damnable iteration' spoken of in the play. 
 That is when the same thing is said in the same way in 
 season and out of season. He who is always obtruding the 
 same view upon others soon becomes tiresome, and people 
 avoid him and his subject. Repetition as a part of rhetoric 
 is an art, and is limited to varying attention on an 
 essential point until it is understood, and no further. To 
 go further is to provoke resentment and dislike. Robert 
 Owen laid down five fundamental facts and twenty laws of 
 human nature. There were a million ideas in them, but 
 because he often repeated them in the same language, unre- 
 lieved by variation and illustration, he was regarded as a 
 man of * one idea.' Another generation who may look into 
 his works, sayings and designs, will be of a different opinion. 
 Splendid enthusiasts forget themselves in their desire to 
 serve others, and leave it to posterity, who will reap the 
 advantages of their disinterested devotion, to do them 
 justice — if so minded. 
 
 History acquaints us with the wondrous effects of 
 eloquence upon multitudes, carried away to far crusades by 
 the oratory of a hermit. Even in grave political assemblies 
 and parliaments, a great speaker can persuade so that 
 majorities hang upon his words. Persuasion is a task of 
 skill. ' Inculcating an idea — disseminating it — winning 
 conviction first, and inspiring enthusiasm after — is often like 
 the dropping of a seed, and patiently waiting till it grows — 
 fostering it, watering it, protecting it, until it expands into 
 stem and flower. Such,' said the Daily Neivs years ago, ' is 
 the political eloquence of modern times. He who dis- 
 covered it, and who practises it, is — Richard Cobden.' It 
 is hardly true that Mr Cobden ' discovered ' it. He was its
 
 132 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 greatest illustrator, but it had grown with the growth and 
 commercial character of the nation. Long before Cobden's 
 time, the magic fancy of Burke, the ceaseless sentences of 
 Pitt, the thundering declamation of Fox, all had like 
 features in lesser degree. The king of American trans- 
 cendentalists has said, that ' eloquence at first and last must 
 still be at bottom a statement of facts. All audiences soon 
 ask, *' What is he driving at ? " and if this man does not stand 
 for anything, he will be deserted.' And he will be deserted 
 unless his hearers see the same facts stand firm in different 
 lights. 
 
 Matthew Arnold, says a writer in Scribner, had a re- 
 pellent endowment of one kind of courage — ' the courage of 
 repeating yourself over and over again.' It is a sound 
 forensic maxim — tell a judge twice whatever you want him 
 to hear ; tell a special jury thrice, and a common jury half 
 a dozen times, the view of a case you wish them to enter- 
 tain. * Mr Arnold treated the middle-class as a common 
 jury, and addressed them with remorseless iteration.' In 
 introducing a new topic to an auditory, it is well to repeat 
 the main idea in different forms of expression, each in itself 
 brief, but altogether affording an expansion of the sense 
 to be conveyed, and detaining the mind upon it. 
 
 It is given to well-calculated reiteration to accomplish 
 that which is denied to power. The reputation of Robes- 
 pierre — now breaking a little through clouds of calumny as 
 dense and dark as ever obscured human name — is a strik- 
 ing illustration of the omnipotence of repetition. The 
 most eloquent of his vindicators has thus sketched his 
 triumph :— 
 
 ' Still deeper in the shade, and behind the chief of the 
 National Assembly, a man almost unknown began to move. 
 Agitated by uneasy thoughts, which seemed to forbid him 
 to be silent, he spoke on all occasions, and attacked all 
 speakers, indifferently, including Mirabeau himself. Driven 
 from the tribune, he ascended it next day ; overwhelmed
 
 REPETITION A NECESSITY 1 33 
 
 with sarcasm, coughed down, disowned by all parties, lost 
 amongst the eminent champions who fixed public attention, 
 he was never dispirited. It might have been said, that an 
 inward and prophetic genius revealed to him the omni- 
 potence of a firm will and unwearied patience, and that an 
 inward voice said to him, "These men who despise thee 
 are thine : all the changes of this revolution, which now 
 will not deign to look upon thee, will eventually terminate 
 in thee, for thou hast placed thyself in the way like the 
 mevitable excess in which all impulse ends."' 
 
 Robespierre had power of thought, distinction of person ; 
 for, though a democrat, he was scrupulously careful of his 
 dress and of his language, which was never mean or inexact. 
 Had he not had unusual qualities, his pertinacity had done 
 nothing for him. He had sunk into obscurity, or have 
 been remembered only as an irrepressible fool. His relev- 
 ance of thought, and his studied precision of expression, 
 were the quaUties which at last commanded attention. 
 
 In his Historical Characters, Sir H. L. Bulwer (Lord 
 Bailing) remarks : — ' Napoleon complained of Talleyrand's 
 repetitions, saying he could not conceive how people found 
 M. de Talleyrand eloquent, "II tournait toujours sur la 
 meme idee."' (He always turned round the same idea.) 
 But this was a system with him, as with Fox, who laid it 
 down as the great principle for an orator who wished to 
 leave an impression. 
 
 When the columns of the Titnes were crowded for five 
 days with reports of the trial of Palmer of Rugeley, the lead- 
 ing article upon it, on the sixth day, when the trial had 
 ended, gave a reiterated account of the fat, rascally, horse- 
 racing surgeon who poisoned Cook, an article which the 
 busy man could understand, though he had never read a 
 line of the reports. The article was like a Scotch house — 
 self-contained. It was lighted up, as it were, by freshness 
 of statement, still but a reflection of facts the readers had 
 seen day by day, but could not recall in the same order or
 
 134 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 with the same effect. One object of repetition is to bring 
 into view all that is necessary to present a complete case to 
 auditor or reader. It is of no use listening to a speaker or 
 reading an author, if you require first to hear or read some 
 one else to understand him. 
 
 Reiteration, without tiresomeness, is not only an advan- 
 tage but a force. One who knew all things pertaining to 
 the art of persuasion, wrote : — 
 
 Truth can never be confirmed enough, 
 Though doubt itself were dead.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 SIGNS OF MASTERY 
 
 Dr Black's test of mastery (cited in Chapter XX.) is 
 excellent, though arduous. But one instance alone is not 
 sufficient to impress the reader with the advantages of 
 mastery and the signs thereof. 
 
 A speaker, like an actor, is liable to the criticism of a 
 casual hearing. The auditor who hears you but once may 
 form an opinion of you for ever. Against this there is no 
 protection but in acquiring such a mastery over your 
 powers as to be able always to exert them well, and to 
 impress a hearer, in some respect or other, at every appear- 
 ance. He, therefore, who has a reputation to acquire or 
 preserve, will keep sij^nce whenever he is in danger of 
 speaking indifferently. He wall practise in private, and 
 train himself so perseveringly, that perfection will become 
 a second nature, and the power of proficiency never desert 
 him. Those who think genius is an impulsive effort that 
 costs nothing, little dream with what patience the profes- 
 sional singer or actor observes regular habits and judicious 
 exercise; how he treasures all his strength and power 
 for the hour of appearance. There must, of course, be 
 natural power of personation in an actor, a fine voice in a 
 singer, and that instinctive aptitude and capacity of excel- 
 lence which men call genius, or no cultivation will produce 
 more than talent. At the same time, the highest natural 
 endowment of genius will spend itself without effect, and 
 
 I3S
 
 136 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 perish devoid of renown, unless application and study 
 develop and mature it. 
 
 The triumphs of application are as remarkable as the 
 triumph of genius. One day, an acquaintance, in speaking 
 of Curran's eloquence, happened to observe that it must 
 have been born with him. 
 
 '"Indeed, my dear sir," replied Curran, "it was not; it 
 was born three-and-twenty years and some months after 
 me. When I was at the Temple a few of us formed a 
 little debating club. Upon the first night of meeting I 
 attended, my foolish heart throbbing with the anticipated 
 honour of being styled ' the learned member that opened 
 the debate,' or 'the very eloquent gentleman who has 
 just sat down,' I stood up — the question was the Catholic 
 claims or the slave trade, I now forget which, but the 
 difference, you know, was never very obvious — my mind 
 was stored with about a folio volume of matter, but I 
 wanted a preface, and for want of a preface the volume 
 was never published. I stood up, trembling through 
 every fibre ; but, remembering that in this I was but 
 imitating Tully, I took courage, and had actually proceeded 
 as far as ' Mr Chairman,' when, to my astonishment 
 and terror, I perceived that every eye was turned upon 
 me. There were only six or seven persons present, and the 
 room could not have contained as many more ; yet was it, 
 to my panic-struck imagination, as if I were the central object 
 in nature, and assembled millions were gazing upon me 
 in breathless expectation. I became dismayed and dumb. 
 My friends cried ' Hear him ! ' but there was nothing to 
 hear. My lips, indeed, went through the pantomime of 
 articulation, but I was like the unfortunate fiddler at the 
 fair, who, upon coming to strike up the solo that was to 
 ravish every ear, discovered that an enemy had maliciously 
 soaped his bow. So you see, sir, it was not born with me. 
 However, though I was for the time silenced, I still 
 attended our meetings with regularity, and even ventured
 
 SIGNS OF MASTERY 1 37 
 
 to accompany the others to a more ambitious theatre, the 
 club at Temple Bar. One of them was on his legs ; a 
 fellow of whom it was difficult lo decide whether he was 
 most distinguished for the dirtiness of his person or the 
 flippancy of his tongue — just such another as Harry Flood 
 would have called 'the highly-gifted gentleman with the 
 dirty cravat and greasy pantaloons.' I found this learned 
 personage in the act of calumniating chronology by the 
 most preposterous anachronisms. He descanted upon 
 Demosthenes, the glory of the Roman forum ; spoke of 
 Tully as the famous contemporary and rival of Cicero; 
 and, in the short space of one half-hour, transported the 
 Straits of Marathon three several times to the plains of 
 Thermopylae. Thinking I had a right to know something 
 of these matters, I looked at him with surprise. When our 
 eyes met, there was something like a wager of battle in 
 mine ; upon which the erudite gentleman instantly changed 
 his invective against antiquity into an invective against me, 
 and concluded by a few words of friendly counsel to 
 "orator mum, who, he doubted not, possessed wonderful 
 talents for eloquence, although he would recommend him 
 to show it in future by some more popular method than 
 his silence." I followed his advice, and, I believe, not 
 entirely without effect. So, sir, you see that to try the 
 bird the spur must touch his blood.' 
 
 But Curran had the blood of oratory in his veins, or the 
 spur had pricked him in vain. The pretentious ignorance 
 of the previous speaker afforded the very 'preface' that 
 Curran wanted to his volume. Many persons of real power 
 of speech can never present themselves to an audience 
 unless called upon or provoked by some egregious thing 
 said, or incited by a sense of duty that something not 
 said ought to be said. Then the effect will be accord- 
 ing to the knowledge, capacity and practice of the 
 speaker. 
 
 Curran's defect in enunciation (at school he went by the
 
 138 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 cognomen of ' Stuttering Jack Curran ') he corrected by a 
 regular system of daily reading aloud, slowly, and with 
 strict regard to pronunciation. His person was short, and 
 his appearance ungraceful and without dignity. To over- 
 come these disadvantages, he recited and studied his 
 postures before a mirror, and adopted a method of gesticu- 
 lation suited to his appearance. Besides a constant attend- 
 ance at the debating clubs, he accustomed himself to 
 extemporaneous eloquence in private, by proposing cases 
 to himself, which he debated with the same care as if he 
 had been addressing a jury. It was thus the great advocate 
 won his self-possession and power. 
 
 Professor de Morgan's rule was, when he wanted a pupil 
 to work well seven places of decimals, to practise him in 
 working fifteen. When Malibran was introduced to 
 Rossini, as a girl of fourteen, by her father, Garcia, she 
 having sung a cavatina, the grand maestro said : ' Practise, 
 mademoiselle, and you must inevitably rise to the highest 
 point of your profession.' 
 
 Mr Vera Foster, an authority on copy-book art, remarks 
 that ' the grand secret in teaching writing is to bestow 
 much attention upon a little variety. The necessity of a 
 continued repetition of the same exercise till it can be 
 executed with correctness, cannot be too strongly insisted 
 on. But, as this reiteration is tedious for an age so fond 
 of novelty as that of childhood, we should not keep too close 
 to the maxim, and by a judicious intermixture of a few 
 slightly differing forms, contrive to fix attention and to 
 insure repetition.' ' The method of teaching anything to 
 children,' says Locke, 'is by repeated practice, and the* 
 same action done over and over again until they have got 
 the habit of doing it well, a method that has so many 
 advantages, which ever way we come to consider it, that I 
 wonder how it could possibly be so much neglected ; ' but it 
 is better for children when there is variety in it as Pestalozzi 
 proved. This rule of repetition is also true in elocution, for
 
 SIGNS OF MASTERY 139 
 
 on the verge of a new art men themselves are distrustful of 
 their own powers. 
 
 Mastery in any art can only come by practice. When 
 Demosthenes was asked what was the secret of success on 
 the platform, he is said to have answered : ' Action, action, 
 action.' But action gives no power, and Dr Clair J. 
 Grece must be right when contending that the answer of 
 the great orator should be translated : ' Practice, practice, 
 practice,' for there skill comes in. A man who wishes 
 to speak well at a moment's notice should speak every 
 night if he has an opportunity. Preachers and barristers 
 speak better at will than other persons. 
 
 In speaking, as one writer has observed, it has often been 
 a matter of curious consideration, that a person will explain 
 his views to a single individual in such terms as to force 
 conviction in many instances, and where he fails the exposi- 
 tion would be just such a one as would please an audience. 
 At the same time it is notorious that what will not convince 
 one or two will be effective on many persons; yet when 
 he who can succeed in the more difficult task with one 
 or tv70, when he comes before an audience he is abashed, 
 and cannot utter two consecutive sentences with propriety, 
 energy or sense. Nevertheless, this incapacity will vanish 
 at once under a sense of duty. Paul says perfect love 
 casteth out fear ; so does a sense of duty in speaking. 
 But where the motive is not an incentive, there is no 
 remedy for confusion of mind before an audience save 
 practice and deliberation; practice gives confidence, and 
 deliberation gives capacity a chance of manifesting itself 
 — provided the assembly is not too large for the com- 
 pass of the speaker's voice. No man speaks with confi- 
 dence who is not sure that he is heard. 
 
 Whewell held that we are never master of anything till 
 we do it both well and unconsciously. But there is no test 
 of proficiency so instructive as that put by George Sand 
 into the mouth of Porpora, in h-'-r novel of Cotisuelo.
 
 140 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 When Consuelo, on the occasion of a trial performance, 
 manifests some apprehension as to the result, Porpora 
 reminds her that if there is room in her mind for misgiving 
 as to the judgment of others, it is a proof that she is not 
 filled with the true love of art, which would so absorb her 
 whole thoughts as to leave her insensible to the opinion of 
 others, and if she distrusted her own powers, it was plain 
 they were not yet matured powers, else they could not play 
 her false. 
 
 Mastery is manifest when we have no misgiving as to the 
 trial of our attainments ; we are then rather anxious for 
 the opportunity and confident as to the result. In George 
 Eliot's Deronda there is the little Jewess who sings for the 
 first time undismayed before a critical assembly met to 
 judge her capacity. On being asked why she was so un- 
 apprehensive, she answered to this effect, * Because I knew 
 what I could do, and because the audience, being well- 
 informed, knew what I was doing, knew the difficulties I 
 had overcome, and could appreciate what I did. I am 
 never afraid of singing before those who know.' 
 
 In the first Lord Lytton's day there was a fashionable 
 figure in society whom everybody regarded as a ' superior 
 person.' Chancing next day to call on Lord Durham, 
 Lytton said, ' I spent six mortal hours with Lord Spraggles ' 
 (the superior person), 'and I don't think there is much 
 in him.' 'Good heavens!' exclaimed Lord Durham, 
 'how did you find that out? Is it possible he could 
 have — talked ? ' The superior person had mastered no- 
 thing, and when he spoke it was apparent.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF ORATORY 
 
 A GREAT oration has a great subject stated in a great way ; 
 it deals with large ideas in a large manner. Each orator of 
 mark may move in a different orbit, but he is luminous in it, 
 and shines by a light which is his own. Mr Cobden com- 
 manded attention by force of argument based on unnoticed 
 facts. Mr Bright was volcanic, and suggested to landlords 
 the danger of allowing explosive materials to accumulate 
 under them. Mr Disraeli flashed with epigram and satire. 
 Mr Gladstone is circumambient, compelling conviction by 
 considerations drawn from a larger field than any other 
 man is able to survey. In each, newness of insight and 
 force of statement are the qualities by which concurrence 
 was won. 
 
 No one in the House of Commons could ever tell 
 whether Disraeli had sincerity — the key of all influence in 
 oratory. Certainly he never gave anyone the impression 
 that he had it. He charmed, he intimidated, but never 
 convinced adversaries. As a clever writer in the Fort- 
 nightly said : ' You feel that he has come from another 
 world, and that he must be judged by the law of his 
 domicile.' In one thing he was human ; he was, as Justin 
 M'Carthy has said, 'master of the art of epithets.' In 
 destroying any who stood in the way of the ascendency 
 of himself, he had real passion. Had he had it in public 
 affairs, he had moved the heart of the nation, and kept a 
 
 141
 
 142 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 lasting place there. What is it that wins for the orator 
 public affection? It is the burning word of passion. It 
 knows no high, no low, no rich, no poor, no citizen, no 
 alien, no foreigner, no class, no colour. Savage and 
 civilised, learned and illiterate (the accidents of condition) 
 sink into insignificance when man speaks to humanity. 
 The orator penetrates to the heart of the race. It was 
 said of Mr Cowen in Parliament that he had the great 
 qualities rare among orators, ' fire, colour and imagination.' 
 He had also conviction, which alone wins adherents, or 
 retains them when won. 
 
 John Arthur Roebuck, whose own oratory in its coherence 
 and cogency more resembled that of Demosthenes than 
 any other orator of his day, says, in his History of the 
 Whig Ministry of iS^o : — 
 
 ' The style of Lord Brougham, though vigorous and some- 
 times happy, was too often diffuse, loose and cumbrous, 
 and always wanting in that exquisite accuracy, simplicity, 
 and constantly equal and sustained force, of his more sedate 
 and self-collected antagonist. Looking back, however, and 
 calmly weighing the merits of these celebrated efforts of 
 these the two most distinguished orators of that day (Lynd- 
 hurst and Brougham), we cannot, I think, fail to feel that 
 although in Lord Lyndhurst's speech there was nothing 
 superfluous — that all was severity — and, if I may use the 
 expression, serenely great — yet that in the higher, I ought 
 to say the highest excellence of impassioned reasoning, his 
 rival (Lord Brougham) was eminently superior. The cold 
 sagacity of Lord Lyndhurst shines steadily throughout the 
 whole of his discourse; l>ut we feel no enthtisiasm — we are 
 not totichcd by any appeal to a getierous sentiment — we never 
 appear to ourselves exalted by being called upon to share in 
 and sympathise with any large and liberal policy. The 
 speech of Lord Brougham produces effects of a very 
 different description. Discursive, sometimes even trivial, 
 it contains splendid and exciting appeals — w'se and gener
 
 NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF ORATORY 1 43 
 
 ous sentiments — cogent, effective argument; and we are 
 anxious to believe him right, because, while he attempts 
 to satisfy the understanding, he enlists in his favour the 
 emotions of his hearers by exhibiting an earnest solicitude 
 for the well-being of his country and his kind.' 
 
 Lord Karnes said the ' plainest man agitated with passion 
 affects us more than the greatest speaker without it.' It is 
 the passion of conviction which is meant. A man cannot 
 acquire it by will. The spur of necessity will beget fer- 
 vour, and interest in the welfare of others will beget con- 
 victions. But if a man has no convictions, he may as well 
 keep silence, for he never can produce the highest effects 
 nor any effect honourable to him. Lord Hartington was 
 too rich to be in earnest about public affairs. He spoke 
 half-asleep, and gave you the impression that he thought 
 having to speak a bore, and he often bored his hearers. 
 He had twelve famous or luxurious country seats — a fresh 
 one every month for a change. You always heard these 
 seats in his slothful speeches. What an audience like, is 
 what Douglas Jerrold called the ' flesh and blood ' of a 
 speaker's thought, and they are not content unless they 
 feel the strong bones of his meaning in great passages. 
 
 Great actors confess that they take time before stepping 
 on the stage to possess their minds with the story, purport 
 and genius of the play. Mrs Siddons used to stand at the 
 wings and listen to the dialogue going on, so as to possess 
 herself of the spirit of the piece, that when she had to 
 appear she shared and exalted its excitement. Wordsworth 
 said of Goethe that he was not 'inevitable enough.' Now 
 inevitability is the finest test of oratory, both as to speech 
 and matter. To see that a man can't help speaking 
 immediately arrests attention, and if the matter of the 
 speech, its ideas and expressions, appear inevitably to 
 belong to the subject and to be inseparable from it when 
 said, the speaker has the fibre of the orator. Fire, com- 
 pression and relevance are the elements of inevitableness
 
 144 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 and inevitableness in speech is oratory. Mr Gladstone has 
 it. It has been rightly said of him that 'he is the only 
 man in Parliament who is an orator in the proper sense of 
 the word — that is to say, to whom oratory is his element, 
 natural to him as air is to a bird.' * 
 
 Eloquence is the talent of giving force to reason. Oratory 
 compels action after argument has made duty clear. Health 
 is a condition of most human efforts ; but in oratory it is 
 essential. In the cold air of a thin morning audience, mere 
 energy and mellowness are inestimable ; wisdom and learn- 
 ing would be harsh and unwelcome compared with a sub- 
 stantial man, who has radiant warmth of manner. What 
 would Danton have been without his cannon voice ? When 
 Mirabeau spoke, his tone was like the tone of destiny, 
 falling on the alarmed ear like broken thunder. He seemed 
 as if moulded to be the orator of nature. It was his lion 
 roar that gave him his splendid place in history. But 
 without the ideas behind it, the voice would have been an 
 affront. Yet the ideas without the voice would scarcely 
 have made themselves legible on the great surface of 
 obscurity which covers so many reputations, but upon 
 which Mirabeau's name remains conspicuous. Bright's 
 massive head, his clear sagacious glance, firm mouth, his 
 organ tones, at once excited attention ; while his slowly- 
 spoken, deliberate words fell like the large drops of rain 
 which precede a thunder-storm. 
 
 Bulk talking produces a greater effect than Bones talking. 
 A large figure will have twice the advantage of a small figure 
 when the intellectual power is equal in both. Of course 
 health, nor stature, nor vocal power are to be had at will, 
 but there are qualities of mind which cultivation will make 
 capable of giving fame in speech, though not oratorical 
 fame. In personal appearance, Hooker is described as a 
 man of small stature and stooping gait. As a preacher his 
 manner was grave. His eyes were always fixed on one 
 * William Hale White.
 
 NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF ORATORY I45 
 
 place, and he seemed to think out his discourse as he 
 proceeded. His sermons were marked by brevity and 
 simplicity, and were designed to convince and persuade 
 rather than frighten men into goodness. He had a weak 
 voice and an ineffective manner, but the weight and wisdom 
 of his matter and the fascination of his composition did 
 much to counteract these disadvantages. The arrangement 
 of his sentences reveals a fine sense of proportion, and 
 such mastery of expression that Ruskin might have taken 
 him as a model. It has been finely said that ' the sweep 
 and ease of his movements in the highest regions of 
 thought, give him rank among the great philosophical 
 thinkers and intellectual princes of all time.' The reader 
 will see more to the same effect in Mr Ritson's artic'e on 
 Hooker.* It was from his rare faculty of discerning what 
 was possible and what was probable that the author of 
 Ecclesiastical Policy was named the 'Judicious Hookc,' 
 whose reputation has endured three centuries. 
 
 An orator has everything for his purpose when he has 
 stature, voice and sense. Bulk, however imposing, does not 
 conquer unless mind goes with it. A great voice commands 
 attention, but does not keep it unless there is quality in 
 the thing said. To cite Mr Bright's sarcasm on one of 
 these loud-voiced, idea-less orators, 'He speaks extren ely 
 well, if you do not listen to what he says.' Shiel has left 
 a famous name, and yet he had a voice which squealed : 
 it was his ideas and energy which saved him. Energy is 
 the soul of oratory j and energy depends on health. Dr 
 Samuel Johnson said, 'We can be useful no longer than 
 we are well.' Of the rhetorician it may as safely be said 
 that he is effective no longer than he is well. A variety of 
 arts may be pursued in indifferent health ; feebleness only 
 prolongs execution ; in rhetoric it mars the whole work. 
 Even in the matter of efficient thinking, health is worth 
 attention. The senses being the great inlets of knowledge, 
 * Primitive Methodist Quarterly Review, January 1894. 
 
 K
 
 146 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 it is necessary that they be kept in health. It will be idle 
 to conceal from ourselves that the physical is the father 
 of the moral man. Morals depend greatly upon tempera- 
 ments. The patience necessary for investigation cannot be 
 preserved with impaired nerves. Long-continued wakeful- 
 ness is capable of changing the temper and mental dis- 
 position of the most placid nature. The wise orator will 
 as much attend to the exercise which gives him health as to 
 the exercise which gives him skill. 
 
 It may not be necessary, because Carneades took copious 
 doses of hellebore, as a preparative to refuting the dogmas 
 of the Stoics, or because Dryden, when he had a grand 
 design, took physic and parted with blood — that the 
 searcher after truth should take a physician's opinion ; yet it 
 will be useful that some attention be paid to the physiology 
 of the 
 
 intellect, whose use 
 
 Depends so much upon the gastric juice. 
 
 Since oratory pertains to large subjects, treated in a large 
 manner, a stately manner of speaking about a small 
 subject would be absurd, and bring oratory into disrepute. 
 No one having a sense of the fitness of things would think 
 of speaking in a small room to a small audience as he 
 would in a large hall to a great assembly. Before a small 
 audience the voice is lower and the manner more subdued. 
 Besides, the speaker should distinguish subjects. Some 
 need only information to be given about them ; others 
 need argument. Lucidity and relevance are sufficient for 
 making informing statements. Animation and directness 
 are sufficient for argument. Oratory and stately language, 
 passion and decision of purpose, pertain alone to issues 
 which have pathos and tragedy in them. There are more 
 tragical subjects in the social life of the day than many 
 suppose. Preventible loss of life at sea, in mines, ne- 
 glect of sanitary precautions, poisonous trades, dwellings
 
 NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF ORATORY 147 
 
 which have death in them, as well as the issues of politics, 
 have materials of oratory in them. Discrimination is needed 
 in selecting the topics of oratory, and foresight in making it 
 plain to the hearer that the issue before him has elements 
 of danger to him in its neglect. 
 
 The subject treated in these chapters is the art of per- 
 suading the minds of men by oratory, argument or state- 
 ment. Some may never excel in oratory, others do not 
 excel when they might. Description is almost as difficult 
 as an oration. Mr Bright acquired nearly as much fame 
 by his descriptive as by his oratorical power. To this day 
 people remember famous passages in which he described 
 the effect of the Crimean War. Colonel Boyle was then 
 member for Frome, and Colonel Blair member for a Con- 
 servative constituency. Mr Bright, with the slightest touches, 
 and with not less eloquent gestures towards the empty seats, 
 asked, Where was Colonel Boyle ? and answered, ' He has 
 found a grave in the stormy Euxine, his wife is a widow, 
 his children orphans.' 'Who is there,' he continued, 'that 
 does not recollect the frank, courageous and manly counten- 
 ance of Colonel Blair? I doubt whether there were any 
 men on either side of the House who were more capable 
 of fixing the goodwill and affection of those with whom 
 they were associated. Well, but the place that knew him 
 shall know him no more for ever.' 
 
 Upon such instances the Daily News remarked — They 
 are not famous passages from the speeches of Mr Bright, 
 but they illustrate with great force a peculiar characteristic 
 of his oratory, and one which has much to do with estab- 
 lishing its power. It is a very simple gift to describe, and 
 it is nearly as rare as it is simple.' 
 
 One object of these pages is to promote the cultivation 
 of the art of clear, relevant statement, without pretentious- 
 ness, yet at the same time with decision. The student, 
 aware of the nature and conditions of oratory, can, when 
 fitting occasion occurs, employ that higher art. One of his
 
 148 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 biographers, I think it is the Rev. Mr Wright, says : * One 
 characteristic of the Duke of Wellington strikes the reader. 
 Confident in his own capacity, he thinks, decides and acts 
 while other men are hesitating and asking advice. He is 
 evidently conscious that decision and promptitude, even 
 though sometimes a man may err for want of due delibera- 
 tion, will, in the long run, more often conduct to success 
 than a slow judgment that comes too late.' Innumerable 
 people will strike out a course, pursue it, while all goes well, 
 but the temper of greatness places its life on the hazard of 
 a well-chosen plan, counts upon failures and defeats, but 
 relies on the ' long run ' of persistency for success. 
 
 In this country, where we have the ballot, a free press, a 
 free platform, and a free parliament, violence is what Talley- 
 rand called 'a blunder which is worse than a crime' — his 
 meaning being, I suppose, the statesman can guard against 
 a criminal easier than against a fool. You know what the 
 vicious will be at, but you never know what a fool will do. 
 A people with the four great instruments of freedom above 
 named, who cannot obtain public improvement without 
 disorder, do not know their business. The great power in 
 their hands is speech. To use a thought of Shakespeare, 
 every speaker, by tongue or pen, in his own hand bears the 
 means to cancel his captivity — if he be captive or wronged. 
 The art of expression by argument or oratory is a great 
 and invincible instrument. Orators in Parliament are esti- 
 mated mainly by wealth and weight, or by relevant and new 
 knowledge. Wealth, as a rule, has a large following — weight 
 is measured by position, because position means influence, 
 and influence means character of a determinate kind. Mr 
 Justin M'Carthy, in one of his admirable lectures on the 
 House of Commons, says : ' Once let a man make it clear 
 that he rose because he had something to say, and not 
 because he had to say something, the House would soon 
 give him a hearing.' It was long said and believed that 
 the workman in Parliament would be useless, and be dis-
 
 NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF ORATORY I49 
 
 regarded. This objection was urged mainly by those who 
 did not wish to see him there. There always are people 
 who, having what they want, think that sufficient for 
 others. We have had in this country politicans who, like 
 Bismarck, make a hole through which they can crawl to 
 power, but stop it up as soon as they are through it ; or, like 
 Lassalle, who, having mounted, would kick down the ladder 
 — it not being desirable that others should get up it; or, 
 like Louis Napoleon, shoot those who got upon it. It was 
 honestly thought by many in this country that workmen 
 must prove ineffective in Parliament. But this misgiving 
 has been dissipated. Mr Burt has an easy force in speak- 
 ing, and an accuracy of expression, which classical training 
 does not always impart, but which often comes to a man 
 from good reading and an ear attentive to idiomatic terms 
 in the speech of others. Book-learning has nearly obliter- 
 ated in men's minds the sense of that knowledge without 
 books, which experience gives to a man of natural powers, 
 observant eyes and original understanding. This kind of 
 knowledge is so rare that it always makes a strong impression 
 in the House of Commons. Parliament consists of a com- 
 pany of gentlemen too brave to be intimidated; and con- 
 tains so many members of great pride and great powers 
 that it cannot be looked down upon ; it simply disregards 
 all who treat it with contempt or conceit. But that assembly 
 has to deal with subjects so many and so important that no 
 member can pretend to know everything, and, therefore, 
 the House will listen with respectful and greedy ears to any 
 member who can give it necessary information. And there- 
 fore when any member addresses it with relevance, with 
 unpretendingness and modesty, yet with that clearness and 
 directness, which is possible only when a man knows that 
 he knows, the House of Commons respects him, listens to 
 him, from the Premier to the last member below the gang- 
 way, and count him as a real addition to the collective 
 knowledge of the House.
 
 150 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 It was predicted that \Yorking men in Parliament would 
 be foolish or bumptious, timid or leadable. They proved 
 to be neither the one nor the other, but independent 
 without being impracticable, rightly regarding labour as one 
 of the dignities of an honest state, and standing up for it 
 with as much pride as they who represent rank or land. 
 Before their day a young clerk rose to fame in England, 
 America and India by oratory — a power which he owed 
 to himself alone, and which was attained under circum- 
 stances entirely against him. George Thompson was an 
 anti-slavery reformer, an Indian reformer, a free trader, 
 a political reformer, and a foremost man in all. He 
 had not only the courage of his opinions, he had that 
 other courage which did not shrink before Boston mobs 
 organised to lynch him in America — real mobs, who 
 understood their business, and who had done that kind 
 of thing before. Learning eloquence, or discovering that 
 the gift of it was natural to him, from a Clerkenwell coffee- 
 house debating society in Marylebone, he emerged from 
 behind a desk, and became one of the first advocates 
 in Europe in the days of Berryer, O'Connell and Brougham. 
 They were the compeers with whom he was compared. 
 I heard Lord Brougham say, on introducing him to an 
 Exeter Hall audience, forty years ago, that ' George 
 Thompson was the most persuasive speaker to whom 
 he had ever listened.' I have heard him at the close 
 of his speaking days address a meeting, in the National 
 Hall, Holborn, at eleven o'clock at night, when half 
 of the audience had gone home and only a wearied 
 section was left, who were jaded, unexpectant, and long- 
 ing for the vacation of the chair. Thompson arrested 
 them, inspired them, set them aflame, caps and hats 
 rose in the air, and for years after the tale of the wonderful 
 speech of that night was told in workshops and committee 
 meetings. Paralysis came upon him many years before 
 his death. Oft when travelling I met him — his fine powers
 
 NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF ORATORY 151 
 
 of speech were arrested then. I consoled hmi by telling him 
 that his splendid orations would live in men's memories ; and 
 I write these words in proof of it. He had his faults — as a 
 few other persons I have known have ; but he had the grand 
 fervour of the orator. He spoke as Malibran sang — it was 
 the natural expression of his nature. There was the accent 
 of honesty and sincerity in his voice which neither O'Connell 
 nor Brougham had in like degree. In that respect there was 
 the difference between Thompson and them as there was in a 
 greater degree between Gladstone and Beaconsfield. There 
 was a generation of slaves who would have died for Thomp- 
 son. What a splendid memory is that for a deathbed ! He 
 did not exercise influence in Parliament like that which he 
 did on the platform, but that was because he did not give his 
 mind to that distinct kind of work. Had he sought occa- 
 sions, he could have won distinction there. He had the 
 orator's power of marshalling facts ; and had he relinquished 
 what he thought the wider sphere of influence in America, in 
 India, and the British platform, and laid in wait for parlia- 
 mentary occasions, he had long been member for the Tower 
 Hamlets, or elsewhere, at will. People have talked of Thomp- 
 son as a great outdoor orator who failed in the House. He 
 did not fail — he did not seek to succeed there. That is the 
 explanation. 
 
 There was Serjeant Parry, whom I well knew. He rose 
 from the ranks. As a Chartist orator he had fervour, readi- 
 ness of speech, and a loud voice, but his style was loose, 
 wordy and gaseous. We all thought that if he went to 
 Parliament as he wished — and would have done had he 
 lived — he would surely fail there. Seeking distinction at 
 the bar, he studied the nature and conditions of oratory 
 and became a new man, the delight of clients and the 
 admiration of courts. I never knew such a transformation 
 on the platform. His style became compact, vigorous and 
 exact. His sentences, formerly gaseous, were solid as a 
 cannon ball, and as he had ideas, a good presence, and a
 
 152 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Strong voice, he would have soon won a high place in the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 Labour members in Parliament have to be counted with 
 by every Government. Besides Mr Burt, Mr Broadhurst, 
 Mr Howell, Mr John Burns, Mr Pickard, Mr J. H. Wilson 
 — others whom we have known on co-operative platforms, 
 have abundantly vindicated the right of labour to personal 
 representation. 
 
 A word ought to be said of the influence of pleasantry 
 of mind in the orator. There are buffoons always in the 
 House of Commons, and the other House also, like the late 
 De Morny, the fellow-conspirator with Louis Napoleon, who 
 on one occasion had to go into mourning. For this purpose 
 he required a new hat ; but regarding himself as a man of 
 fashion, he told his hatter that he wanted it to be a mourn- 
 ing hat, but with 'a little gaiety in the brim.' There are 
 wits in Parliament whose gaiety is in the brim, not in the 
 brain. English humour is hearty and unaffected; Irish, 
 brisk as mercury, setting propriety at defiance, but always 
 bright with imagination. Scotch humour is sly, grave and 
 caustic. But every nation is capable of delight when their 
 great speakers or authors are capable of vindicating serious 
 principle with relevant wit or humour. 
 
 When Sir Wilfrid Lawson entered Parliament, I was not 
 aware that he belonged to a family in which humour was 
 hereditary, and as it was known that he would represent the 
 temperance cause, I ventured, needlessly, to suggest to him, 
 that that cause would be much advanced by brightness and 
 lightness of treatment. Those who had preceded him had 
 manifested an oppressive heaviness : they made dead pop 
 speeches, which infected the house with flatness. Their 
 arguments were as tasteless as raw potatoes. The House 
 soon found that, with Sir Wilfrid Lawson, humour was a 
 natural endowment. He not only made temperance respect- 
 able, he made it entertaining, yet always keeping before the 
 House the gravity of its issues. During the years when I
 
 NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF ORATORY 1 53 
 
 was much at the House of Commons, I studied the wits of 
 Parliament, and observed that one thing was ahvays true of 
 Sir Wilfrid Lawson — he never jested with a principle, and he 
 never gave us a jest instead of a principle. Sir Wilfrid 
 was not a jester, and was more than a wit. His wit was 
 earnestness for the right, made radiant by the light of humour. 
 Some speakers tell us that truth lies at the bottom of a well, 
 and they almost drown us in getting at it. Sir Wilfrid 
 Lawson always took us over land to it, and through a path 
 so bright and pleasant that we were glad in our hearts to 
 make the journey. 
 
 Years ago there was a Mr Bernal, Chairman of Committees 
 in the House of Commons, who said that ' law was raorahty 
 shaped by Act of Parliament.' What nobler occupation 
 than that of speakers and orators whose business it is to 
 c jnvert morality into law ? 
 
 He who gives directions for the attainment of oratory 
 ii supposed, if a public speaker, to be capable of illustrat- 
 iig his own precepts. He may be thought to challenge 
 criticism, and his own performances may be condemned 
 by a reference to his own precepts ; or, on the other hand, 
 his precepts may be undervalued through his own failures 
 in their application. Should this take place in the present 
 instance, I have only to urge, with Horace, in his Arf of 
 Poetry, that a whetstone, though itself incapable of cutting, 
 is yet useful in sharpening steel. No system of instruction 
 will completely equalise natural powers, and yet it may be of 
 service towards their improvement. The youthful Achilles 
 acquired skill in hurling the javelin under the instruction 
 of Chiron, though the master could not compete with the 
 pupil in vigour of arm. 
 
 But there is little danger in these days of serious judg- 
 ment being passed upon the indifferent exemplar of the 
 rhetorical maxims he lays down. Our orators escape as 
 our statues do. Good public monuments are so scarce 
 that the people are ill judges of art, and great speakers too
 
 154 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 seldom arise for the people to be good judges of oratory. 
 England has not reached the age of excellence in this 
 respect. Great events can excite it, but only a national 
 refinement, including opulence, and a liberal philosophy, 
 can sustain it. Oratory ordinarily requires the union of 
 intellect, leisure and health, discipline of thought, cal- 
 culated expression and public spirit. 
 
 The speeches of great leaders are to hearers like walking 
 along a pier, out far into the sea. Away from the air made 
 dull and murky by mediocrity, the fresh breezes of reason 
 like those of the ocean, blow around the great questions 
 of the day ; everyone sees clearly the issue, and is braced 
 to aid it. 
 
 Americans are a quick people, ready to project them- 
 selves into the second thing before they have done with 
 the first; yet they will sit quietly under speeches, the 
 length of which would shorten the lives of Englishmen. 
 The French, who are yet brighter and more alert-minded, 
 will at times keep their seats in patience under papers read 
 of seemingly endless length — and continue to live. Lord 
 Bacon says that 'short speeches are like darts which 
 fly about and are thought to proceed from some secret 
 intention, whereas long discourses are flat and not to be 
 noted.' French orators seem to place their trust in long 
 orations. It is wonderful how so mercurial a people can 
 sit during a protracted address, when no national interest 
 makes men curious, and no enterprise of thought inspires 
 patience. 
 
 At the first Co-operative Congress in France I had oppor- 
 tunity of observing characteristics of Parisian speaking. 
 The action of the French orators was superb. When they 
 sought the chairman's attention their arms were darted 
 forward and upward, suddenly, as far as arms could go. 
 It was as though they would reach the chairman with them. 
 Then one would leave his seat, and walk quietly and slowly 
 down the meeting, soliloquising like Hamlet as he walked.
 
 NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF ORATORY 1 55 
 
 That was part of his speech. Then facing the audience, 
 the quiet stroller to the platform delivered entire volleys 
 of sentences as though they were ejected from a culverin. 
 All at once the explosion stopped, and the speaker walked 
 slowly back and sat down in his seat, just as though he 
 had never left it. Another orator had risen to answer him, 
 when you saw that he who had walked to his seat so placidly 
 had thrown back his ears like a hare, and had caught every 
 word said behind him ; and when you heard another decided 
 volley of words, you found that it was your placid-walking 
 speaker, who had found his way back to the platform, and 
 was answering the delegate who had differed from him. 
 When a speaker was concluding, his gestures were often the 
 wonder of the night to me. Every motion of emphasis, 
 earnestness, decision, prediction, malediction, or benedic- 
 tion, with which some ended, were all expressed by miracul- 
 ous and rapid motions of the arms above, below, around, 
 in broad wave or graceful whirling curve, until arms and 
 body seemed to disappear in the air, and the head of the 
 orator alone remained recognisable. In debates, a man 
 in the gallery, or back of the meeting, would stroll down, 
 or pass along the gangway, as though he was leaving the 
 hall, but does not. He continues walking aimlessly, and 
 when you think he has gone out, he turns up near the 
 president. He watches anyone who is speaking, as an 
 Indian looks out from the bush when he descries an enemy 
 coming over the border of the plain. The moment the 
 speech ceases, the man near the president projects himself 
 into prominence and pours out a volley of words as incessant 
 and prolonged as the firing of artillery. When it occurs 
 to the new orator to return to his seat, he begins threading 
 his way to the back of the meeting or gallery, whence 
 he came, sometimes talking all along the pathway. No 
 Englishman's arm can make the easy, graceful, pliable 
 curves a Frenchman knows how to produce. In every 
 way in which the arm can cleave the air or caress it — in
 
 156 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 whatever manner finger can point, or open palm, or dis- 
 played hand can indicate emotion, emphasis, sentiment 
 or argument — the French orator is master of that 
 expression. 
 
 All this shows how much oratory depends upon tempera- 
 ment for gesture and delivery. But the elements of oratory, 
 force of argument, vividness of speech, concentration anp 
 boldness of idea, remain the same in all countries and all 
 time, though the splendour of deUvery varies with national 
 vivacity and grace. 
 
 He who has listened to Italian oratory in Bologna knows 
 it is not the grand passion of impulse, which the French 
 display in Paris or Tours — but the superb passion of the 
 intellect. An Italian is speaking — you cannot say ' he rises ' 
 in his place. He is so quick, you hear him but do not see 
 him rise. His movements are too rapid for that. Anon a 
 low, enchanting voice is heard; soon it becomes eager, 
 resonant, filling the hall with mellow, resilient tones, and all 
 the grace of sculpture in the speaker's gestures. Another 
 appears with a bushy head of dark hair, handsome, well-cut 
 features, and piqued beard ; in person slender, tall and 
 picturesque, with a penetrating voice and miraculous action. 
 His hair and beard vibrate ; his arms make every motion 
 known in conic sections ; his whole frame is circular and 
 revolving. With outstretched arm and forefinger projected 
 — now pointing laterally, now perpendicularly, then to the 
 earth — anon the open palm is extended, entreating, darting, 
 cleaving vacant space as though his purpose was to cut it 
 into pieces, the voice orotund, beseeching, denouncing, 
 declaiming. No carding machine, no spinning-jenny, no 
 steam engine at high pressure, nor the most intricate action 
 invented, was eve capable of so many motions, and such 
 continuous energy. Next a bold, sonorous voice (like 
 Gambetta's) would thunder through the hall, when people 
 leaving returned, and others entering rush forward to see who 
 has taken the floor, and learn what the surging intensity of
 
 NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF ORATORY 1 57 
 
 tones, the polished energy, the controlled vehemence, and 
 enchanted tumult of applause all means. It was Signer 
 Luzzatti who was speaking. Italian oratory is a musical 
 tempest. 
 
 There is oratory in England equal to that of any nation, 
 but more attention is given to its cultivation elsewhere than 
 here. Good delivery is more common than with us, and 
 there is more freedom in gesture and tone. Being alien to 
 English taste to betray much emotion, we think it unreal in 
 those to whom it is natural. French speaking seemed to 
 me to have more personal fervour ; Italian speaking more 
 intellectual fervour. The French appear to speak with the 
 force of feeling ; the Italian from the force of conviction, 
 who, in his most dramatic moods, maintains a certain dignity 
 of self-possession. An Englishman speaks as though his 
 words had wings and flew about in the air, and at times 
 escape him when he most wants to catch them. An Italian 
 seems to carry his store of words within him, and delivers 
 them at will, in full, melodious tones. Spontaneity, however, 
 is the main charm of spoken words. The orator will have 
 concentrated passages in his mind, but does not think too 
 much of them — he may have seen all through his sentences 
 when he first arranged them in his mind, but if the conclusion 
 has passed for the moment from his mind — as was the case 
 with Charles James Fox — he invents a new termination and 
 extricates himself as best he can. It has been well said ' a 
 certain free handling and disdain of literal exactitude is only 
 one grace the more in speaking, just as it is in sketching. 
 It is the human note. The most effective speakers are often 
 those who have the courage of their verbal inaccuracies, 
 and who leave on the minds of their hearers the sense of 
 over-mastering possession by the subject itself, that seems to 
 preclude all other concern.' This is sometimes the case ; 
 but the student should not trust to it. An orator trained to 
 accuracy of expression finds that it never deserts him, and 
 in the very blaze of passion such self-possession comes to
 
 158 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 him that he plays with every detail of speech, and says 
 things with grace, qualification and illustration that never 
 occurred to him before, and which he cannot often recall 
 after. At the same time the ' free handling ' commended 
 in this passage is good, and gives the impression of 
 mastery. 
 
 Mr William Hale White, who, like his father, wrote the 
 best Parliamentary criticisms of his time, remarked, in a' 
 memorable passage : — 
 
 ' Old men, who know that they have at the best but a 
 little breathing space before they are no more and are 
 forgotten, may be excused if their zeal for affairs diminishes. 
 They may ask themselves, " What does it matter to me ? " 
 But in Mr Gladstone it is wonderful to see, and admirable 
 to see, that men and ideas are of more importance now than 
 they were when life was before him. His enthusiasm on 
 Tuesday reached that pitch of abandonment which is usually 
 supposed to be characteristic of youth, but yet the centri- 
 fugal power was never so strong as to propel him into 
 inanity. Like the perfect orator he is, he was always master 
 of himself, and came again in complete curve. It was 
 curious to see how his passion improved his style as he 
 went along. I have often observed of him, but never so 
 signally as on this occasion, that he falls into the most 
 idiomatic English when he gets thoroughly warm, and that 
 the warmer he grows the simpler he becomes, so that all 
 verbiage and sesquipedalism disappear, and he is as com- 
 pressed and simple as Lord Bacon. For example : " Gentle- 
 men will recollect how we were fired with false rumours and 
 mutilated telegrams. First of all, Russia had been making 
 some secret agreement. Nothing so much excited the 
 country as the statement that there were secret agreements 
 between Russia and Turkey. // would have been so wicked 
 0/ Russia, would it not?"^ 
 
 His hearers knew that the pigeon holes in our Foreign 
 Office were stuffed with secret treaties we had made.
 
 NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF ORATORY 1 59 
 
 Let those who think an oration can be made at will, with- 
 out premeditation or practice, read the following passage 
 from one of the famous sermons of Massillon. He had 
 explained how men justify their conduct to their con- 
 sciences because they live as the multitude live, and are 
 no worse than others of their class and station. Massillon 
 then exclaims : — 
 
 ' On this account it is, my brethren, that I confine my- 
 self to you who at present are assembled here ; I include 
 not the rest of men, but consider you as alone existing on 
 the earth. The idea which occupies and frightens me is 
 this : I figure to myself the present as your last hour 
 and the end of the world ; that the heavens are going to 
 open above your heads; our Saviour, in all His glory, to 
 api^ear in the midst of the temple ; and that you are 
 only assembled here to wait His coming; like trembling 
 criminals on whom the sentence is to be pronounced, 
 either of life eternal or of everlasting death ; for it is vain 
 to flatter yourselves that you shall die more innocent than 
 you are at this hour. All those desires of change with 
 which you are amused will continue to amuse you till 
 death arrives, the experience of all ages proves it ; the only 
 difference you have to expect will most likely be only a 
 larger balance against you than what you would have to 
 answer for at present; and from what would be your 
 destiny were you to be judged this moment, you may 
 almost decide upon what will take place at your departure 
 from life. Now, I ask you (and connecting my own lot 
 with yours I ask with dread), were Jesus Christ to appear 
 in this temple, in the midst of this assembly, to judge us, 
 to make the dreadful separation betwixt the goats and 
 sheep, do you believe that the greatest number of us 
 would be placed at His right hand ? Do you believe that 
 the number would at least be equal ? Do you believe there 
 would even be found ten upright and faithful servants of 
 the Lord, when formerly five cities could not furnish so
 
 l6o PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 many? I ask you. You know not, and I know it not. 
 Thou alone, O my God, knowest who belong to Thee. 
 But if we know not who belong to Him, at least we know 
 that sinners do not. Now, who are the just and faithful 
 assembled here at present? Titles and dignities avail 
 nothing, you are stripped of all these in the presence of 
 your Saviour. Who are they? Many sinners who wish 
 not to be converted ; many more who wish, but always put 
 it off; many others who are only converted in appearance, 
 and again fall back to their former courses. In a word, a 
 great number who flatter themselves they have no occasion 
 for conversion. This is the party of the reprobate. Ah ! 
 my brethren, cut off from this assembly these four classes 
 of sinners, for they will be cut off at the great day. And 
 now appear, ye just ! Where are ye ? O God, where are 
 Thy chosen ? And what a portion remains to Thy share.' 
 
 The resounding and commanding voice of the preacher 
 — his penetrating and unevadable questions— his short clear 
 sentences, which none could misunderstand, prevented the 
 attention of any hearer from being diverted — his tones and 
 gestures of alarm (for the fearful picture he drew had en- 
 tered his own soul) overwhelmed his hearers with dismay 
 and terror. All would resolve on amendment, and happily 
 many would persevere in it. 
 
 There is an old Continental proverb which says : ' An 
 Italian is wise before he undertakes a thing, the German 
 while he is doing it, and a Frenchman when it is over.' 
 In oratory, and in other things, I could wish my country- 
 men to be both Italians and German — wise both in con- 
 ception and act.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 ORIGINALITY IN ORATORY 
 
 Originality is founded in nature — an inexhaustible field 
 in which to find it. Genius is a gUmpse of nature denied 
 to others. Realism is truth and newness. There would be 
 more originality than there is if, instead of following custom 
 without thought, men went to nature, the source of al 
 surprises. Edmund Kean, who had originality in him, 
 augmented it by art. One day he saw Jack Painter, the 
 prize-fighter, raise his arm to strike when he could no 
 longer rise from the ground. When next Kean played 
 Richard III. he did that, and 'brought down the house.' 
 When asked how he came to think of expressing in that 
 way undying valour, he said Jack Painter gave him the 
 idea by what he did when beaten. Men wondered how 
 Massillon, living in a cloister, could know the human 
 heart as he did. When asked how he came by such know- 
 ledge, which exceeded that of other men, he answered : ' I 
 learned it by studying myself Locke tells us, says Lord 
 Byron, that ' all his knowledge of the human understanding 
 was derived from studying his own mind.' Emerson, who 
 excelled in the quality, advised him who would be original, 
 thus : — ' Insist on yourself — never imitate. Your gift you can 
 present every moment, with the cumulative force of a whole 
 life's cultivation ; but of the adopted talent of another you 
 have only an extemporaneous half possession. The way to 
 
 L
 
 l62 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 speak and write what shall not go out of fashion, is to speak 
 and write sincerely. Take Sidney's maxim : " Look in thy 
 heart and write." He that writes to himself writes to an 
 eternal public' 
 
 Originality is reality, instead of stereotype conventional- 
 ism. A dialogue between Bacon and Shakespeare ran as 
 follows : — 
 
 Bacon : He that can make the multitude laugh and weep 
 as you do, Mr Shakespeare, need not fear scholars. A head 
 naturally fertile and forgetive is worth many libraries, in- 
 asmuch as a tree is more valuable than a basket of fruit, 
 or a good hawk better than a bag full of game, or the little 
 purse which a fairy gave to Fortunatus more inexhaustible 
 than all the coffers in the treasury. More scholarship 
 might have sharpened your judgment, but the particulars 
 whereof a character is composed are better assembled by 
 force of imagination han of judgment. Although judg- 
 ment perceives coherences, it cannot summon up materials, 
 nor melt them into a compound with the felicity which 
 belongs to imagination alone. 
 
 Shakespeare ; My Lord, thus far I know, that the first 
 glimpse and conception of a character in my mind is always 
 engendered by chance and accident. We shall suppose, 
 for instance, that I am sitting in a taproom, or standing 
 in a tennis court. The behaviour of someone fixes my 
 attention. I note his dress, the sound of his voice, the 
 turn of his countenance, the drinks he calls for, his questions 
 and retorts, the fashion of his person, and, in brief, the 
 whole outgoings and incomings of the man. These grounds 
 of speculation being cherished and revolved in my fancy, it 
 becomes straightway possessed with a swarm of conclusions 
 and beliefs concerning the individual. In walking home I 
 picture out to myself what would be fitting for him to say 
 or do upon any given occasion, and these fantasies, being 
 recalled at some after period, when I am writing a play, 
 shape themselves into divers manikins, who are not long
 
 ORIGINALITY IN ORATORY I63 
 
 of being nursed into life. Thus comes forth Shallow and 
 Slender and Mercutio and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. 
 
 An early commentator of Shakespeare's plays says it was 
 watching a meat dealer sharpening skewers that gave the 
 great dramatist the fine conception : ' There is a Providence 
 doth shape our ends, rough hew them as we will.' Thus 
 may imagination find in the meanest things emblems of 
 the loftiest. 
 
 In observation and experiment original information has 
 its source. But the conventionalisms of society repress its 
 manifestation. Lord Jeffrey has depicted its influence on 
 young men in a passage of great instruction. ' In a 
 refined and literary community,' says he, ' so many critics 
 are to be satisfied, so many rivals to be encountered, and 
 so much division to be hazarded, that a young man is 
 apt to be deterred from so perilous an enterprise, and led 
 to seek distinction in some safer line of exertion. His 
 originality is repressed till he sinks into a paltry copyist, 
 or aims at distinction by extravagance and affectation. In 
 such a state of society he feels that mediocrity has no 
 chance of distinction ; and what beginner can expect to rise 
 at once into excellence? He imagines that mere good 
 sense will attract no attention, and that the manner is of 
 much more importance" than the matter in a candidate for 
 public admiration. In his attention to the manner, the 
 matter is apt to be neglected; and in his solicitude to 
 please those who require elegance of diction, brilliancy of 
 wit, or harmony of periods, he is in some danger of for- 
 getting that strength of reason and accuracy of observation 
 by which he first proposed to recommend himself. His 
 attention, when extended to so many collateral objects, is 
 no longer vigorous or collected ; the stream, divided into 
 so many channels, ceases to flow either deep or strong ; he 
 becomes an unsuccessful pretender to fine writing, and is 
 satisfied with the frivolous praise of elegance or vivacity.' 
 
 Young preachers, poetical from ardour, and enthusiastic
 
 l64 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 from passion, will often rush from libraries crammed with 
 lore, with which nobody else is familiar, and pour ojut 
 before a congregation what the speaker believes to be both 
 sublime and impressive, but which his hearers cannot 
 understand. They grow listless and restless, and he retires 
 overwhelmed with a sense of failure. 
 
 On one occasion a young preacher of considerable pro- 
 mise, for whom I had a great friendship, failed in this way. 
 I sought to console him by urging that failure with one 
 of his quality should be but a stepping-stone to success. 
 Persons of eminence have mostly failed many times before 
 they succeeded. ' But why have I not succeeded ? ' he 
 asked. ' I can never hope to say better things of my ov/n 
 than I have said to-night of others.' ' The cause of your 
 non-success is explicable. A young preacher who had 
 ascended the pulpit with great confidence, but who broke 
 down in the middle of his sermon, was met by Rowland 
 Hill as he was rushing from the pulpit. "Young man," 
 said Rowland, " had you ascended the pulpit in the spirit 
 in which you descended, you v/ould have descended in the 
 spirit in which you ascended." Something of this kind will 
 explain your case. At first, then, you should address your 
 hearers as though they were children, state your arguments 
 as though they were learners, and then assume them to 
 be well-informed men. On the threshold of a new subject 
 most men are as children — during its unfoldment they are 
 learners ; only when the subject is mastered are they men 
 with manhood's understanding.' To forget this is to be 
 open to the sarcasm of Swift, who, when Burnet said, 
 speaking of the Scotch preachers in the time of the civil 
 war, *The crowds were far beyond the capacity of their 
 churches, or the reach of their voices,' Swift added, 'And 
 the preaching beyond the capacity of the crowd. I believe 
 the church had as much capacity as the minister.' 
 
 Mr Justin M'Carthy, in his History of Our Ozvn Times, 
 says that 'Cardinal Newman, like Mill, has the rare art
 
 ORIGINALITY IN ORATORY 165 
 
 which dissolves all the difficulties of the most abstruse or 
 perplexed subject, and shows it bare and clear even to the 
 least subtle of readers. His words dispel mists. There are 
 many passages of his works in which he rises to the height 
 of a genuine and noble eloquence. In all the arts that 
 make a great preacher or' orator, Newman was strikingly 
 deficient. His manner was constrained, ungraceful and 
 even awkward, his voice was thin and weak. His bearing 
 was not at first impressive in any way. A gaunt, emaciated 
 figure, a sharp and eagle face, a cold, meditative eye, rather 
 repelled than attracted those who saw him for the first 
 time. Singularly devoid of affectation, Newman did not 
 always conceal his intellectual scorn of men who made 
 loud pretence with inferior gifts, and the men must have 
 been few indeed whose gifts were not inferior to his. 
 Newman had no scorn for intellectual inferiority in itself; 
 he despised it only when it gave itself airs. Mr Gladstone 
 said of him : — • 
 
 'Dr Newman's manner in the pulpit was one which, if 
 you considered it in its separate parts, would lead you to 
 arrive at very unsatisfactory conclusions. There was not 
 very much change in the inflection of his voice ! action 
 there was none ; his sermons were read, and his eyes were 
 always on his book ; and all that, you will say, is against 
 efficiency in preaching. Yes ; but you take the man as a 
 whole, and there was a stamp and a seal upon him, there 
 was a solemn music and sweetness in his tone, there was a 
 completeness in the figure, taken together with the tone 
 and with the manner, which made even his delivery such 
 as I have described it, and though exclusively with written 
 sermons, singularly attractive.' 
 
 The Cardinal's originality lay in his ideas. Like Mas- 
 sillon he had a surprising knowledge of the human heart. 
 Like his famous brother. Professor Francis William New- 
 man, he had a musical voice, which, though not powerful, 
 was expressive. A university is mainly a school of learn-
 
 l66 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 ing. It matters little to students how a professor speaks, 
 it is what he says to which the greedy ear of the learner 
 is lent. It is not the manner but the matter which is 
 important to them. It is knowledge, not voice or gesture, 
 which wins the degree. John Henry Newman had been lost 
 or unregarded had he not had the good fortune to have for 
 hearers men to whom ideas were everything. Originality 
 there gave him his great fame. 
 
 Dr Channing had newness and boldness of thought 
 where other preachers were conventional. He was a lean 
 man, quite fragile. Americans, who always give the weight 
 of their public men, and partly estimate them by their 
 avoirdupois qualities, found that Dr Channing weighed only 
 ICO lbs ! But he was aided by a marvellous voice. Men 
 wondered how such tones as his could proceed from so 
 slender a throat. He cultivated this power, which grew by 
 practice. When he read the line of the hymn, — 
 
 Angels roll that stone away, 
 
 Dr Robert Collyer told me the congregation thought they 
 heard the movement of the stone in the air. 
 
 Of the LoweWs Offering, published by Charles Knight in 
 his day, the Times said : — ' It is the production of factory 
 girls in Lowell — the American Manchester — and we much 
 doubt if all the duchesses in England could write as much 
 and so seldom offend against good taste. The secret 
 of these girls' success in writing arises from their writing 
 only about what they know — common life and their own 
 affairs ! ' 
 
 A cause of failure with young lecturers is neglecting 
 to establish a common understanding between themselves 
 and their auditors, and not comprehending the use 
 of a brief explanatory exordium. We know that the 
 geometer would in vain reason with others unless 
 axioms were previously agreed upon for reference.
 
 ORIGINALITY IN ORATORY 167 
 
 So with an audience. If they do not agree with the 
 speaker as to the premises from which he reasons, they 
 have no standard by which they can test his conclusions. 
 Hence, though he may confound them, he will never 
 convince them. 
 
 It is in this sense only that those who would improve 
 the public must 'write down ' to the pubhc. They may, 
 and they ought to, elevate the public by their sentiments, 
 but they must found their reasoning on what the populace 
 understand and admit, or they reason in vain. The people 
 must be taken at what they are, and elevated to what they 
 should be. 
 
 Thus the student may see that originality may be shown 
 in various ways. Lucidity in itself is one source of it. Be 
 plain, but not coarse. What is called plain speaking is 
 generally insolent speaking. Keep clear of charnel-house 
 terms, which appal the hearer, and turn him away. Be 
 clear in a salubrious sense. Hint as little as possible. 
 An inuendo is like scouring the doorstep with butter — it 
 makes it slippery, not clean. Spare a general audience 
 oyster ideas that lie in the deep beds of a subject, and 
 require a professional knife to open them. 
 
 It is always pleasant to speak to a Scotch audience. 
 They always understand you. If you have a point they 
 see it, and if you have not a point they see that. They 
 will forgive you being dull if you mean something. De- 
 pend on ideas, and be sure you have them. Ideas are 
 the soul of speech. 
 
 A man sees best with his eyes well open. There are 
 somnambulist auditors who seem to walk into an assembly 
 asleep. The first thing which produces wakefulness on their 
 part is the discovery that something pertinent is being said, 
 in which they are concerned. A man who has expecta- 
 tions from his aunt looks at the old lady in a much more 
 wakeful way than he would had she nothing to give. If 
 the speaker is unknown, the mind of the audience is a mere
 
 1 68 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 cold, hard surface, upon which an irapression can scarcely 
 be made. Then there is no help for the speaker but a 
 fiery statement, some flashing tone, some light of illustra- 
 tion which has warmth in it — which melts indifference into 
 interest. Then attention becomes as wax, upon which the 
 deepest or most delicate impression can be made — and 
 time, instead of effacing it, hardens it into durability. It 
 was said by Panchard that Mirabeau was ' the first man in 
 the world to speak upon a question he knew nothing about.' 
 That was because he had much general knowledge and 
 knew more than he was known to know. Besides, he had 
 confidence, self-possession and quickness of mind, which 
 enabled him to see what might, or ought to be said on a 
 new subject as soon as he heard it proposed. It might 
 have been in reference to Mirabeau that Lord Brougham 
 said ' Know everything about something and something 
 about everything,' for Mirabeau's knowledge was far wider 
 and out of the way than Panchard knew. In nine years' 
 experience in the office of a public tutor in one of the 
 Universities, Paley found, in discoursing to young persons 
 upon topics of morality, that unless the subject was so 
 drawn up to a point as to exhibit the full force of an objec- 
 tion, or the exact place of a doubt, before any explanation 
 was entered upon, it was labour lost. In other words, 
 unless some curiosity was excited before it was attempted 
 to be satisfied, the labour of the teacher was wasted. 
 When information was not desired it was seldom, he found, 
 retained. Create in the mind of the audience a sense of 
 want of the knowledge you have to give, and they will 
 attend to it because they desire it. Paley had much 
 original common sense acquired by observation. 
 
 Absolute repugnance to a pursuit is no proof of incapa- 
 city for excelling in it ; the career of hundreds show they 
 had the greatest aversion to the profession circumstances 
 compelled them to follow. When a boy at a Dame's school, 
 she boxed my cars for three days because I would not try
 
 ORIGINALITY IN ORATORY 169 
 
 to make curved lines, of which I beh'eved myself entirely 
 incapable. All the while I had form in my blood, could 
 make any letter, and had latent facility and delight in 
 inventing new forms, and I knew it not. 
 
 We know not what we can do till we have made the 
 experiment, and in mistrusting our powers we increase the 
 difficulty we have to surmount. Charles Reece Pemberton 
 whose delineations of Shakespeare's tragic heroes was second 
 only to Macready's, avowed that when he first saw a play 
 performed he felt conscious that he should never be equal 
 to the duties even of a scene-shifter. Julius Csesar, natur- 
 ally of a weak and tender constitution, was determined, by 
 exercise, inuring himself to exposure and other such means, 
 to improve it ; even he, afterwards so renowned, shed tears 
 on reflecting that at his own age Alexander had done so 
 much, whilst he himself had done nothing. Originality is 
 perceived in its sagacity in attempting an untried course, 
 and its singleness of purpose in pursuing it; for general 
 excellence is an impossibility, and it is folly and dissipation 
 of time to attempt it. Wellington possessed scarcely any 
 quality which the world recognises as genius, save in 
 purpose which he followed out. De Witt said, ' Do one 
 thing at a time.' We must not only have a purpose, but 
 keep to that purpose only, if we wish to succeed, for it is of 
 no use having a purpose, with aptitude and opportunity 
 for carrying it out, if we are deficient in the power of con- 
 tinuity. Excellence comes by continuity. The strength of 
 mind is measured by the amount of perseverance used. 
 Genius itself is a thing of degree ; its elements are common 
 to all, and if all do all they can, though not eminent, 
 each will rise higher in the scale of power. Demosthenes, 
 Cicero, Csesar, Napoleon, all worked hard. It is this 
 working hard which has made the man of mediocrity pass 
 by those to whom nature has been prodigal of other 
 gifts. 
 
 It is told of Frederic the Great, that being informed cf
 
 170 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 the death of one of his chaplains, a man of considerable 
 learning and piety, he desired that his successor should 
 not be behind him in these qualifications, and apprised 
 a candidate about to preach a trial sermon at the royal 
 chapel, that he would himself furnish him with a text from 
 which he was to make an extempore sermon. The king 
 arrived at the end of the prayers, and on the candidate 
 ascending the pulpit, one of his majesty's aides-de-camp 
 presented him with a sealed paper. The preacher opened 
 it and found nothing written therein. He did not, how- 
 ever, lose his presence of mind, but turning the paper on 
 both sides, he said, 'My brethren, here is nothing and 
 there is nothing; out of nothing God created all things,' 
 and he proceeded to deliver an admirable discourse upon 
 the wonders of the creation. 
 
 'Hie Rhodus ; hie salta' (Here is Rhodes — leap here). 
 Do not wait for a change of outward circumstances, but 
 take your circumstances as they are, and make the best of 
 them. This saying, which was meant to shame a braggart, 
 will admit of a very different application. Goethe has 
 changed the postulate of Archimedes, ' Give me a ful- 
 crum and I will move the world,' into the precept, 
 * Make good thy standing-place if thou wouldst move the 
 world.' This is what he did throughout his life. 
 
 There are few problems of events which do not also 
 bring their solutions with them, were we cool enough to 
 read them ; but men do not believe what they see, or will 
 not see what is before them. We make pre-conceived 
 opinion, pre - determined judgment, overrule new facts. 
 We too often act the part of the man who is so much in 
 love with his boat that he never ventures to sail in it. An 
 orator should go to the rostrum mainly to announce con- 
 clusions, not to form them. Let him take advantage of the 
 tide of feeling, temper and exclamations of the meeting; 
 but unless he is firm in a previous purpose, these things 
 will take advantage of him, and carry him away from his
 
 ORIGINALITY IN ORATORY 171 
 
 subject, instead of his carrying away the audience. The 
 main word or phrase should strike like a blow, or pierce 
 through the flesh — and no words should precede or accom- 
 pany the term intended to pierce, save those which like 
 feathers give wings to the arrow. All superfluous words 
 are as friction in the air, and impede the shaft, or act as 
 buffers mitigating its force, or protecting him against whom 
 it is levelled. Every aimless phrase or word which points 
 elsewhere than the target, divert attention, so that no one 
 sees when it is hit. Skill in rhetorical, that is intellectual 
 markmanship (if there be such a word), will win for a man 
 the repute of originality without his knowing how he came 
 by it — the quality not being common. 
 
 One day, when Frederick Douglas first appeared on the 
 platform, he was speaking against the northern * dough- 
 faces,' and quoted against them the text, 'And the Lord 
 God said unto the serpent. Because thou hast done this, 
 thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of 
 the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt 
 thou eat all the days of thy life.' Immediately arose the 
 familiar hiss, and, drawing himself up to his full height, 
 Douglas, pointing to the sibilant creatures, exclaimed, 'I 
 told you so. Upon thy belly shalt thou go, dust shalt thou 
 eat, and hiss, all the days of thy life.' This was not in the 
 text, but it told all the same upon the serpents in the 
 meeting. 
 
 There was a famous negress in America known as 
 ' Sojourner Truth ' — a name she gave herself, as she 
 went from place to place preaching, even when she was 
 100 years of age. Hearing, during slavery days, Douglas 
 lecture in despairing tone upon the termination of slavery, 
 Sojourner raised her tall form, rendered more striking by 
 her flowing grey hair, and exclaimed, with her deep, loud 
 voice, ' Frederick, is God dead ? ' Her short oration 
 evoked the hopes and enthusiasm of the assembly, who 
 were astonished at the splendid question. She had pro-
 
 172 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 bably nursed the orator, who was born in slavery, and 
 called him Frederick, as in earlier days. In a striking 
 speech in the House of Commons, Mr Stansfeld said : 
 * The whole principle of the Home Rule Bill was to find a 
 modus viveridi between the two nations. The geographical 
 position of Ireland determined its political relations. 
 There must be a union — but not too rigid and absolute 
 a union, as though the British and the Irish were monoton- 
 ously one.' Thus a phrase which has light in it makes the 
 fortune of a speech. 
 
 Originality is like fortune — a man may inherit it at birth, 
 or it may come to him after, with this difference ; no one 
 need wait for originality being given ; he may find it by 
 looking for it. When Turner wished to paint a storm he 
 had himself lashed to the mast of a ship and went out into 
 the tempest to see what it was like. When Massillon said 
 he had studied his own heart, he knew that strange know- 
 ledge was to be found there. Fielding quotes the in- 
 structive saying, ' Man differs from man more than man 
 differs from the beast.' Thus sources of originality lie thick 
 wherever a man moves, if he gives his mind to observe 
 them. 
 
 One thing has to be borne in mind. When Shakespeare 
 says *To thine own self be true,' a man who acts on the 
 injunction should ask himself what his own self really is. 
 Is it a base self, or a noble self? his ignorant self, or his 
 cultivated self? Let not the appeal be to a base but to a 
 best self. 
 
 Proportion of time, as well as proportion of parts, is 
 essential, both for the sake of the speaker's strength as well 
 as the hearer's patience. Whitfield is reported to have said 
 that a man with the eloquence of an angel ought not to 
 exceed forty minutes in the length of a sermon, and it is 
 well known that Wesley seldom exceeded thirty. ' I have 
 almost always found,' says another eminent preacher, 'that 
 the last fifteen minutes of a sermon an hour in length was
 
 ORIGINALITY IN ORATORY 1/3 
 
 worse than lost, both upon the speaker and congregation ! ' 
 There is practical wisdom is these remarks. A man who 
 determines to speak but a short time is more likely to 
 command the highest energy for his effort, and to speak 
 with sustained power. Half an hour is time enough for 
 immortality. Mirabeau achieved it by efforts of less 
 duration. It is not without reason that we keep the 
 proverb, ' Brevity is wit.' There is originality in that brevity 
 which fully informs, but never tires. The orator may 
 wisely remember the lines of Mr E. E. Bowen, sung at 
 Speech Day at Harrow, when John Lyon approaches 
 Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury Fort, to plead for the School 
 
 Charter — 
 
 ' Marry come up,' says good Queen Bess, 
 ' Draw it shorter, and prose it less ; 
 For speeches are things we mostly bless, 
 When once we've got them over.'
 
 • CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE OUTSIDE MIND OF THE ORATOR 
 
 Many people have no outside mind (nor inside mind 
 either), which deprives them of the greatest gift of the gods 
 — that of * seeing themselves as others see them.' Few 
 attain to that power ; but what is more important, rhetoric- 
 ally, is that the orator sees his subject as it may strike 
 others, and provides that it shall strike them rightly. Dr 
 Burchard (before mentioned), never thought how his fatal 
 alliteration of ' Rum, Romanism and Rebellion ' would 
 strike his Presidential audience. Sir William FoUet, the 
 nature of whose forensic strength has been described, had 
 no thought as to the outside impression he might make 
 against the justice and impartiality of the law he was 
 bound, as Attorney-General, to uphold and exalt. At 
 the trial of Thomas Cooper he was so vindictive to the 
 Chartist shoemaker at the bar that, despite Cooper's re- 
 conversion to Christianity, and the Divine forgiveness which 
 he preached, he never forgave Sir William Follet, who filled 
 the hearts of thousands of Chartists with hatred of Whig 
 Government. All the while, fair speech would have vindi- 
 cated the law and increased respect for the party he repre- 
 sented. Half the disaffection of the people in every nation 
 is created by well-meaning vindicators of order who have 
 no outside mind, and who betray the interests committed 
 to them. 
 
 Very often a man betrays himself by not considering how 
 
 174
 
 THE OUTSIDE MIND OF THE ORATOR I75 
 
 Others may regard him, in consequence of what he says. 
 Professor H. Morley, in his introduction to ' JuUus Cffisar,'* 
 shows that the continuation of the tragedy to the death 
 of Brutus was necessary to the design Shakespeare had. 
 Here he might have said reasonably and effectively, 
 ' The reader who is of this opinion will think that the critics 
 who have said that the play ought to have concluded with 
 the assassination scene did not understand the theory on 
 which the great tragedy was evidently written.' Instead of 
 words to this effect. Professor Morley exclaims : — 
 
 ' Shall we ask now where the wit lay under the wigs of 
 critics who wondered why Shakespeare did not end the play 
 of " Julius Caesar " with the scene of the assassination ? ' 
 
 This is to say, now Professor Morley has spoken, there 
 can be no doubt under tvhose wig the wit lies. This was 
 quite apparent from his clear and instructive argument, with- 
 out his saying so and repelling the reader by his conceit. 
 
 A man may be the first to conceive an idea of mark, or 
 to discover a new method of public service — an idea which 
 nobody thinks much of at the time — a method which no- 
 body acts upon. Years after, somebody comes forward 
 with the same thought, or the same device, who obtains 
 both credit and attention. He may have originated the 
 idea independently, and at a time when the public were 
 better inclined than before to entertain the conception, or 
 he may have derived it from the first promulgator, to 
 whom no reference is made. If, however, he who was 
 first in the field comes forward with clamorous or imputa- 
 tive claims for credit, he rarely gets it, however much it 
 may be his due. But if he contents himself with express- 
 ing his pleasure at seeing views now accepted, coincident 
 with those which long ago, at a certain time, and in a 
 certain way, were advanced by himself, but were then un- 
 noticed or unregarded— the modesty of his reference will 
 beget public interest in the question. Many would be 
 * Cassell's 'National Library.'
 
 176 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 disposed to admit his originality who would refuse assent 
 to it if it were put forward in a spirit of jealous and 
 egotistical pretension. It is important to an advocate and 
 an orator not to forget that every public question has an 
 outside. 
 
 When I v.'as a young man I was one of several lecturers 
 engaged in debating and explaining the principles of the 
 Communistic movement then advocated. It was our duty 
 to report from time to time to the New Moral World, the 
 journal of the movement (of which we were accredited mis- 
 sionaries), the proceedings in which we took part. The most 
 eminent of my colleagues, Mr Lloyd Jones, seldom did this. 
 When asked why few reports came from him, he answered, 
 ' How could he praise himself? ' Of course he could not use- 
 fully do so. Nobody wanted him to do it. But what he 
 might have done was to describe the quality and number of 
 the audiences whom he addressed, what adversaries appeared, 
 the point of what they said, and briefly, the purport of his 
 replies. This would be instructive to his colleagues else- 
 where, and to the readers of the journal in question. He 
 was not required to tell them how clever he was — how 
 successfully he silenced his opponents — or how brilliantly 
 he acquitted himself. All this would better appear in his 
 arguments than in any eulogy he could write of himself. 
 Could he have looked outside himself in that respect, as he 
 did in many other things, he had been further useful and 
 entertaining. 
 
 It was through the influence of Madame I^Iaintenon that 
 Massillon was appointed to preach before Louis XIV. at the 
 Advent, 1699. Louis XIV. was then at the height of his 
 power and glory ; the military reverses which embittered his 
 later years had not begun ; he was ' The Grand Monarch ' 
 of Europe, intoxicated with flattery. It was customary for 
 the court preachers to begin with a compliment to him. The 
 courtiers were keenly expectant, as they watched the 
 preacher's calm, rapt face, as to how he would turn his
 
 THE OUTSIDE MIND OF THE ORATOR \^^ 
 
 opening sentences. 'Blessed are they that mourn,' was 
 the unexpected text. And again he paused. 'Sire,' he 
 said, * if the world were here speaking to your Majesty, and 
 not Jesus Christ, it would not address you thus. It would 
 say to you, " Blessed is the prince who has never fought but 
 he has conquered ; who has imposed peace on the nations 
 at his will ; who has filled the universe with his name ; 
 who through a long and flourishing reign has enjoyed at 
 his ease the fruits of his glory, the love of his people, the 
 admiration of his enemies, the wisdom of his laws, the 
 noble hope of a numerous posterity." But, sire, Jesus 
 Christ speaks not as the world speaks. ''Happy," He 
 saith to you, "not he who wins the admiration of the 
 present world, but who is chiefly occupied with the 
 world to come; who lives in forgetfulness of all that 
 passeth away because his conversation is in Heaven. 
 Happy not he whose reign will be immortalised in 
 history, but he whose penitential tears shall have blotted 
 out the history of his sins from the memory of God." 
 Yea, it is he who is happy. "Blessed are they that 
 mourn, for they shall be comforted."'- 
 
 A monk, who before this had been commanded to 
 preach before the king, began his sermon thus: 'Sire, I 
 mean not to pay any compliment to your Majesty — I have 
 found none in the Gospel.' This monk was more intent 
 on displaying his own cloistered asceticism than on dis- 
 playing the truth, and he never more had opportunity 
 of touching the conscience of the king. By obtruding 
 'faithfulness' out of season he lost his chance of being 
 useful in season. Massillon was wiser. He knew that 
 truth does better to knock at doors than break them 
 open. You may indeed thrust truth through the splintered 
 panels, but the occupant of the house will kick it out again 
 as soon as you are gone. Violence begets contempt, except 
 among cowards. 
 
 Once I had a house in which I designed to reside to the 
 
 M
 
 178 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 end of my days, and in order that those days should not 
 be unnecessarily shortened, I spent ^^150 in making it 
 entirely healthy. To be sure of this, I called in a sanitary 
 engineer. Only one thing was wanting in the end — a man- 
 hole of eleven feet in depth to the main drain for access to 
 a trap to be placed there. This I wished made outside the 
 house, and application was sent to the town authorities for 
 leave to do it. The answer was that they had refused 1 1,000 
 applications, involving an operation on the footpath where 
 the shaft in question would be made. The builder who 
 was making my alterations — himself an alderman — said 
 'nothing could be done; the shaft must be in the house,' 
 and he took up the floor of my front room, and dug nine 
 feet down, before I was aware of it. I desired him to fill 
 up the hole and replace the floor. I consulted the mayor 
 — who happened to call upon me — who said he was afraid 
 the permission I wanted could not be had. Seeing there 
 was an outside to this question, I wrote to the works com- 
 mittee the following letter, with a view to show them how 
 their refusal would appear to the public if made known to 
 them : — 
 
 * Gentlemen, — Word has come to me that you decline to 
 permit me to put a shaft outside my house. The town 
 recently spent ;^iooo in vindicating its salubriousness as a 
 place where visitors may come, or gentlemen reside, without 
 having to make a preliminary engagement with their under- 
 takers. Believing this, I became a resident, when I am 
 informed that, if I desire to sink a shaft upon my premises 
 for sanitary purposes, it must be within my house. Do you 
 mean that I must ask my friends whether they will dine in 
 the " Front sewer-room " or in the " Back sewer-room ? " It 
 would cost me less to have three burials from my house 
 than the alterations for salubrity I am making. But as I 
 may be one of the three to be buried, I object to this risk. 
 True, I may let the house to a tenant, but if I know that
 
 THE OUTSIDE MIND OF THE ORATOR I79 
 
 the germs of death can percolate into it, I should feel, if a 
 death ensued, that I was a murderer. Landlord law would 
 permit me to do so, but I should not be less a scoundrel if, 
 for the sake of rent, I did it. What say you, gentlemen ? ' 
 
 The Town Surveyor, a clear-headed officer, sent me the 
 permission I sought. Afterwards, the mayor asked me for a 
 copy of my letter which obtained for me this unexpected 
 leave. I gained this point from my habit of looking to see 
 whether a question has an outside. I cite this instance 
 because a precept is never sufficiently recommended until 
 you show how it comes out in practice. As far as my 
 experience goes, the dialetic injunction is true — 'Know 
 more than you use. Read and think outside and all around.' 
 Goldsmith, who greatly admired Burke's skill in statement, 
 in argument, and in quietly mastering and crushing error, 
 as a boa constrictor might, said ' Burke wound into a subject 
 like a serpent.' He must therefore have looked outside to 
 discover the most convenient aperture by which he could 
 enter.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 PULPIT ORATORY 
 
 Considering the many thousands of preachers of all 
 denominations who address every week more or less 
 intelligent congregations, it would be conducive to the 
 public taste as well as pleasure, if each preacher spoke well. 
 Mr Bright was of opinion that no one should be appointed 
 to preach who had not a tolerable voice, and some know- 
 ledge of the art of expression. Soldiers of the cross, like 
 other soldiers, should be selected with reference to their 
 capabilities for discharging the duties of the service. 
 
 Oratory, the art of public persuasion, might exist in the 
 Church to a greater extent than we find it, but for its dread 
 of imitating the theatre. Art is mostly suppressed among 
 the Dissenters by the influence of evangelism. Did this 
 not exist, their precarious pay would deter them from the 
 pursuit of eloquence. The bar is too full of business and 
 too anxious for fees to reach much distinction. The 
 politician is generally indolent if not dependent; and if 
 necessitous, he has to struggle for himself when he should 
 be struggling for excellence. General Ludlow, whose 
 maxim the reader has seen, said a man * should say what 
 he means, and mean what he says.' This is rhetoric, 
 because it means sincerity, and sincerity is persuasion to all 
 who know no more than the speaker. Sincerity is not 
 errorless ; the most honest man may be mistaken, but the 
 logician should never be mistaken. Logic is the art of 
 
 1 80
 
 PULPIT ORATORY l8l 
 
 avoiding error, and should be one of the attainments of 
 every preacher. Cardinal Newman was of this opinion. 
 In a remarkable passage, he says : — 
 
 ' One main portion of intellectual education, of the labours 
 of both school and university, is to remove the original 
 dimness of the mind's eye, to strengthen and perfect its 
 vision; to enable it to look out into the world right for- 
 ward, steadily and truly; to give the mind clearness, 
 accuracy, precision ; to enable it to use words aright, to 
 understand what it says, to conceive justly what it thinks 
 about, to abstract, compare, analyse, divide, refine and 
 reason correctly. There is a particular science which takes 
 these matters in hand, and it is called logic ; but it is not 
 by logic — certainly not by logic alone — that the faculty 
 I speak of is acquired. The infant does not learn to spell 
 and read the hues upon his retina by any scientific rule; 
 nor does the student learn accuracy of thought by any 
 manual or treatise. The instruction given him, of whatever 
 kind, if it be really instruction, is mainly, or at least pre- 
 eminently, this — a discipline in accuracy of mind.' 
 
 Mr Spurgeon, who made pleasantry popular in the pulpit, 
 used to tell young preachers how he went with a friend to 
 the Crystal Palace one day, and going to the rifle range his 
 friend took a shot and made a 'centre,' and he seemed 
 proud of it. But there were two targets, one on the right, 
 and one on the left, and the man in charge said, ' Which 
 target did the gent aim at ? ' His friend answered, ' The 
 right-hand one.' 'I thought so,' said the man, 'for you 
 hit the left one.' That was not a creditable thing to a 
 marksman, though he succeeded in hitting something. 
 Mr Spurgeon said it was no credit to a minister to win a 
 soul by inadvertence. He should aim, and learn the art 
 of hitting what he aimed at. 
 
 The principles of oratory, which conduce to secular effici- 
 ency, are necessary to excellence in the spiritual sphere. 
 As the law of causation which reigns in matters extend
 
 l82 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 to mind, so the laws of rhetoric reign in divinity as well 
 as in the drama. 
 
 A lecture, a speech, a sermon, or a conversation, is like 
 a city in which you seek a destination. Unless the path- 
 way of the meaning is clearly marked by relevant words, 
 the Ustener will never find his way to it. If you leave any 
 nameless openings, his thoughts will turn down there, and 
 you will be at the end of your argument before the mind 
 of the hearer gets back to it. 
 
 Sometimes preachers so treat their hearers that they 
 know not what they are to get back to. Some years ago, 
 I went to hear the Rev. J. Guinness Rogers and the 
 Rev. Dr R. W. Dale, when those eminent ministers went 
 through the land in exposition and vindication of Noncon- 
 formity of the Congregationalist type. But neither of them 
 when speaking in the Dome, Brighton, ever said what 
 Congregationalism was. Its aim, I understand, is to in- 
 crease the life of the Church, and many of the great 
 audience whom they attracted, who were of that persuasion, 
 doubtless knew all about it. These brilliant propagandists 
 appeared to assume that all the audience did. Three- 
 fourths of the assembly, to my knowledge, had not the 
 remotest idea of Congregationalism as a distinctive religious 
 democracy. The first thing a preacher should think of is, 
 that three-fourths of a miscellaneous congregation have little 
 knowledge of what he is talking about. 
 
 Though we must admit that illiterate passion afiects us 
 more than learning without it, we must keep in view that 
 this passion is the passion of conviction. All the rest is, 
 to Englishmen, rant. The passion of conviction is modest, 
 manly and earnest. If the conviction is manifestly founded 
 on knowledge and reason, and is seen to be based on what 
 Grote happily called ' reasoned truth,' it is omnipotent. 
 
 Massillon, like Demosthenes, won renown by virtue of 
 compression, coherency, energy of statement, and vigour 
 of insight. He had the penetration to see what others
 
 PULPIT ORATORY 183 
 
 overlooked, and when he showed to his auditors what all 
 might but did not see, they were astounded. How many 
 profess to relinquish the things of this world — but how few 
 do it. 
 
 'Where are they,' Massillon exclaims, 'who renounce, in 
 good faith, the pleasures, customs, maxims and hopes of 
 the world ? All have made the promise — who have kept it ? 
 We see many people who complain of the world; who 
 accuse it of injustice, ingratitude, caprice; who inveigh 
 bitterly against it; who speak loudly of its abuses and 
 errors ; but in denouncing it they love it, follow it, and 
 cannot do without it ; in complaining of its injustices they 
 are angry, but not disabused ; they feel its evil treatments, 
 but do not recognise its dangers ; they censure it, but where 
 are those who hate it? And by that may be very well 
 judged the people who make pretence to salvation. In 
 fine, you have uttered the anathema against Satan and his 
 works; and what are his works? Those which compose, 
 well-nigh, the thread and entire course of your life; the 
 pomps, the plays, the pleasures, the spectacles, the illusions 
 of which he is the father, the pride of which he is the 
 model, the jealousies and the contentions of which he is 
 the artificer.' 
 
 Massillon understood that overdoing was undoing, and 
 stopped at the point of effect. It was Voltaire who, more 
 than any other writer, made the fame of Massillon. At 
 passages like these, and the one previously quoted, Voltaire 
 said in the Encyclopaedia, the audience were ' stirred by a sort 
 of involuntary motion, the whole assembly started up from 
 their seats, and such murmurs of surprise and acclamation 
 arose as disconcerted the speaker, though they increased 
 the effect of his discourse.' 
 
 The business of a preacher is to represent his master — 
 not himself. His art is but the light by which the great 
 picture is seen. The purity and quality of that light is 
 important. It reveals everything, but never draws attention
 
 I84 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 to itself. Edward Irving was very desirous that Robert 
 Hall should hear him preach. This came to pass, and 
 when Hall was asked what he thought of Irving's impas- 
 sioned eloquence, he answered, ' He presented a magnifi- 
 cent picture, but stood too much in front of it himself,' 
 
 A story is told of Massillon which many have heard and 
 supposed to be of more recent origin. It is said that one 
 day, when he was preaching upon the Passion before Louis 
 XIV. and all the court, he so affected his hearers that 
 everybody was in tears except one citizen, who appeared as 
 indifferent to what he heard as to what he saw. One of his 
 neighbours, surprised at such insensibility, said to him, 
 'How can you refrain from weeping, while we are all 
 bathed in tears ? ' * That is not astonishing,' answered the 
 citizen, ' I am not of this parish.' The eloquence which I 
 have endeavoured to describe would have included this 
 man also in the general weeping ; just as the preaching of 
 Whitfield emptied the pockets of Franklin, the greatest 
 utilitarian economist who ever listened to him. Was it not 
 Whitfield of whom it was written — 
 
 Grant some of knowledge greater store, 
 
 More learned some in teaching ; 
 Yet few in life did lighten more, 
 
 Or thunder more in preaching ? 
 
 The common impression is that Whitfield had revivalist 
 rudeness and passion. On the contrary, he had extreme 
 grace of manner. He had art as well as fervency, and the 
 union made him irresistible to his hearers, to whatever 
 parish they belonged. 
 
 Having regard to the dreadful message many preachers 
 elect to deliver, which no art can render humane, which 
 must freeze the manner of the deliverer, the sincere 
 preacher must find his art more difficult than other speakers. 
 The Duchess of Buckingham, who had heard Whitfield's 
 message, wrote to the Countess of Huntingdon, who 
 favoured his communion, saying, —
 
 rULPIT ORATORY I 85 
 
 * It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful 
 as the common wretch who crawls the earth. This is highly 
 offensive and insulting, and I cannot but wonder that your 
 ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance 
 with high rank and good-breeding.' 
 
 No doctrine that is true ought to be deemed repulsive. 
 The object of the pulpit orator is to persuade the minds of 
 men to the acceptance of sacred truth. But to do this effectu- 
 ally, he must not only choose times and seasons, but his 
 audience. In the earlier days of co-operation it suffered from 
 neglect of this precaution. Some earnest speakers delighted 
 to make statements which had the effect of an electric shock 
 upon hearers. They exceeded Prudhon, who said in his 
 sharp, naked way, that property was robbery, which repre- 
 sented all mankind as engaged in thieving. If any one 
 desirous of arresting the attention of certain passengers in a 
 crowded street should roll a skittle ball among them, all who 
 had india-rubber ankles might find the percussion tolerable ; 
 but those with tender shins would be so wounded and 
 wroth that they would, when they recovered, be disposed 
 to kick the indiscriminate gentleman who had attacked them 
 so sharply. If a man could pass an electric shock through a 
 crowd, he might do good to some by the excitement he would 
 create, but a good part of the feebler sort he would knock 
 down. So it is when the shocks of logic are sent indis- 
 criminately through the human understanding ; some minds 
 are knocked quite over by it, and never recover. This is 
 too little thought of in preaching. It is a serious thing to 
 shock the wrong persons. It may shatter them. The 
 mind may be splintered as well as a bureau, and never 
 be good for much after. If we regard the process of 
 treating conviction as a science, then we must be reason- 
 able in the use of reason. Sterne cites it as a sign of 
 Providence, that God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. 
 Most persons who give attention to the art of diffusing new 
 opinions will quite agree that it is wise sometimes to temper
 
 l86 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 the fierce wind of logic to the feeble intelligence shorn of 
 robust strength. If the experienced eye is discerning 
 enough, it may see lying all around the fierce logician, 
 prostrate and shattered minds, in the last agonies of new 
 ideas, which have struck them mercilessly and fatally. 
 Beyond all doubt there are many persons whose notions 
 are so heavy, dull and matted together, that thought cannot 
 move within them, and a \ngorous disintegrating shock is 
 the best thing for them. Their minds are loosened thereby, 
 and they become able to think. But this class of persons 
 should be got together when addressed, and what is said to 
 them should not be reported, or that will happen which 
 Bishop Colenso relates. When he had explained to a Zulu 
 chief the minatory character of salvation, he did not con- 
 tradict the bishop, but answered like a gentleman, ' It may 
 be true, but I would rather not believe it.' It is a maxim in 
 modern hydropathy that what shocks, or pains, or creates 
 revulsion, is wrong, and may create new diseases. Pressnitz 
 killed his own discovery by severity in treatment. Smedley 
 reanimated it by making hydropathic healing agreeable. 
 When Fox was canvassing Westminster he asked a butcher 
 in St James' market for his vote, who answered, 'Sir, I 
 admire your head, but damn your heart.' To which Fox re- 
 plied, ' Sir, I admire your candour, but damn your manners.' 
 There should be faithfulness and candour in the pulpit, but 
 it will be more effective if considerately expressed. 
 
 Though the clerical orator should not repel by austerity, 
 neither should he seek to advance his views by jocoseness. 
 The nature of the best religion demands a cheerful reverence 
 — but reverence in language there must be. Mr Spurgeon 
 sometimes stepped over the boundary which separates 
 pleasantry from buffoonery. When Bishop Disney sent 
 over to England some negro evangelists from Canada, one 
 sang 'The Old Sexton.' The lines— 
 
 I gather them in ! for man and boy, 
 Year after year of grief and joy,
 
 PULPIT ORATORY 1 8; 
 
 I've builded the houses that lie around, 
 In every nook of this burial-ground ; 
 Mother and daughter, father and son, 
 Come to my solitude, one by one, 
 But come they strangers, or come they kin, 
 ' I gather them in, I gather them in,' 
 
 were sung with a pathos that moved every heart. Then 
 came a song beginning, — 
 
 I'm bom of God, I know I am, 
 And you deny it, if you can, 
 I want to go to heaven when I die, 
 To shout salvation as I fly. 
 
 There was no palpitating hope here, as to who would 
 ' gather them in ' at the last day. The tone of the song was 
 that of singers, who would gather themselves in. All this 
 took place at the Mansion House in London. Merchants 
 who had taken out their cheques to give to the mission put 
 them up again as these jocose, irreverent songs proceeded. 
 The Egyptian Hall contained many of the first Christian 
 families of London. How could they be expected to sub- 
 scribe for promoting theological teaching of this description ? 
 There may be poor negroes to whom this revivalist chatter 
 has charms for their humble minds, but these Canadian 
 coloured men and women, who were singers, were capable 
 of nobler things, and gave proof how well they could sing 
 songs of tenderness and moving sentiment. Why were 
 they not advised to sing only such songs? Christianity 
 should never be comic. Yet many ministers who would 
 not commit this fault themselves will countenance it in 
 others as good enough for the multitude — betraying their 
 cause thereby. 
 
 But consistency is more difficult than decorum in piety. 
 Criticism, like competition, is sharper in these days, when 
 intelligence is more general, than heretofore ; and the pulpit 
 orator should understand that his hearers find it hard to 
 believe in the sincerity of any man who tells you the word
 
 l88 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 of the Lord are true, and who knows he has said, 'My 
 people shall not sow and another reap, they shall not plant 
 and another gather,' yet see this done every day, and they 
 aid and abet it and act it themselves. The pulpit orator 
 who is the advocate of well-discerned Christian consistency 
 in social life, would convince and conciliate adversaries as 
 no mere rhetoric can. 
 
 A good voice has an advantage in the pulpit as well as 
 on the platform, and he who is a master of sense as well 
 as sound, will command a high place in pubhc opinion. 
 But, as popular education goes, voice will do more for a 
 preacher than matter, since a man who can be heard has a 
 chance of attention, while he who is not audible has none. 
 Besides, people naturally like sounds which come to them 
 of their own accord, and need no effort to hear. Moreover, 
 a hundred persons may be entertained and even satisfied 
 by cadence and vocalisation for ten who will be capable of 
 intellectual appreciation of what is said and whose enjoy- 
 ment depends upon its purport. 
 
 When a deputation of elders were sent from New York 
 to Chicago to invite Dr Robert Collyer to be their minister, 
 they had but one misgiving, — ' Would his voice fill the 
 place?' 'If that is all,' said the doctor, *I shall do, for 
 my voice is cramped in Chicago.' His voice would reach 
 across a prairie. If John the Baptist spoke with his pleas- 
 ant power I do not wonder that the desert was crowded 
 with hearers. Strong sense borne on a strong voice is 
 influential speaking. When weighty sense sets out on a 
 weak voice it falls to the ground before it reaches distant 
 hsteners. 
 
 Preachers have always had trouble with drowsy hearers 
 of the word. Even Puritan ministers had to have recourse 
 to ' woodchuck ' contrivances to keep their congregations 
 awake. In 1646, the Rev. Dr Samuel Whiting was minister 
 of Lynn, Massachusetts. One Obadiah Turner kept a 
 journal at that time. The following is an extract :—
 
 PULPIT ORATORY 1 89 
 
 '1646, June ye 3d. Allen Brydges hath bin chose to 
 wake ye sleepers in meeting, and, being much proud of his 
 place, must needs have a fox taile fixed to ye end of a long 
 staff wherewith he may brush the faces of them yt will have 
 naps in time of discourse ; likewise a sharp thorn wherewith 
 he may prick such as be most sounde. On ye last Lord his 
 day, as he strutted about ye meeting house, he did spy Mr 
 Tomkins sleeping with much comforte, his head kept 
 stea^Jie by being in ye comer, and his hand grasping ye 
 rail. And soe spying, Allen did quickly thrust his staff 
 beGind Dame Ballard, to give him a grievous prick on ye 
 hand. WTiereupon Mr Tomkins did spring up much above 
 ye floor, and with terrible force strike his hand against ye 
 wall, and also, to ye great wonder of all, profainlie exclaim 
 in a loud voice, " Curs the woochuch ! " he dreaming, as it 
 seemed, yt a woochuch had seized and bit his hand. But 
 on comeing to know where he was, and ye great scandall 
 he had committed, he seemed much abashed, but did not 
 speak. And I think he will not soone again go to sleepe in 
 meeting. Ye women may sometimes sleep and none know 
 it, by reason of their enormous bonnets. Mr Whiting 
 does pleasantli say yt from the pulpit he doth seem to be 
 preaching to stacks of straw with men jotted here and 
 there among them.' 
 
 Were there only natural art in reading Scriptures and 
 collects in the churches there would be no need of an 
 Allen Brydges the Waker to walk the aisles. 
 
 When in Washington, one of my delights was to wander 
 into negro churches. There was one church of coloured 
 people, well to do, and therefore more conventional in their 
 worship. There was another and humbler church, to which 
 I preferred to go, which I found more genuine, and there- 
 fore more entertaining and instructive. 
 
 The preacher who conducted the services was beyond 
 the middle age, and of sedate, honest aspect. His reading 
 of the Scripture was the most religious reading I heard in
 
 190 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 America. It was slow, distinct, impressive, earnest, now 
 hushed, now loud, now a cadence of alarm. His tone 
 changed with the sense, with natural dramatic passion, as 
 though the reader comprehended the words of Heaven, and 
 was reading them aloud for the first time. It was not like 
 the reading I had heard in the morning in the President's 
 church, where the lessons were read with what seemed to 
 me a cold propriety, in which all the tragic pathos of the 
 sacred stor}' was frozen in the preacher's throat; it was 
 earnestness in a refrigerator. 
 
 The negro sermon was in keeping with the reading. The 
 coloured gospel was not bad — peculiar, but seldom ex- 
 travagant. Its discernment and candour would surprise 
 any English hearer. 'My brethren,' said the preacher, 
 'Christ bid us love our enemies. David was a man 
 after God's own heart, but David did not do this.' The 
 preacher said this merely, and left it as a thing to be noted, 
 and not to be explained away. 'We should have clean 
 hands,' he remarked. 'Clean hands do not mean hands 
 clean according to nature, it means clean souls.' The 
 conclusion of his sermon was an exhortation, after the 
 manner of preachers, but in the vein of his race. 'My 
 brethren, pray ! You can telegraph to God. You can 
 telegram right away. The man is always at the other 
 end. You can telegram at midnight, the man at the 
 wheel is always awake. Always awake, my brothers and 
 sisters. Pray ! brothers, pray ! The office is always open, 
 the man is always at the wheel. Brothers and sisters, 
 telegram right away.' The preacher had got his figures 
 of speech a little mixed. He was thinking of the ship 
 when he spoke of the ' man at the wheel.' Still, he man- 
 aged his simile pretty efi'ectively, and the comparison 
 between the speed of a telegram and a prayer was credit- 
 able to his powers of illustration. He was quite under- 
 stood. Some laughed, some smiled, some made audible 
 assent, especially two rows of dark sisters dressed in
 
 PULPIT ORATORY I9I 
 
 resplendent blue dresses — members of the ' Society of 
 Moses.' 
 
 In days when only written books existed, those able to 
 read them must have been impressed by them in a degree 
 unknown to us. Then men knew less than now, but what 
 they knew they knew better. When the Bible was chained 
 to the altar of the Church, crowds must have hung upon the 
 lips of the reader as they heard for the first time what they 
 took to be the actual words of God. What curiosity, 
 impatience and astonishment were to be read in the 
 faces of the auditors ! What awe, what reverence, what 
 pathos, what passion there would be in the tones of the 
 reader ! If preachers had the original belief of the 
 coloured reader of Washington, and were to read as he 
 read, churches would have more frequenters than they 
 have now. It is recognised now that there is all the 
 difference in the world between a man feeling not that 
 he must say something, but that he has something to 
 say. This is as true in the pulpit as Parliament. 
 
 The Rev. Dr Joseph Parker — who, when a young preacher, 
 had merely a good presence, a good voice, facility and 
 fervour of speech — owes all his distinction to himself, by 
 the cultivation of strong natural powers. He has given it 
 as his opinion, that ' until there is better hearing there will 
 not be better preaching.' This may be true in one sense. 
 No preacher would think of delivering the same quality of 
 sermon before auditors of known inteUigence which he 
 would preach to a congregation not known to have any. 
 Dr Parker can hardly intend to say that the hearers are to 
 raise the preacher, whose duty it is to raise his hearers. Dr 
 Parker did not wait for this. He has made his hearers. It 
 is true that neither orator nor preacher can go much further 
 than his auditors can see; for when he is out of sight 
 his influence ceases. A preacher is a leader, but he cannot 
 lead unless he is ahead of his hearers. When his subject is 
 bevond their range of knowledge he must be informing and
 
 192 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 explanatory. He need not lower the truth, but raise the 
 understanding of those to whom it is addressed. If that be 
 the preacher's endeavour he will do much to elevate his 
 hearers. Once I was a guest of a rector for whom I had 
 personal affection. For two Sundays I sat in the family 
 pew. His sermons had no relation to anything in the 
 heavens above or the earth beneath. Yet he excelled in 
 his knowledge of this world. Such sermons, however 
 well intended, could not elevate the parochial hearers 
 in a century. Dr Parker is the only divine who has advised 
 — what I thought I was alone in advising years ago, namely 
 — that preachers who have to preach twice on a Sunday 
 should preach a sermon of the great orators of the Church 
 once in the day, and reserve their unwearied minds for their 
 own discourse. The sermons of the Fathers of the Church 
 and orators of Dissent, from early times to the present, 
 afford a mighty field of selection. Wealth of illustration, 
 felicity of expression, splendour of ideas, and passion, lie 
 there mostly unknown to preachers and almost entirely so 
 to modern, busy, narrow-minded, uninformed congregations 
 — narrow-minded because ignorant of the brilliant sermons 
 with which the pulpit orators of every denomination have 
 enriched and delighted the minds of the generation in which 
 they lived. A preacher who knows how to read, who has 
 good discernment of relevant passages, judgment not to 
 make them too long, and preface them by an account of 
 who the preacher was, would command grateful hearers, 
 whom he would reform, gratify and refine. A great play 
 delights as often as it is well acted ; why should not a great 
 sermon, when well spoken? Acquaintedness with great 
 discourses would often improve the preacher as well as his 
 flock. As Butler said long ago : — 
 
 All smatterers are more brisk and pert 
 Than those that understand an art, 
 As little sparkles shine more bright 
 Than glowing coals that give them light.
 
 PULPIT ORATORY I93 
 
 Professor Francis William Newman, a man of wider infor- 
 mation than his brother, the cardinal, told me he deemed 
 it beyond his power to preach a sermon every week — he 
 who never spoke, or wrote any mean or incomplete thing, 
 measured a sermon by a standard of his own. One minister 
 I have known, who, though always preaching, was always 
 fresh, was Henry Ward Beecher. His ideas were inex- 
 haustible. The Rev. Hugh Price Hughes's definition of 
 the essential requisites of modern preaching are ' simplicity, 
 flexibility, spontaneity and earnestness' — qualities of his 
 own preaching, aided by a voice which travels like a bird 
 over the audience and along the galleries. Ward Beecher 
 had the four qualities above named, with the addition of 
 imagination ; always bright and often poetical, when every 
 sentence was tinted with a hue of its own, as is the case 
 with sermons by the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, which a 
 connoisseur in pulpit orations would know when he saw 
 them quoted, though no preacher's name was appended to 
 them. 
 
 When a young man, I heard a sermon by the Rev. William 
 Knibb, a Baptist minister, whose life was wasted in Jamaica, 
 begin with these words, which I still remember, ' In the 
 days when infantine Christianity went forth to battle with 
 the full-grown powers of superstition and darkness.' His 
 picturesque sentences continued to the end, his unfaltering 
 swiftness and distinctness I have never heard exceeded. 
 
 It was said of Morley Punshon, whom I sometimes heard 
 — a preacher of renown in his day — ' He did not create ; 
 he did not inform ; he did not reason ; he did not criticise 
 — he set forth things vividly.' That was a great merit; he 
 held the field but did not extend it. 
 
 ' Parsons of York,' as he was called (as men spoke of Jay 
 of Bath, or Hall of Leicester — preachers who are re- 
 membered as no one else of those towns is) in later years, 
 whatever may have been the case earlier, broke up his 
 sentences with a dry hacking cough for the first fifteen 
 
 N
 
 194 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 minutes. Still the sentences went on their coherent way. 
 Afterwards he suffered no interruption when the stately . 
 argument of his oration rose high before the hearer, who 
 remembered it long after as though he had seen a great 
 sight. It was in Whitfield Chapel, London, where I heard 
 Parsons. Though unlike his famous predecessor in that 
 place, those who heard Parsons left him, as men are said to 
 have left Whitfield, with the impression that they had heard 
 a master of the pulpit. 
 
 Sydney Smith complained in his day of the cold decorum 
 of the pulpit. He said : * The great object of modern 
 sermons is to hazard nothing ; their characteristic is decent 
 debility, which alike guards their authors from ludicrous 
 errors, and precludes them from striking beauties. Every 
 man of sense, in taking up an English sermon, expects to 
 find it a tedious essay, full of common-place morality ; and 
 if the fulfilment of such expectations be meritorious, the 
 clergy have certainly the merit of not disappointing their 
 readers.' 
 
 Since his day, preachers of note have arisen in the church. 
 Neither Kingsley, nor Maurice, nor Bishop Magee were 
 conventional in their preaching. Still, too many Church 
 preachers are dull. Many of them are happily sent abroad. 
 I have heard a colonial bishop so insipid and unimpres- 
 sive of speech, that he could not convert on his own coast, 
 where hearers had the advantage of knowing his tongue, 
 much less those to whom he would speak in a language 
 or accent foreign to them. 
 
 Preaching can never be what it might be, could the 
 other side be heard after the discourse. The clergyman 
 who told a great lawyer that his was a fascinating profession 
 — was answered, ' Preaching is a better one, as the opposite 
 party has no right of reply.' Ten lawyers have more alert- 
 ness, many-sidedness, and circumspection than a hundred 
 preachers. They know their learned brother lies in wait 
 to question every unprovable statement they make. The
 
 PULPIT ORATORY I95 
 
 Catholic clergy knew they lost weight by being all on one 
 side, and invented the Devil's Advocate that the other side 
 might be heard. But this advocate seldom put in an 
 appearance, and when he did he was a poor substitute for 
 the original, if his abilities are rightly reported. Were even 
 a second-hand Satan to attend every Sunday, preaching 
 would rapidly improve in truth, fairness and force. Then 
 a hearer would seldom have to say of a preacher, as an 
 observing woman did : In the first place he read his 
 sermon ; in the second he did not read it well ; and in the 
 third it was not worth reading. 
 
 As to the manner of preaching, Dr Leifchild's rules for 
 preaching would ruin any preacher — 
 
 Begin low, 
 
 Go on slow ; 
 
 Rise higher, 
 
 And take fire ; 
 When most impressed 
 Be self-possessed ; 
 At the end wax warm 
 And sit down in a storm. 
 
 A preacher would be ridiculous in a month who did this 
 t^vice a week. Shakespeare's advice to players is far wiser. 
 Warmth will vary with conviction, and energy with earnest- 
 ness and the nature of the subject. The close of a discourse 
 should be better spoken than the explanatory parts. It may 
 end in resounding sentences, or, like a farewell song of love, 
 its last cadence may die in the air, leaving an impression 
 which will never fade in the mind of the hearer. 
 
 If a preacher wants to know what he is going to say — or, 
 better, wants to know what he ought to say — let him write 
 out his sermon, not for the purpose necessarily of reading it 
 to his congregation, but for the purpose of reading it to 
 himself. He will never discover what links of argument 
 he has omitted in an intended extempore speech — he will
 
 196 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 never become aware of the redundancies, contradictions, 
 undesigned repetitions and incoherences of arrangement — 
 — until he writes right off what is in his mind. When he 
 has revised, pruned, amplified where necessary, and given 
 sequence where wanting, let him make marginal notes of the 
 purport of each essential passage, and preach from these 
 notes. Such was the advice of Professor Hall to an 
 American divinity class of which he had charge. There is 
 no better rule to follow. It fixes a comprehensive outline 
 of the intended sermon in the mind. Written passages and 
 illustrations will recur to the memory. There will be con- 
 fidence, flexibility and coherence — audibility and earnest- 
 ness will do the rest.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 PLATFORM READING 
 
 No one of taste would prefer a sermon or speech, poor in 
 quality and incoherent in texture, extemporarily delivered — 
 to a discourse or oration, compact in expression and strong 
 in sense — read well. It is bad reading which brings reading 
 into comparative contempt or dislike. Reading, like any 
 other form of oratory, has its conditions, which are seldom 
 thought of. 
 
 Sometimes a speech or an address will be read from a 
 quarto book, written in a small hand, over which the reader 
 stumbles. The hearer counts the turning over of the 
 monotonously-spoken pages, to calculate when the end of 
 his misery will come, when, to his utter dismay, he perceives 
 that the pages are written at the back, and when the end 
 was thought to be in sight, the dreadful lecturer, or 
 speaker, begins to turn the leaves over and read the backs, 
 when the period of the hearer's release is indefinitely 
 postponed. 
 
 I have seen a preacher read a sermon in small, badly- 
 written, interlined pages, which no one who once took his 
 eyes off the place he had come to, could, without delay, 
 find it again. I have seen a prize paper reaa from a small 
 printed pamphlet which did not permit the reader once 
 to look at his audience, without missing a sentence or two, 
 and so rapidly and insipidly was it spoken, that an audience 
 in a penitentiary would not listen to it to the end. I 
 
 197
 
 198 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 have seen a Dean read an address in minute handwriting. 
 He, being near-sighted, had to hold the pages close to his 
 face. All the auditors could see was a bundle of white 
 leaves and a bald head behind it, and the voice issuing 
 from the rear of the pages was so indistinct and cadenceless 
 that the words were all swallowed by the persons three rows 
 before him, for they reached no further, and the audience 
 at the back had to seek from those in front a second-hand 
 report of what was supposed to have been said, of which no 
 one was sure. 
 
 At the British Association I have seen a president read 
 his inaugural address from long proof slips, just as the 
 printer sent them. The president had to ask the secretary 
 for his address, of which the secretary had only one copy — 
 and that he could not find when wanted. Nothing could 
 be more humiliating to president or audience than to read 
 to, or to be read to, from printers' slips, which take all 
 dignity out of the occasion, even if the reading was fairly 
 spoken. But the president, being a professor, despised 
 emphasis, inflection, or passion, as unphilosophical. The 
 audience had a bad time of it, and applauded only when 
 the address ended, and because it had ended. Philo- 
 sophers might be expected to do these things better. 
 
 University reading is, as a rule, more insipid than clerical. 
 The professor's object is to say in a paper (when he reads 
 one) exactly what ought to be known. Students bent upon 
 knowledge, with their minds already occupied with the 
 subject submitted to them, and seeking information im- 
 portant to them — bend a willing ear, and are grateful for 
 the ideas they want, and heed not, and care not, how 
 colourless and tame-toned are the words spoken. Many 
 professors, as I have seen, when they come before the 
 public as preachers or scientists, will deliver their message 
 in the most spiritless manner to an audience ignorant alike of 
 Its matter and its moment, whom they inspire not only with 
 dislike but with resentment against speaker and subject.
 
 PLATFORM READING 199 
 
 The pulpit or platform orator who cares only for the 
 judgment of the few, whose attainments give weight to their 
 opinions, may read anyhow, provided he has ideas which 
 the few covet. But if he calls together a miscellaneous 
 audience, or connives at their being assembled, and does 
 not intend to entertain or instruct them, he ought to be 
 liable to indictment for obtaining attention under false 
 pretences. Some preachers affect not to read their 
 sermons; but they do it, and their congregations know 
 it. If a man cannot speak — in pulpit or on platform — 
 from notes of the kind described in the last chapter, he 
 had better read openly; and if done properly it will be 
 eflfective. 
 
 The method is this. After writing out the speech or 
 discourse, twice or thrice if necessary, read it aloud to 
 someone whom you wish to interest in it. A reader gets 
 thereby quite a new idea of what he has written. If any 
 part is not understood by the listener, that part must be 
 made clear. If any part or phrase strikes the listener as 
 not being in good taste, reconsider it. One object in read- 
 ing the discourse aloud is to note the time it takes to read 
 it with audibility. If it occupies an hour it should be 
 abridged until it can be easily read in three-quarters of an 
 hour. That allows one quarter for the expansion of public 
 reading, which will be slower, fuller in tone, and allow for 
 pauses between new paragraphs. No discourse, as a rule, 
 should exceed one hour. 
 
 When the whole statement intended to be made is satis- 
 factory as to terms and length, it should be copied out on 
 large note-sized paper, in a handwriting sufficiently bold to 
 be easily read at a distance from the eye. The initial capital 
 letters should be print capitals, so as to mark clearly the 
 beginning of a new sentence. Up strokes and down strokes 
 should be short, so that one line does not hang down 
 into another, nor project above, causing confusion or 
 entanglement of words. The paper used should be some-
 
 200 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 what stiff, so that one page can be easily raised by itself. 
 The writing should be on one side only The speaker or 
 preacher should write out the copy himself. He will know 
 better the words he himself has formed, and become so 
 familiar with the text as to know it almost by heart. Finally, 
 he should underline with a coloured pencil such words or 
 sentences on which the emphasis is to fall, just as the acting 
 copy of a play is underscored. Then the speech is ready 
 to be read. When the time comes to deliver it, the pages 
 should be held in one hand, and by a careless movement 
 let the auditors perceive that nothing is written at the back, 
 and as each page is read it should be laid on a table at 
 hand, so that the hearers may know that as the pages 
 decrease the end of their detention draweth nigh. Now, a 
 speech so prepared can be held at a distance from the 
 reader. He will know at a glance the contents of the page, 
 and the part marked for emphasis will tell him the import- 
 ant words. On reading the beginning of a sentence he 
 will often know the rest, and feel himself free to look the 
 audience in the face and use such gestures as the sentiment 
 suggests. Additions or explanations — amplifications of 
 phrases he may find needful, and illustrations will come 
 into his mind — for which he has left himself time. By 
 holding his thumb at the sentence where he commenced to 
 interpolate, he can come back instantly to the place, and 
 thus acquire a freedom and spontaneity of delivery more 
 effective than ordinary extempore speeches, which lack 
 vigour, relevance and brightness. 
 
 The Rev. Mr Bellew, though a sonorous and eloquent 
 preacher, delighted his congregation more by reading ser- 
 mons than by preaching them. Mr J. S. Laurie, in his 
 Training of Teachers, says, ' Reading aloud, in any sense 
 other than the mere naming of vocables, is an act of intel- 
 ligence, and an act requiring an even higher intelligence as 
 the subject-matter of what is read grows in subtlety and 
 complexity. Even with the help of more disclipined and
 
 PLATFORM READING 201 
 
 better-informed minds, very few of the middle and upper 
 classes can read in a style that satisfies at once the under- 
 standing and the ear of a cultivated listener. Probably no 
 accomplishment is more conclusive evidence that a boy has 
 been educated than the power of reading well.' Good 
 reading requires good judgment and good preparation, as 
 oratory does. This means trouble, and trouble is not taken 
 save by those whose aim is excellence. I remember a 
 writer saying, ' I once spent the night with a clergyman, an 
 old friend, who had the habit of reading his sermons. I 
 asked him why he did so. He went on to give me the 
 reasons, and became animated. " Well," said I, " I am 
 tired to-night, but I have been very much interested in 
 what you said. Nevertheless, if you had read your remarks 
 I should have gone to sleep.'" That was because the 
 rector was a mere conventional reader. Had he read his 
 sermons as he would read a letter to his family giving them 
 information of a legacy, each bequest to each person would 
 be read with congratulatory emphasis, and none would go 
 to sleep. 
 
 French and American audiences will accept written 
 speeches. The French read like an oration. The speeches 
 which stirred all the world in the French Convention were 
 written and read. Some Americans abuse the privilege of 
 reading in the Legislative Chamber, making their speeches 
 too long for any human purpose, and so reading them 
 that nobody listens, or ought to listen to them. The French 
 read papers and make their addresses often too long for 
 lasting impression, but then they do read them with an 
 almost superhuman animation.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 
 
 It is by similes that ideas are made vivid, argument 
 enlivened, and obscurity made clear. The term above — 
 * Figures of Speech ' — is used in the sense of comparisons, 
 similitudes, symbols, likenesses, and generally such descrip- 
 tions of things in which the imagination discovers an in- 
 structive resemblance to the subject to be explained. A 
 figure of speech is a mirror in which a subject is unexpectedly 
 reflected in a new light. A simile is the comparison of 
 another thing to the one in question, the likening of two 
 things which, though differing in some respects, have strong 
 points of resemblance. The one rule being, if the object is 
 to exalt a subject, to make a noble comparison. If the 
 purpose is to degrade a subject, the comparison made should 
 serve to lower it in the reader's estimation. Errors and 
 oversights in these respects are of daily occurrence. A 
 preacher to whom I often listened with pleasure in days 
 when I was an habitual hearer of the word, one day 
 reproached Christians with not using their minds for 
 making sure of the grounds of their convictions, adding, 
 that they put out their thinking as people did their 
 washing, and got it done badly. This offended many 
 of his congregation, for some of them could think. 
 The preacher's simile implied that his congregation 
 had dirty ideas — for that, and that alone, is why 
 
 202
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 203 
 
 garments are sent to the laundry. The laundress does 
 not make garments, but merely cleans them ; whereas, what 
 the preacher — to his credit — wanted, was that his hearers 
 should form ideas of their own, without which a man is 
 mentally naked or bedizened in second-hand clothes, and 
 he should have sought a simile which suggested this. The 
 one he chose did not touch the case. The congrega- 
 tion did not suffer from dirty ideas, else he had badly in- 
 structed them. What they suffered from was scantness of 
 ideas, which could only be worthily increased by their own 
 efforts. 
 
 Some time ago a noble lord, who, like his father before 
 him, had high regard for Mr Gladstone, told a public 
 meeting of Liberals that it might be said of Mr Gladstone 
 in the words of Shakespeare : — 
 
 He doth bestride this narrow world 
 Like a Colossus ; and we, petty men, 
 Walk under his huge legs, and creep about 
 To find ourselves dishonourable graves. 
 
 Now, the bestriding man referred to was a dangerous tyrant. 
 It was a bad compliment to compare Mr Gladstone to him. 
 Then it follows also that the lesser Liberals are 'petty 
 men, who creep about to find themselves dishonourable 
 graves.' So the speaker smote Mr Gladstone and all his 
 adherents hip and thigh by one simile, of whose range and 
 application he could have given no thought. Had the 
 speaker compared Mr Gladstone to the King of Brobdig- 
 nag, and his followers to men of good but lesser build ; or 
 by other simile which suggested that Mr Gladstone was 
 the Saul of his party— head and shoulders above any of 
 them — he had exalted him whom he intended to exalt, and 
 not called up adverse reflections. It may serve to show 
 with what circumspection similes should be employed if 
 I point out that the last one I have given is open to 
 objection on a political platform — for Saul was mad some-
 
 204 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 times, a fact which a quick adversary would turn to good 
 account. 
 
 Not long ago Lady Henry Somerset, in a much-applauded 
 address, said that a bear leader whom she saw in Switzer- 
 land, told her that when he wanted the bear to dance he 
 kept pulling the string. That was what ' the people of 
 England must do with their leaders in respect of temper- 
 ance, and she was sure they would dance.' This should 
 have been said when the reporters had left, as being better 
 suited for private than for public consumption. To tell 
 public men you consider them street bears, who will dance 
 only when you pull the string round their necks, is to do 
 all you can to prevent leaders doing anything you wish. 
 It sets their self-respect against you. It is smart speaking 
 if you do not think of the result. Lady Somerset is an 
 engaging lady, and if she, or others like her, pulled the 
 string, no doubt there would be dancing if the dancers 
 could forget that she thinks them ' bears.' 
 
 There is an Australian weapon called a boomerang, 
 which, when thrown, comes back and hits the thrower. 
 Beware of boomerang arguments, or boomerang similes. 
 For instance, if misled by pessimist text you should say 
 all men are corrupt, your opponent might say : ' As all 
 men are so, so you must be. Thank you for the admission 
 of your conscious rottenness, of which it did not occur to 
 me to accuse you.' That was the reply I made to a Dr 
 Rowbotham who asked me to assist his advocacy, after 
 declaring on a London platform that all men had putrid 
 principles. I thought such principles did not require aid 
 in development. 
 
 Robert Owen's principles have often been described 
 but never made so clear as by citing a simile of Victor 
 Hugo. ' Men are like nettles. Cultivation will turn them 
 from noxious to useful plants. There are no bad herbs 
 or bad men; there are only bad cultivators.' This is 
 Robert Owen's philosophy in a nutshell.
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 205 
 
 If kings were not better than they are supposed to be, 
 they would be worse than they are, breathing, as they do, 
 the air of fulsomeness. Royalty has always been a patient, 
 and at times a greedy, recipient of egregious adulation. It 
 is Macaulay, I think, who says the oratory devoted to James 
 I., on his progress through Scotland, was of no common 
 cast. Officials who addressed him at the various towns at 
 which he arrived, ' put together Augustus, Alexander, Trajan 
 and Constantine. It was supposed that even the antipodes 
 heard of his courtesy and liberality ; the very hills and 
 groves were said to be refreshed with the dew of his aspect ; 
 in his absence the citizens were languishing gyrades, in his 
 presence delighted lizards, for he was the sunshine of their 
 beauty. At Glasgow, Master Hay, the commissary, when 
 attempting to speak before him, became like one touched 
 with a torpedo, or seen of a wolf; and the Principal of the 
 University, comparing his majesty with the sun, observed, to 
 that luminary's disadvantage, that King James had been 
 received with incredible joy and applause, whereas a de- 
 scent of the sun into Glasgow would in all likelihood be ex- 
 tremely ill taken. Hyperbole was not sufficient — the aid of 
 prodigies was called — a boy of nine years old harangued 
 the king in Hebrew, and the schoolmaster of Linlithgow 
 spoke verses in the form of a lion.' That was better than a 
 good deal of adulation of royalty, which is often presented 
 in the form of an ass. When literature first became 
 common, rhetoric grew tawdry, and degenerated into what 
 Dr Parker calls the ' Berlin wool and fancy work ' style of 
 statement. A strong simplicity is always force. 
 
 To preserve peace, and to do good, is a dull old maxim 
 of morality. Feltham thus enlivens it by this illustration : — 
 'When two goats on a narrow bridge met over a deep 
 stream, was not he the wiser that lay down for the other 
 to pass over him, rather than he that would hazard both 
 their Hves by contending? He preserved himself from 
 danger, and made the other become debtor to him for his
 
 206 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 safety. I will never think myself disparaged either by 
 preserving peace or doing good.' 
 
 Paine, whom I have heard Ebenezer Elliot describe as the 
 greatest master of metaphor he had known, said of a certain 
 body in America, who professed that principle was higher 
 than interest, were nevertheless 'hunting after their own 
 advantage with a step as steady as time, and an appetite 
 as keen as death.' Their insatiableness is rendered more 
 evident by these similes. Describing the illuminated 
 popularity of a political quack — one Silas Deene — Paine 
 said, * He went up like a rocket and came down like the 
 stick.' Mirabeau, when asked to counsel an obstinate 
 friend, answered, ' You might as well make an issue in a 
 wooden leg as give him advice.' Emerson, at the soiree of 
 the Manchester Athenaeum, expressing the latent strength 
 of Old England, said it ' had still a pulse like a cannon.' 
 Speaking elsewhere of the freshness of the style of Montaigne, 
 Emerson said his sentences were ' vascular and alive — if you 
 cut them they would bleed.' The Cork Magazine says, that 
 the preface of Thomias Davis to the speeches of Curran is 
 in some parts as majestic as the orations which it prefaces ; 
 in others, displaying a wild pathos, which ' strikes upon the 
 ear hke the cry of a woman.' 
 
 Comparisons are implied by phrases. An instance occurs 
 in Cardinal Newman's works, where he says, 'Heresy did 
 but precipitate the truths before held in solution.' The 
 allusion is chemical and a happy one. Contempt for the 
 men-millinery of literature was forcibly expressed by 
 Mirabeau — ' My style readily assumes force, and I have 
 a command of strong expressions, but if I want to be mild, 
 unctuous and measured, I become insipid, and my flabby 
 style makes me sick.' Dumont, a friend of Mirabeau's, 
 recounting his own editorial experience in preserving brevity 
 and a wise directness in his journal, says, ' The most diffuse 
 complained of our reducing their dropsical and turgescent 
 expressions.' Grattan, comparing the Irish Parliament to
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 207 
 
 a human career, exclaimed, * I have sat by its cradle and I 
 followed its hearse.' 
 
 In the Auditor, Lord Viscount Barrington was described 
 as * a little squirrel of State, who had been busy all his life 
 in the cage, without turning it round to any human purpose.' 
 The clearness attained by such similes needs no explanation. 
 Edward Vansittart Neale, when he wished to show how 
 much the profits of productive labour exceed those of 
 distribution, likened the store to the squirrel, — 
 
 Which, whether he turns wood or wire, 
 Never gets a hair's-breadth higher, 
 
 while the workshop has unlimited possibiUties before it. It 
 is of value to intercept the difference between wholesale 
 and retail prices. But the store moves between those two 
 barriers. Mr Neale's simile made clear the advantages of 
 labour acting without limitation. 
 
 When Mr Mould, the undertaker in Martin Chuzzleivit, 
 speaks of Shakespeare, it is as the theatrical poet who 
 was * buried ' at Stratford. But it matters not whence the 
 similes are drawn, provided they are appropriate and elevat- 
 ing, which was not the case in the sermon preached at 
 Newgate after the escape of Jack Sheppard. The clergy- 
 man discoursed to this effect : — 
 
 ' How dexterously did he pick the padlock of his chain 
 with a crooked nail, burst his fetters asunder, climb up his 
 chimney, wrench out an iron bar — break his way through a 
 stone wall, make the strong door of a dark entry fly before 
 him, reach the leads of the prison, fix a blanket to the wall 
 with a spike stolen from the chapel, descend to the top of 
 the turner's house, cautiously pass downstairs, and make his 
 escape at the street door. 
 
 ' I shall spiritualise these things. Let me exhort ye, then, 
 to open the locks of your hearts with the nail of repentance; 
 burst asunder the fetters of your beloved lusts ; mount the 
 chimney of hope ; take thence the bar of good resolution ;
 
 208 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 break through the stone wall of despair, and force the strong- 
 hold in the dark entry of the valley of the shadow of death ; 
 raise yourself to the leads of divine meditation; fix the 
 blanket of faith with the spike of the Church ; let yourselves 
 down to the turner's house of resignation ; descend the 
 stairs of humility. So shall you come to the door of de- 
 liverance from the prison of iniquity, and escape from the 
 clutches of that old executioner the devil.' 
 
 This style, once popular, might divert a gaol audience, but 
 would not be thought edifying now. Down to this chaplain's 
 days this was thought to be clever composition. The 
 chaplain ought to have been imprisoned for his effort. Its 
 only excuse could be that it amused his gloomy congre- 
 gation. It could not edify them, and was more likely to 
 produce ridicule than reverence. 
 
 Prodigality of metaphors, like multitudes of superlatives, 
 confound meaning. 'It is an idle fancy of some,' says 
 Felton, 'to run out perpetually upon similitudes, con- 
 founding their subject by the multitude of likenesses, 
 and making it like so many things, that it is like nothing 
 
 at all ! ' 
 
 The child, when he first learns to speak, will say any- 
 thing, thinking he accomplishes much in continuing to talk. 
 So with the public speaker when he first commences, and 
 so with the early efforts of the young writer. When he 
 first rises above the level of plain prose, he never knows 
 when to descend to the earth ; and instead of finding an 
 elevation whence he can show his readers a wider landscape 
 and new objects, he think he does enough by showing 
 himself. 
 
 Goodrich relates that a boy being rebuked by a clergy- 
 man for neglecting to go to church, replied that he would 
 go if he could be permitted to change his seat. ' But why 
 do you wish to change your seat?' said the minister. 
 ' You see,' said the boy, ' I sit over the opposite side of 
 the tneeiing-house, and between me and you there's Judy
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 209 
 
 Vicars and Mary Staples, and half a dozen other women, 
 with their mouths wide open, and they get all the best of 
 the sermon, and when it comes to me it's pretty poor 
 stuff.' 
 
 It is doubtful whether any boy ever made this reflection. 
 The story must be pointed at those preachers whose voices 
 are confined to the listeners nearest to them. Nevertheless, 
 likening the sermon to something to be eaten, made vivid the 
 disadvantage of not being able to hear what is provided. 
 
 A resemblance of one thing to another is often cited 
 in argument. It is then called an analogy. But it must 
 be remembered that an analogy is not an argument, only 
 an illustration. No two different things can be alike all 
 through, and it is only the points of resemblance cited 
 which should be mainly noticed in reply. 
 
 There is sometimes an argument of no mean force in a 
 simile. A soldier, sentenced for an attempt to leave his 
 regiment on Indian service, said in his defence, 'We are 
 not all bad at bottom, but we have at times fever and ague, 
 and then the heart grows faint for England, and we have 
 Europe on the chest.' That soldier, had he been educated, 
 had been a great rhetorician who would have convinced in 
 a few words. 
 
 A negro woman, though possessing a scantier vocabul- 
 ary, can be more vivid of speech than her mistress : — A 
 Washington lady, much surprised upon receiving notice 
 from her dusky cook that she was about to leave her 
 service, in order to be married. 'Why,' said the lady, 
 ' I did not even know you had an admirer.' ' Oh, yes'm, 
 for some time.' ' Who is it, Mary ? ' * Don't you 'member, 
 Miss Lissie, that I 'tended a fune'l 'bout two weeks ago ? 
 It's the corpse's husband ! ' 
 
 In using figures of speech care must be taken not to 
 change the simile in an incongruous way. There is the 
 well-known American example of the orator who, discover- 
 ing the artfulness of an opponent, exclaimed, ' I smell a rat
 
 210 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 I see it floating in the air — I nip it in the bud.' In two 
 
 sentences he converted the rat into a bird and a flower. 
 The Irish have a gift for absurd similes, which are excus- 
 able in them because of the humour in which they excel. 
 As when Sir Boyle Roche in affirming his loyalty said, ' I 
 stand prostrate before the Throne.' It was an Hibernian 
 prophet who announced — 
 
 To-night's the day (I state it with great sorrow) 
 When all of us will be blown up to-morrow. 
 
 But it was an English cleric of confused memory who 
 told his congregation that ' sorrow may endure for a joy but 
 night cometh in the morning.' 'My brethren,' said an 
 aspiring young preacher, ' such a man as I have described 
 is like the captain of a crewless vessel on a shoreless sea. 
 Happy would such a man be to bring his men to land.' 
 There was a glamour of imagination in these words, and it 
 was only afterwards that the hearers reflected that a crew- 
 less vessel had no men, and that on a shoreless sea there 
 was no land to put them on. These oratorical aberrations 
 are confined to no country, though more frequent in some 
 than others. It was only the other day that Herr Rickhert 
 taunted the German Ministry, saying, 'We hear nothing 
 upon the Ministerial benches, nothing but profound silence.' 
 This could not be better said in Dublin. 
 
 A practical design of these chapters, now nearing their 
 close — which the reader will be glad to perceive — is to 
 call into life the latent power for excellence that every man 
 has, and to guard him against the easy errors into which 
 one inexperienced or uninformed may fall. Errors are for- 
 given on their first, or even second committal, but the third 
 time they cause distrust. At Muzart Pass, over the Tian 
 Shan Range, a marble monument bears this inscription : — 
 
 * He who comes this way once may be pardoned, as not 
 knowing what he is doing. He who comes twice is a fool 
 He who comes a third time is hopeless as a Kaffir.'
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 211 
 
 The reader of the maxims of the preceding pages may 
 be desirous of illustrating his meaning, when necessary, 
 by some apt figure of speech. If he does, he may make 
 useful things agreeable and dark things clear. In time 
 he will find it as easy as dullness, and more entertaining 
 to others. But he must exercise taste, relevance and 
 circumspection, or he will, as Uncle Eben observes, ' after 
 toiling up the stairway of fame, slide down the bannister 
 into obscurity.'
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 POETRY IN RELATION TO RHETORIC 
 
 All the public speaker necessarily has to do with poetry is 
 to read it, or speak it well. And he will be more likely to 
 do this effectively if he knows that what he cites is poetry, 
 or at least so feUcitous in expression as to make vivid the 
 idea he wishes to enforce. To move men to speech it is 
 well, as we have seen, that the speaker should know their 
 nature. For human nature differs in different places as 
 cUmate does. Did not Dr Angus Smith show that there 
 are more than nineteen distinct climates in London. There 
 are more than nineteen distinct orders of men. How else 
 could there be so many distinct sects ? One man believes 
 in that which to another is absolutely incredible. In every 
 town and village the nature of men is of a different texture. 
 Doubtless there are general features in which humanity 
 agrees. But if the object is to show that those who would 
 master human nature had better study it — the speaker may 
 show its strange moods by quoting Mr Lecky's lines on one 
 whose career was inscrutable to his friends, — 
 
 What was the charm that wrought the spell, 
 
 None but himself could see ; 
 There's a door in every heart that leads to hell, 
 
 Could we but find the key. 
 
 Let us hope this is not true ; but true or not they are strik- 
 ing lines, and vividly call attention to the unexpected 
 characteristics of human nature. 
 
 212
 
 POETRY IN RELATION TO RHETORIC 213 
 
 Of great poets there are too few, and of minor poets too 
 many — some say. But this is not a good judgment — being 
 unfair to the minor rhymers, as though they were per- 
 manently inferior ; whereas, the great poet was a minor one 
 once, and some of them were very unpromising minors. 
 In his ' Hours of Idleness ' Byron gave no foretaste of the 
 quahties of energy and fire which afterwards astonished the 
 world. No poemx ever opened with more enchanting lines 
 than * Endymion,' whose first words were — 
 
 A thing of beauty is a joy for ever ; 
 
 Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
 
 Pass into nothingness : but still will keep 
 
 A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
 
 Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing. 
 
 The critics of Keats's day saw nothing in this as a presage 
 of power, but the power was there. It was the youthful 
 muse of Tennyson which produced the hnes — 
 
 The roar of the wind is around me, 
 The leaves of the year at my feet. 
 
 It was only W. J. Fox who saw the poet in them. 
 
 The reader might not take for poetry the following lines 
 on a friend no more, but he would not make much of a 
 mistake if he did : — 
 
 He has forgotten the pathway to our door, 
 Something has gone from nature since he died. 
 
 If the Student looks for newness of thought and force 
 of expression, he will meet with passages which may be 
 successfully quoted. 
 
 Some say if, when you have written verses, you find you 
 can better express the chief idea in prose, your verses are 
 not poetr}'. That does not follow, because there is good 
 poetry in prose. Carlyle, for instance, was a poet who 
 wrote in prose what he was entirely unable to express in 
 verse. If, however, a man who has made verses finds he
 
 214 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 can better express himself in prose, he should put his ideas 
 into prose. If the writer of verses, which he takes to be 
 poetry, would write them in prose he would often be 
 undeceived. 
 
 It is not easy to give a definition of poetry which shall 
 enable everyone to detect it when he meets it. But an 
 ordinary person who reads two stanzas of Rossetti's * Blessed 
 Damozel ' would be arrested by its beauty of expression and 
 splendour of imagination : — 
 
 It was the rampart of God's house 
 
 That she was standing on ; 
 By God built over the sheer depth 
 
 The which is space begun ; 
 So high, that looking downward thence 
 
 She scarce could see the sun. 
 
 It lies in heaven, across the flood 
 
 Of ether, as a bridge. 
 Beneath, the tides of day and night 
 
 With flame and darkness ridge 
 The void, as low as where this earth 
 
 Spins like a fretful midge. 
 
 There are astronomical and dynamical objections to this 
 vision, but Burke would have given it a place in his 
 unfinished book on the Subliate and Beautiful. 
 
 A passage of no mean beauty occurs in Shelley's 'Pro- 
 metheus ' : — 
 
 It seems to float ever, for ever. 
 Upon that many-winding river, 
 Between mountains, woods, abysses, 
 A paradise of wildernesses ! 
 Till one in slumber bound 
 Borne to the ocean, I float down, around. 
 Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound. 
 
 The melody of the language alone would inform the reader 
 ihat he was in the hands of a master. 
 
 Sometimes a poet does not know his own beauty of 
 expression, and changes a term of beauty for one without it, 
 as when Tennyson, having written of Prince Albert dead —
 
 POETRY IN RELATION TO RHETORIC 21$ 
 
 Thou silent father of our kings to be, 
 
 altered it into — 
 
 Thou noble father of our kings to be. 
 
 'Silent' father has the dignity which no one challenges. 
 ' Noble ' father is controversial. 
 
 It is good practice to write verse. He who attempts it 
 may not become a poet, but he will learn more of the 
 terms, variety and infinite meanings of his own tongue, or 
 of any other tongue he uses, than by any other means. 
 Wordsworth, who was a master in song, wrote once to Sir 
 William Hamilton : — 
 
 ' Again and again I must repeat that the composition of 
 verse is infinitely more of an art than men are prepared to 
 believe, and absolute success in it depends upon innumer- 
 able 7nim{ticB, which it grieves me you should stoop to 
 acquire a knowledge of. ^Milton talks of pouring " easy his 
 unpremeditated verse." It would be harsh, untrue and 
 odious to say there is anything like cant in this, but it is 
 not true to the letter and tends to mislead. I could point 
 out 500 passages in Milton upon which labour has been 
 bestowed, and twice 500 more on which labour would have 
 been serviceable.' 
 
 Matthew Arnold, when he is not contemptuous, is in- 
 structive. If his sweetness was intermittent, he did not 
 lack light. ' Homer's movement, he says, is a flowing, 
 a rapid movement. Milton's is a laboured, a self-retard- 
 ing movement. Milton charges himself so full with 
 thought, imagination, knowledge, that his style will hardly 
 contain them. He is too full-stored to show us in much 
 detail one conception, one piece of knowledge ; he shows 
 it to us in a pregnant, allusive way, and then presses on 
 to another. Homer is quite different; he says a thing 
 and says it to the end, and then begins another, while 
 Milton is trying to press a thousand things into one.
 
 2l6 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 So that in reading Milton you never lose the sense 
 of laborious and condensed fulness ; in reading Homer 
 you never lose the sense of flowing and abounding ease.' 
 
 Homer was a poet of life, Tennyson was mainly a poet 
 of mind. Homer sang of actions, Tennyson of ideas. Sir 
 Walter Scott has more of the Homeric quality than any 
 other poet or romance writer of renown. Poets and writers 
 of that mould are better to quote in an oration than a 
 metaphysical poet. Byron is better for the platform than 
 Shelley. There are exceptions, of course, among the 
 kaleidoscopic children of song. All are human at times. 
 Even Browning, who requires a Society to explain him, 
 has splendid flashes of nature, as witness these lines : — 
 
 All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee : 
 
 All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem 
 In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea : 
 Breath and bloom, shade and shine — wonder, wealth, and — how 
 far above them — 
 
 Truth, that's brighter than gem, 
 Trust, that's purer than pearl — 
 Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe — all were for me 
 In the kiss of one girl. 
 
 Of prose which has all the qualities of poetry except the 
 metrical form, the reader may find in a passage of Professor 
 Heeren : — 
 
 ' Persepolis rises above the deluge of years. Time sadly 
 overcometh all things, and is now dominant, and sits upon 
 a sphinx and looketh unto Memphis and Old Thebes; 
 while his sister Oblivion reclineth semi-sensuous on a 
 pyramid, making puzzles of Titanian erections, turning old 
 glories into dreams. History sinketh beneath her cloud. 
 The traveller, as he passeth amazedly through these deserts, 
 asketh of her who builded them ? She mumbleth some- 
 thing, but what it is he knoweth not.' 
 
 The poet hath not often excelled Heeren. Instance 
 Bryant on the same subject : —
 
 POETRY IN RELATION TO RHETORIC 21/ 
 
 Thou unrelenting Past ! 
 Strong are the barriers round thy darlc domain, 
 
 And fetters sure and fast 
 Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign. 
 
 Mere rhyme often assists the memory, and, if nervous, it 
 may better strike the understanding than prose. Of this 
 quality are some old lines on Feasting and Fasting, begin- 
 ning thus : — 
 
 Accustom early in your youth 
 
 To lay embargo on your mouth ; 
 
 And let no rarities invite 
 
 To pall and glut your appetite ; 
 
 But check it always, and give o'er 
 
 With a desire of eating more ; 
 
 For where one dies from inanition 
 
 A thousand perish by repletion. 
 
 There is a mental repletion also enervating to intellectual 
 health. 
 
 Dr Johnson, who had prose in his blood, sometimes 
 put it into verse, and though not poetry it was near to it 
 by its vigour and sense. In the prologue he wrote for 
 Garrick on the opening of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 
 describing the reign of pedantry and degeneracy of the 
 stage, he exclaims : — 
 
 Then, crushed by rules, and weaken'd as refined, 
 For years the power of tragedy declined ; 
 From bard to bard the frigid caution crept, 
 Till declamation roar'd whilst passion slept : 
 Yet still did virtue deign the stage to tread. 
 Philosophy remained though nature fled. 
 
 Pope, the greatest of our argumentative poets, has no 
 passage more striking than one logical stanza in Lord 
 Byron's 'Childe Harold.' It has vividness, felicity of 
 phrase and condensation. It would be impossible to say 
 the same things in prose in such few words. 
 
 What from the barren being do we reap ? 
 Our senses narrow and our reason frail.
 
 2l8 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Life short, and truth a gem that loves the deep, 
 
 And all things weighed in custom's falsest scale ; 
 
 Opinion an omnipotence, whose veil 
 Mantles the earth with darkness, until right 
 
 And wrong seem accidents, and men grow pale 
 Lest their own judgments should become too bright, 
 And their free thoughts be crimes and earth have too much light. 
 
 Another example, though devoid of the range of insight 
 manifest in Byron's lines, is the fine sonnet of Blanco 
 White. As a poetic imaginative argument for a future hfe 
 it is unsurpassed. Literature has no argument so brilliant 
 that I can recall : — 
 
 Mysterious night ! When our first parent knev/ 
 
 Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, 
 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame. 
 This glorious canopy of light and blue ? 
 Yet, 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 
 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
 
 Hesperus with the host of heaven came. 
 And lo ! creation widened in man's view. 
 Who could have thought such darkness lay conceal'd 
 
 Within thy beams, O Sun ? Or who could find, 
 Whilst fruit, and leaf, and insect stood reveal'd, 
 
 That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind ? 
 Why do we, then, shun Death with anxious strife ? 
 If Light conceals so much — wherefore not Life ? 
 
 For passages of point and fire the orator must go to the 
 poets. One of them exclaims : 
 
 Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not 
 
 Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. 
 
 An agitator may say that without much risk. That means 
 numbers must agree to act all together, and numbers are 
 not given to agree; and if numbers do agree they must 
 keep one counsel if they are to succeed, and numbers can 
 seldom be depended upon to keep one counsel. Shakespeare 
 supplies much more dangerous fines : —
 
 POETRY IN RELATION TO RHETORIC 219 
 
 Every bondsman in his own hands 
 Bears the means to cancel his captivity. 
 
 Let any man beware how he tells this, to whom, and 
 where. 
 
 The Talmud says, ' Life is but a shadow, not of a house, 
 nor of a tree, but of a bird passing overhead; another moment 
 both bird and shadow are gone.' The simile is well con- 
 ceived. For variety and felicity of figure upon this subject 
 nothing known to me excels the following poem, ascribed 
 to Dr Donovan, who made it, or took it from an old Irish 
 manuscript. The reader will see that the Irish poet is a 
 logician — a rare thing in poets — and sums up each stanza 
 at its conclusion, and each simile is as it were proven. 
 
 Like to a damask rose you see, 
 
 Or like a blossom on a tree, 
 
 Or like the dainty flower in May, 
 
 Or like the morning to the day, 
 
 Or like the sun, or like the shade ; 
 
 Or like the gourd, which Jonah made : 
 
 Even such is man, whose thread is spun, 
 
 Drawn out and out, and so is done. 
 
 The rose withers, the blossom blasteth, 
 The flower fades, the morning hasteth, 
 The sun sets, the shadow flies. 
 The gourd consumes, the man — he dies. 
 
 Like to the grass that's newly sprung, 
 
 Or like the tale that's new begun, 
 
 Or like the bird that's here to-day, 
 
 Or like the pearled dew in May, 
 
 Or like an hour, or like a span, 
 
 Or like the singing of the swan : 
 
 Even such is man, who lives by breath. 
 
 Is here, now there, in life and death. 
 
 The grass withers, the tale is ended. 
 The bird is flown, the dew's ascended, 
 The hour is short, the span not long, 
 The swan's near death, man's life is done. 
 
 Like to the bubble in the brook. 
 Or in a glass much like a look,
 
 220 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Or like the shuttle in weaver's hand, 
 
 Or like the writing on the sand, 
 
 Or like a thought, or like a drean., 
 
 Or like the gliding of the stream : 
 
 Even such is man, who lives by breath, 
 
 Is here, now there, in life and death. 
 The bubble's out, the look forgot, 
 The shuttle's flung, the writing's blot, 
 The thought is past, the dream is gone, 
 The waters glide, man's life is done. 
 
 Like to an arrow from a bow, 
 
 Or like swift course of water flow : 
 
 Or like the time 'twixt flood and ebb, 
 
 Or like the spider's tender web. 
 
 Or like a race, or like a goal. 
 
 Or like the dealing of a dole : 
 
 Even such is man, whose brittle state 
 
 Is always subject unto fate. 
 
 The arrow shot, the flood soon spent, 
 The time no time, the web soon rent. 
 The race soon run, the goal soon won, 
 The dole soon dealt, man's life soon done. 
 
 Like to the lightning from the sky, 
 
 Or like a post that quick doth hie, 
 
 Or like a quaver in a song, 
 
 Or like a journey three days long. 
 
 Or like the snow when summer's come, 
 
 Or like a pear, or like a plum : 
 
 Even such is man, who heaps up sorrow, 
 
 Lives but this day, and dies to-morrow. 
 The lightning's past, the post must go, 
 The song is short, the journey so. 
 The pear doth rot, the plum doth fall, 
 The snow dissolves, and so must all. 
 
 The student in search of similes may take up a basket 
 
 full from this unrivalled poem. 
 
 Nobody could mistake the hand of the poet, in strength 
 
 of conception and unchangeableness of terms, in Landor's 
 
 lines ; — 
 
 Alas I how soon the hours are over. 
 Counted us out to play the lover
 
 POETRY IN RELATION TO RHETORIC 221 
 
 And how much narrower is the stage 
 Allotted us to play the sage. 
 But when we play the fool, how wide 
 The theatre expands I Besides, 
 How long the audience sits before us ; 
 How many plaudits ! What a chorus ! 
 
 But of this the present writer as well as the student may 
 take warning.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 STYLE EXPLAINED 
 
 Style is the manner in which ideas are expressed. Style 
 is not in the mind — it is the mind. As Dr Johnson said of 
 the wits of Charles the Second's reign : — 
 
 Themselves they studied — as they felt they writ. 
 
 A bitter fountain cannot give forth sweet water. According 
 to the quality of the information in the treasure house of 
 the understanding will be the style — scant or plentiful in 
 words, clear or confused in expression, vivacious or dull, 
 yielding ideas leaden or golden, gems of paste or diamonds 
 rich and rare. When a man can, like Cobbett, talk with 
 his pen, his style is disclosed. It is said of John Morley 
 that the chief features of his style are 'perfect sanity 
 and reasonableness.' Its special charm, 'simplicity and 
 courtesy.' His hold upon his reader is his scholarship 
 and sincerity.' He has 'urbanity and wit,' still rare in 
 literature. 
 
 Style is a quality peculiar to the writer or speaker, and 
 where it has excellence not time itself can efface its charm. 
 Facts may be forgotten, learning grow commonplace, truths 
 dwindle into mere truisms, but a magnificent style can never 
 lose its freshness. Someone has said, ' For style, even more 
 than for his wonderful erudition, is Gibbon admired ; and 
 the same quality, and that alone, renders Hume a popular 
 historian of England, in spite of his imperfect learning, the 
 
 222
 
 STYLE EXPLAINED 223 
 
 untrustworthiness of his statements in matters of fact, and 
 the anti-popular caste of his opinions.' Method, perspicuity, 
 brevity, variety, harmony, are indeed separable from sense, 
 but no combination of such qualities will give life to a book 
 without sense. They are but the auxiliaries of meaning, 
 not the substitutes for it. 
 
 If any one would know what style is not and how it is 
 not acquired, let him read an article on Dickens in a 
 quarter where there should be guidance, the Dublin Uni- 
 versity Magazi?ie, in or about 1865. It said: — 
 
 ' Dickens has achieved a great thing— he has created a 
 style. The singular circumstances in this case is that, by 
 careful study of previous styles, by imitation of them, this 
 author has produced out of the heterogeneous elements a 
 compound essentially differing from all its component parts, 
 and claiming — claiming justly — the high merit of being 
 original. That such a result should follow such a course 
 ought to encourage writers who aim at true celebrity to 
 adopt this humble and painstaking initiatory system.' 
 
 Dickens would smile at this attempt to made a literary 
 alchemist of him, as one fusing all sorts of styles in his 
 crucible of composition, and bringing out quite a new 
 metal. Daily life furnished him with materials ; obser- 
 vation, originality of thought and humorous imagination 
 did the rest — humour combined them and made the 
 style. 
 
 Tindal said of Pitt's first speech that ' it was more orna- 
 mental than the speeches of Demosthenes and less diffuse 
 than those of Cicero.' ' That it should have been so often 
 quoted,' says Macaulay, ' is proof how slovenly most people 
 are content to think. It would be no very flattering com- 
 pliment to a man's figure to say that he is taller than the 
 Polish dwarf, shorter than Giant O'Brien, fatter than a 
 skeleton, and more slender than Daniel Lambert. No 
 speaking can be less ornamental than that of Demosthenes, 
 or more diffuse than that of Cicero.'
 
 224 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Heldenmaier lays it down as a maxim of education, that 
 freedom is the all-essential condition of growth and power. 
 There can be no fervour while, in the language of Sam 
 Slick, ' Talk has a pair of stays, and is laced up tight and 
 stiff.' It is freedom which is the active element of all fresh 
 and vigorous style. Dr Gilchrist observes that — ' What one 
 of the ancient philosophers said of laws may be truly said 
 of rhetorical rules : they are like cobwebs which entangle 
 the weak but which the strong break through. The first 
 rule of good composition is, that the composer be free and 
 bold. Before a man can be a good thinker or a good 
 writer he must be free and bold.' . . . 
 
 As soon as a man understands a subject, he is in a con- 
 dition, so far as ideas go, to write or speak about it. If he 
 has also courage to write himself in his words, he may be 
 original. But if he forget that fulness and freedom are both 
 blind, and that without the revealing lights of taste, perspi- 
 cuity and brevity, he may offend, bewilder and tire. 
 
 An old woman who showed a house and pictures at 
 Towcester expressed herself in these words : — ' This is 
 Sir Richard Farmer ; he lived in the country, took care of 
 his estate, built this house and paid for it, managed well, 
 saved money, and died rich. That is his son ; he was 
 made a lord, took a place at Court, spent his estate, and 
 died a beggar ! ' 
 
 A concise but striking account. The old exhibitor had 
 no doubt learned brevity by weariness of repetition and the 
 desire of giving satisfactory information in a few words — 
 difficult to acquire ; but the art can be acquired, and a style 
 marked by sentences concise and short is no mean one 
 Butler, who knew so many things, tells us : — 
 
 As 'tis a greater mystery in the art 
 Of painting, to foreshorten any part, 
 Than draw it out, so 'tis in books the chief 
 Of all perfections — to be plain and brief.
 
 STYLE EXPLAINED 225 
 
 Douglas Jerrold wrote of the Bishop of Exeter : — ' What 
 a lawyer was spoiled in that bishop ! What a brain 
 he has for cobwebs ! How he drags you along through 
 sentence after sentence — every one a dark passage — until 
 your head swims ! ' Jerrold, whose style was as bright as 
 his mind, knew the darkness which prevails where per- 
 spicuity is absent. 
 
 Brevity and precision are more manifest among our 
 French neighbours than among ourselves. The speeches 
 made to mobs — the most hurried placards, abound in the 
 felicities of condensation. Europe has been agitated with 
 communism before our time. Few could tell you what was 
 meant by it. Yet a century ago, Morelly thus expressed 
 it : — ' It is the solution of this excellent problem — to find a 
 situation in which it shall be nearly impossible for man to 
 be depraved or poor.' We have never on this side the 
 Channel exceeded the felicity of this description. 
 
 ' The style of Bunyan,' says Macaulay, ' is delightful to 
 every reader, and invaluable as a study to every person who 
 wishes to obtain a wide command over the English language. 
 His vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people. 
 There is not an expression, if we except a few terms of 
 theology, which would puzzle the rudest peasant. We have 
 observed several pages which do not contain a single word 
 of more than two syllables. Yet, no writer has said more 
 exactly what he wanted to say. For magnificence, for 
 pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle disquisition, 
 for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, 
 this homely dialect, this dialect of plain working men, 
 was sufficient.' 
 
 In the first edition of Practical Grammar (by the 
 present writer) there was direction open to the charge of 
 vagueness. If remarks had to be made at the end of a 
 statement, it was directed that they should be neither ' too 
 strong nor too tedious.' But when he subsequently asked 
 his class at the City Mechanic's Institution at what point of 
 
 p
 
 226 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 effectiveness a man might be said to be ' too strong,' it was 
 agreed that there was error somewhere. And the injunction 
 not to be ' too tedious ' was found to imply that we might 
 be tedious in some degree^which hardly seemed desirable. 
 Then it was asked, What is strength ? Some answered 
 power. What was power ? Some said effectiveness. But 
 it was soon felt that these definitions left us, like Swift's 
 definition of style, 'the use of proper words in proper 
 places.' What were proper words and proper places still 
 remained open questions. So, if power was strength, and 
 strength effectiveness, what was effectiveness was still un- 
 known. It was finally agreed that to be strong was to be 
 just, and the remedy of tediousness was brevity. We there- 
 fore agreed that 'remarks just and brief was the proper 
 expression to have used. For what was just could never 
 be ' too ' strong, and what was brief could never be ' too ' 
 tedious. From which we also learned that strength of 
 comment lay in just sentiments, and that tedium was the 
 tiresomeness of prolixity. 
 
 When Professor Huxley speaks or writes, his style seems 
 the product of an original mind dwelling in an atmosphere 
 of realities. His sentences are as fresh as bunches of 
 grapes gathered the same morning, the bloom is upon them. 
 
 The Rev. J. R. Green was one of the few writers of recent 
 years whose style is the envy and admiration of critics as 
 well as his readers. Mr Green had his own preferences as 
 to who should write about him. Whether Mr W. J. Loftie, 
 ' the Historian of London,' is one does not appear, but in 
 the New Princetown Review, he describes Green's ideas of 
 style : — ' A German in research, a Frenchman in writing — 
 that was his formula ; and a thorough familiarity with French 
 historians, and novelists too, had more to do with the 
 nervous, manly, graphic English of his works than is gener- 
 ally supposed. I have heard him say that English history 
 should be written so as to be as entertaining as a French 
 novel. I remember one of his maxims about composition :
 
 STYLE EXPLAINED 22/ 
 
 — " Take the public, as it were, into your confidence ; write 
 to them as if they knew as much as you do yourself ; but in 
 your own mind assume that they know nothing." This is 
 an intelligible, and therefore an instructive passage. 
 
 The loaded style never lasts in literature. Excellence 
 lies in the thought expressed, and not in ornate phrases. 
 The one thing the hearer or reader has to look to is the 
 quality of the idea sought to be conveyed to his understand 
 ing. If it comes to him in terms which commend it or 
 exalt it, so much the better. The idea should be presented 
 bright and clear, all phrases which merely glitter about it 
 do but dazzle those who have to see it. When the orator 
 describes the 
 
 Wide, grey, lampless depth of time, 
 
 his simple language best depicts the impressive vision. 
 
 A column has been erected at Monte Pincio, in Rome, 
 to the memory of Galileo's imprisonment in the neighbour- 
 ing palace of the Medicis. It bears the following epigraph : 
 — 'The neighbouring palace, once the property of the 
 Medicis, was the prison of Galileo-Galilei, guilty of having 
 seen the earth revolve round the sun.' He who wrote this 
 epitaph had a style worthy of Rome. 
 
 Joseph Barker was a man of slovenly power, and yet a 
 moving influence in his day. He found his way to the 
 popular understanding by a force of style all his own. 
 Ebenezer Elliot and other good judges of rhetoric in 
 Sheffield, told me Barker excelled all other platform speakers 
 they had known in the vigorous use of Saxon English. He 
 was always understood by the multitude ; like Dr Johnson 
 (whom I do not think Barker ever read), he knew the 
 literary force of repeating nouns ; unless a pronoun could 
 be used near to the noun. When the noun was pale in the 
 memory of the crowd or congregation before him — he re- 
 peated the noun. The hearer, therefore, had never to go 
 back upon what he had heard. The main noun being
 
 228 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 brought again before him, he always knew v/hat the matter 
 in hand was. This practice gives amazing force and clear- 
 ness to popular speech. It is a mere mechanical element of 
 style which everyone might employ with advantage to hearer 
 or reader. 
 
 He who wants to know whether he has written what he 
 wishes to say, and as he ought to say it, let him read it 
 aloud to himself. Even his own voice will seem as apart 
 from him as that of an auditor. Or let him do as the 
 shrewd Moliere did, read his composition to his cook, if no 
 one else is at hand— read it to anyone who will listen — 
 and the reader will at once become sensible of redundancies, 
 omissions, irrelevancies, and incongruities, of which his own 
 wit will never make him sensible. Even stupidity as an 
 auditor will improve style. 
 
 The text of a great writer resembles a piece of Gobelin 
 tapestry or some golden embroidery. Every page is from 
 the same loom. You know every sentence by the texture, 
 the colour, and the design. Some books are like calico 
 prints, you read them by the yard; the gay or gaudy 
 pattern diverts or serves for common use. In some books, 
 insipid, glaring pieces of flimsy meaning, without harmony 
 or purpose — stare at the reader in every chapter. But in 
 George Eliot's writing, for instance, every portion is part of 
 one well-woven fabric, strong, dainty, and durable, and is as 
 a wealthy garment of the mind. 
 
 All that is in the power of a student of style and who 
 wishes to make a style for himself, are clearness, brevity, and 
 the use of relevant and vivid similes. * Be clear,' was the 
 best thing Napoleon said to his secretaries. Clearness of 
 statement can be acquired by anyone who has clear ideas. 
 Brevity is almost a mechanical attainment, since a man has 
 only to stop when he has written as much as his adversary 
 would read if sent to him — or would listen to if spoken 
 to him. Meaning, as has been said, may be made clearer and 
 even enlivened by comparison. Alma-Tadema says, ' As the
 
 STYLE EXPLAINED 229 
 
 sun colours the flowers, so does art colour life.' Comparisons 
 and similes are the sun of style and impart colour to it. 
 
 A painter or sculptor will acquire decision and finish by 
 studying the great masters of the twin arts ; he may thus 
 improve his own style, but the turn and quality of his mind 
 will remain his own. In like manner a rhetorician will 
 profit by the study of great writers. For vigorous trans- 
 parency and classical grace, Grote counted Mill's essay 
 on Liberty to be the most striking production of modern 
 time. Let the student keep as free as he can of mean 
 conversation or mean books. Buddha says :— 
 
 ' Let no one think lightly of evil, saying, in his heart, " It 
 will not come near me." Even by the falling of water 
 drops a water-pot is filled ; and the fool becomes full of 
 evil, even if he gathers it little by little.' Then let the 
 good come near, and little by little the heart will become 
 full of excellence.' 
 
 A dinner cooked anyhow, a coat cut anyhow, without 
 study of the figure or kind of person to be clothed, would 
 neither delight the taste nor the sight. Style of speech 
 means prevision and adaptability to the occasion and to the 
 end sought. In every case, transparency and brevity are 
 the permanent virtues. 
 
 Dean Swift, who saw further before him than any man in 
 the great day in which he lived, said he who makes two 
 ears of corn grow where only one grew before deserves well 
 of mankind. The contrary is true in literature. He who 
 makes one sentence to express a meaning, while another 
 would employ two to do it, confers a sensible benefit on all 
 whom he addresses, and deserves the gratitude of every 
 reader.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 WHAT HAS BEEN SAID 
 
 ' What am I going to say ? ' is a question a speaker may 
 usefully put to himself before commencing his address. If 
 he does not know, it will, in most cases, be bad for the 
 audience. It is the principal thing, or two or three of 
 the main things, which should be clear, distinct and upper- 
 most in the orator's mind. "Whether he keeps to notes he 
 may have made for illustration will matter little to him if he 
 can make his distinctive objects evident to the hearers. But 
 as a speech nears its end the need for a not less important 
 interrogatory arises. 
 
 'What has been saidV is the next question many a 
 speaker might put to himself before the conclusion of 
 his speech. By that time he ought to know what he has 
 been talking about — but may not — and it may be the 
 audience are not quite sure themselves, so that a brief 
 incidental as it were, an unpretentious, but nevertheless a 
 salient recapitulation of the essential points of the address 
 will be useful. In cases where a statement made is clear, 
 strong, vigorous and coherent, a few impressive sentences 
 at the close are sufficient. If the speaker has reason to 
 think his audience have not a clear conception of his subject 
 he may restate it in a few words at ihe close. In no case 
 slavishly recapitulate all points made. Do no more than 
 recall the animating principles, which should be fixed in the 
 
 230
 
 WHAT HAS BEEN SAID 23 1 
 
 hearer's or reader's mind, as is sought to be done in this 
 chapter. Let the speaker not forget that many persons 
 never think, though they think they do. 
 
 The effectiveness of a speech is governed by its purpose 
 which must animate the orator. And for effectiveness, 
 unsurpassed clearness, if the speaker can attain to it, 
 is the main condition. How can a man be moved or 
 guided by what he does not see? It is like the large stone 
 visible at low ^Yater in a river in Cavan, on which is carved 
 the notice — 'When this stone is out of sight it is not 
 safe to ford this stream.' But what traveller can read the 
 warning when it is ' out of sight ? ' The reader will surely 
 be drowned, unless the meaning stands above the water of 
 words. 
 
 The late Archbishop of York (Dr Magee) was so sensible 
 of the value of purpose in speech, or essay, or sermon, that 
 he advised young preachers when they had written a sermon 
 and could not give a name to it, to throw it away, decide 
 upon a name, and write to that, otherwise, *a man who 
 starts without a definite purpose is at the mercy of his 
 words.' Words, and not a fixed intent, have the command 
 of him. During the Mexican war one of the generals said 
 to Captain Bragg, ' The crisis has arrived — fire.' The Captain 
 said to his lieutenent, ' You hear what the General said — 
 "The crisis has come — fire."' The lieutenant replied, — 
 ' But I see nothing to fire at.' ' Then,' said Captain Bragg, 
 ' fire at the crisis.' No report states whether they hit it. But 
 the moral of the incident is relevant. The orator, like the 
 soldier, must aim at something, and have something to 
 aim at. In rhetoric, as well as in morals, the saying of the 
 Mogul Sultan Achar is true, — ' I never knew a man lost on 
 a straight road.' 
 
 ' There are,' said the shrewd Archbishop Magee, ' three 
 kinds of preachers : — First, the preachers you ca^i't listen to. 
 Second, the preachers you cari listen to. Third, the 
 preachers you can't help listening to.'
 
 232 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 The last kind of preacher is one who acts on the wise 
 maxim of Vinet, and ' looks after himself as though he were 
 somebody else ' — as ever}'one must do who would become 
 a successful public speaker. He who would practise 
 Vinet's rule must court debate and engage in it, when he 
 will learn that there are two sides, and sometimes more, to 
 most questions. Not knowing this, causes many persons to 
 be blown about by every wind of doctrine, which confuses 
 them when they encounter it, because they have not known 
 it, and, of course, have not regarded it in forming their own 
 judgment. Unfamiliar with opposite views, they are afraid 
 of them, and are unhinged by them. William Black, the 
 novelist, relates that it was by the merest accident in read- 
 ing the proofs of his novel of Wolfenberg, that he discovered 
 that the printer had made his heroine who was to die 
 by an * overdose of opium ' die by an ' overdose of 
 opinion.' More people die in this way than are imagined. 
 A well-informed man is never in danger from an over- 
 dose of opinion. A prudent man seeks every kind of 
 relevant opinion before he forms his own. Dr Johnson, 
 who was always for discussion, derided the fear of rival 
 views, saying, 'If contrariety of opinion would poison a 
 man, a politician would die in a day.' Contrariety of 
 reasoned opinion — none others are entitled to attention — 
 are the elements out of which a sound judgment is formed. 
 He whose mind is set on sureness as to facts will never go 
 far wrong, nor will he mislead others, ' If people,' says the 
 Rev. Dr Edward Everett Hale, 'would only stop talking 
 where they stop knowing, half the evils of life would come 
 to an end.' He who takes the trouble of personal investiga- 
 tion will avoid many errors. It is when anyone relies, with- 
 out suspicion or care, upon what he learns from others, 
 that the necessity for circumspection comes in. Rumour 
 s'-.Mom touches the fringe of truth. Reports are to be 
 distrusted and hearsay more so. Miss Edna Lyall's History 
 of a Lie is a most instructive little book, on the careless,
 
 WHAT HAS BEEN SAID 233 
 
 unintended, tragic mendacity of modern days. Before 
 anyone believes what he is told, he ought to ask him- 
 self what is the teller's capacity for attentive hearing and 
 accuracy of memory ? What opportunity had he of knowing 
 the truth of what he relates? What motives has he for 
 telling it ? Is the tale-bearer a person of vigilant observa- 
 tion and habitual veracity of mind? Has he prejudice, 
 animus, or interest, which may bias his impressions? If 
 he merely tells what he has been told, what is the character, 
 qualifications and attainments as to trustworthiness of 
 that informant? Under what circumstance was the thing 
 said which he reports ? Circumstances under which a thing 
 is said are like the context of a passage. The context is a 
 part of the story. Without due sifting of evidence on which 
 a man reasons, he may be deceived himself and, what 
 is worse, he may deceive all who trust to his judgment. 
 For he who retails as facts what he has taken no pre- 
 cautions to verify, and has not warned hearer or reader to 
 that effect, becomes himself responsible for what error or 
 mischievousness may be in them. 
 
 Of course, a man speaks in vain when the auditors cease 
 to attend to him. He must obtain and retain the ear of the 
 assembly, or he will fail to influence them. To this end he 
 must not lead attention down lanes of digressions, or it will 
 lose sight of the main line on which the train of argument 
 runs. Nor must the minds of the hearers be allowed to 
 stumble at words above their comprehension. Every speaker 
 of sense will follow, as far as the question under consideration 
 will let him, that golden rule of Csesar's — 'To avoid an unusual 
 word as one would a rock.' In character, in manners, in 
 logic, in style, the supreme excellence is simplicity. 
 
 George Sand tells us there is a good Goddess of Poverty. 
 If you have choice in Pagan deities, choose the good 
 Goddess of Lucidity, if there be one. 
 
 Lord Bailing, when Sir Henry Bulwer Lytton, showed 
 a high order of caution and precaution as a diplomatist.
 
 234 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 When trouble with America arose on the question of 
 'indirect damages,' at the close of the planter's war in 
 defence of slavery, American statesmen drew up a Treaty 
 which was to close the affair, but opened it wider. Lord 
 Bailing found in it the terms 'growing out of which he 
 said ' could hardly occur to anyone but a market gardener.' 
 When he had to prepare a counter treaty, he took the 
 trouble of going over all American Treaties, and in all 
 important passages he only used such words as they had used 
 before, in the sense in which American diplomatists had 
 used them. To employ the language of Paley, this ' could 
 not be gotten over.' Common ground was found and an 
 international agreement came to pass. 
 
 On terms of imputation, Mr Serjeant Robinson, in his 
 Bench and Bar, gives curious legal opinions. He relates 
 that an action was brought before Mr Justice Maule by an 
 attorney against a defendant for calling him a thief, a rogue, 
 and a fiend ; and as the plaintiff had no proof of any 
 pecuniary special damage, he had to rely on the injury that 
 must necessarily be inflicted on him in his professional 
 capacity by the imputation of being a ' fiend.' 
 
 In summing up, Maule said : — ' As to the word thief, 
 it is a very ambiguous one, and does not necessarily impute 
 what the law considers an indictable offence. For instance, 
 to steal a man's wife, to steal away the affections of another, 
 to steal a march upon anyone, would be no crime in law. 
 Wives, human affections, and such things as marches are 
 not at present the subjects of larceny. Rogue is different ; 
 it might certainly affect the plaintiff professionally, because 
 a rogue ought not to be allowed to practi.se as an attorney. 
 But the same principle does not apply to the term fiend. 
 It may not be a complimentary expression, but I do not 
 think to be a fiend disqualifies a man from being an 
 attorney. If the learned counsel will point out to me any 
 case where the Court has refused an application to place a 
 fiend upon the rolls, I shall be happy to consider it.'
 
 WHAT HAS BEEN SAID 235 
 
 Contumelious epithets have the unpleasant tendency of 
 suggesting the character and associations of the user. A 
 cattle dealer of Berne, being indicted for calling another in 
 the same way of business a 'swindler, a dirty dog and 
 a convict,' the Court held that such language was but 
 the current expressions of the cattle market, and below 
 the dignity of notice. 
 
 John Addington Symonds, as remarkable for self- 
 introspection as for his great attainments, said 'he found 
 a pleasure in expression for its own sake, but he had not 
 the inevitable touch of the true poet, nor the iincotiquerable 
 patience of the conscious artist.' There is the genius of 
 a great writer in this sentence, which explains with pene- 
 tration and fitness of phrase, the unregarded conditions of 
 supreme excellence. 
 
 Paderewski is a famous master of his art, but his skill 
 was won and is sustained by application, which is instructive 
 to those of indolent ambition, who believe in off-hand 
 excellence. On the eve of Paderewski's first appearance 
 in New York, he left his hotel at nine at night, went direct 
 to Steinway Hall, induced the watchman to let him in, 
 had the gas lighted, opened the biggest piano he could 
 find, and sat before it from ten at night till four the next 
 morning, with only the watchman for an audience. Then 
 he went home, and after ten hours' sleep astonished a 
 large audience by what most of them took to be spontane- 
 ous skill. The 'unconquerable patience' commended by 
 Symonds has its place in literature and speech as well as 
 music. 
 
 One who lately died — Robert Louis Stevenson, whose 
 praise for mastery in writing every critic sang — said : ' I 
 can always tell when an author does not write over and 
 over again. His clauses may be unmusical, his words 
 colourless and inexpressive, yet, if the order is perfect 
 throughout, he will be a great writer.' Absolute rightness 
 of order gives new force and significance to terms and
 
 236 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 expressions, which would be lifeless without it. Stevenson's 
 clauses had melody, colour and expressiveness, but the 
 Tightness of order, which imparted to them splendour, he 
 acquired himself with 'infinite labour.'* 
 
 Yet the labour necessary to excellence is less than is 
 commonly imagined, if the aspirant confines himself to 
 things essential. Relevant knowledge is all that is required, 
 and relevance is limited. Excessive acquisition of many 
 things is as useless as excessive eating, and equally incon- 
 venient for action. There are learned persons who read 
 themselves stupid. Hume, in his wise way, said, 'A 
 man's time, when well husbanded, is like a cultivated field, 
 of which a few acres produce more of what is useful to life 
 than extensive provinces, even of the richest soil, when 
 overrun with weeds.' 
 
 Mr Arthur W. Hutton, being for seven years a priest in 
 the Oratory at Birmingham, knew Cardinal Newman well. 
 Mr Hutton tells us that ' Dr Newman's two volumes of 
 Catholic sermons were written out and carefully corrected. 
 But his spoken sermons were, by comparison, deplorable — 
 apparently unprepared and without plan or point ; through- 
 out he was rambling and dreary. He told me himself,' 
 says Mr Hutton, 'that he never sarv the congregation he 
 was addressing — a fact which, I suppose, by itself shows 
 that he had no oratorical gift. But when he read with 
 slow and musical enunciation the exquisite sentences he 
 had penned in the privacy of his room, there was something 
 almost magical in the effect.' 
 
 The noblest oration on oratory delivered in this century, 
 so far as is known to me, is that by Lord Lytton, then Sir 
 Edward Bulwer Lytton, on the occasion of his installation 
 as Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. In one pass- 
 age he said, ' Without earnestness a man might be admired 
 as a firework, but he would never guide as a star.' Further, 
 ' Though delivery no doubt is the appropriate excellence 
 • iVestminsier Gazette, at the time of Stevenson's death.
 
 WHAT HAS BEEN SAID 237 
 
 of the mere orator, the three-fold gift of the Parliamentary 
 speaker is earnestness. Have but fair sense and a com- 
 petent knowledge of your subject, and then be thoroughly 
 in earnest to impress your own honest conviction upon 
 others, and no matter what your delivery, though your 
 gestures shock every rule in Quinctilian, you will com- 
 mand the ear and influence the debates of the most 
 accomplished, the most fastidious, and, take it altogether, 
 the noblest assembly of freemen in the world.' A man 
 cannot be earnest at will. It is interest and conviction 
 which makes anyone earnest. But though earnestness on 
 any subject is not a quality at command, every man is in 
 earnest about something, and if his desire is to speak well 
 let him confine himself to questions in which he is sincerely 
 concerned. A speaker may be entertaining without sincerity, 
 but cannot be impressive without it. 
 
 Oratory is what Mr Goldwin Smith called it, ' the fusion 
 of argument and passion.' Oratory is reason animated by 
 human interest — essential truth endowed with new life. 
 
 The manifest sincerity with which Lord Lytton com- 
 mended maxims of oratory to the students of the University, 
 served him well. The 'outburst of long-continued cheer- 
 ing ' which followed its close, showed that. The brilliant 
 sense of what he said implied conviction as well as pre- 
 meditation. An engaging presence and physical power — 
 two important conditions of oratory — he had, but his 
 manner was greatly against him. It showed an entire lack 
 of oratorical art. One who heard him said — 'There were 
 no winning tones ; his action was ungainly ; he moved his 
 arms from his elbows ; his voice was monotonous, and in 
 the grander passages of his address he had no better mode 
 of indicating their importance than by throwing himself into 
 an extra erect attitude, and pronouncing his words louder 
 and with a greater drawl than usual' I have heard him 
 speak in the House of Commons in the same way, when he 
 yet charmed all who listened to what he said, and were un-
 
 238 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 regarding as to how he said it. It was his audibility and 
 sense which saved him. Ever true is the saying of Buddha, 
 that 'pleasant speech and the word that is well spoken 
 are great blessings.' 
 
 For all students one rule holds good — not having all the 
 talent you desire, nor all the genius you covet, cultivate 
 what you have. None know what that is till they give their 
 powers fair play, full play and reiterated play. Jenny Lind 
 said, ' If I had nothing in the world but music it would be 
 enough. I become a different thing when I sing — different 
 body — different soul.' But she did not know this till long 
 after she began to sing. 
 
 When Professor Arminius Vambery was asked by the 
 Empress Euge'nie how he travelled through Asia with a 
 defective foot, he answered, ' Oh, your Majesty, one does 
 not walk on his feet, but on his tongue.' Oratory is the 
 education of the tongue, with that befitting accompani- 
 ment of gesture and manner which lend life to language. 
 All the while the merit of eloquence lies in its use. The 
 valid use of the art of public speaking and debate is the 
 protection of unfriended truth, and the vindication of im- 
 perilled right. Poets tell us that 
 
 Ever the right comes uppermost, 
 And ever is justice done. 
 
 Beware how you believe that. The right never comes 
 'uppermost' unless some one helps it up. 'Justice is 
 seldom or never done,' unless strong argument compels men 
 to do it, Adolphe Fischer tells us you ' cannot kill a 
 principle,' but the people can be killed who assert it, and 
 that is sufficient. The principle is suppressed for genera- 
 tions. Truth is said to be 'immortal.' Let us hope it is, 
 but I have seen its voi«"e silenced through the intimidation 
 of those who stand forth to vindicate it. What is the good 
 of dumb truth ? This is why bigotry, intolerance and per- 
 secution are so hateful. They can and do suppress truth
 
 WHAT HAS BEEN SAID 239 
 
 and right. To resist these seemingly eternal agents of evil, 
 all the arts of eloquence and reason are required. Speech 
 and pen are the brilliant weapons by which the victory over 
 error and injustice can be won. 
 
 The object of instruction in any art is to enable the 
 student, in his hour of practice of it, to be master of all his 
 powers. Could the minds of men be made palpable in 
 bodily form, few would be found complete. The arms and 
 limbs would be shrunken in some from want of due 
 exercise — in many, the head would be entirely missing. As 
 a man is himself the measure by which he judges other men, 
 he will form a defective estimate of others who is defective 
 himself. 
 
 Thus, to aim at excellence is to increase the power 
 of understanding others. The quality of that self-knowledge, 
 on which all efficiency is built, the Arabian proverb teaches 
 us in the saying, ' Men are Four,' which is now put into 
 English verse.* 
 
 'o 
 
 The man who knows not that he knows not aught — 
 He is a fool ; no light shall ever reach him. 
 
 Who knows he knows not, and would fain be taught — 
 He is but simple ; take thou him and teach him. 
 
 But whoso, knowing, knows not that he knows — 
 He is asleep ; go thou to him and wake him. 
 
 The truly wise both knows, and knows he knows — 
 Cleave thou to him and nevermore forsake him. 
 
 The succeeding chapter is as it were a summary of the 
 maxims and suggestions of preceding pages as illustrated in 
 the characteristics of legislative orators. 
 
 * By C. E. J. in The Spectator.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY 
 
 It does not, as I have said, require an orator to write of 
 oratory — else I should not take this subject. To live in 
 the atmosphere of eloquence is not to acquire it. A man 
 may be a good musical critic and be quite unable to play 
 like Paganini, or sing like Malibran. An art-critic may 
 appraise Leonardo da Vmci who could never paint the 
 ' Last Supper.' Many have criticised ' Hamlet,' but none 
 of them have written a better play. He who witnesses a 
 boat-race can see which oarsman will come in first, though 
 were he in the boat himself he would come in last. For 
 myself, I have known a sufficient number of orators to 
 become a connoisseur of oratory. But though I have lived 
 near the rose, I have not myself acquired the scent. 
 
 Two things are mistaken for oratory — eloquence and 
 splendid speaking — whereas stimulant eloquence alone is 
 oratory, and is known by readiness, fitness, fire and velocity 
 of speech. Splendid speaking is description touched with 
 colour, as may be seen in Huxley, Goldwin Smith, and 
 Green, the historian. George Dawson was a speaker of 
 repute in his day — the greatest platform talker known in 
 this century. He not only rewarded your attention, he 
 engaged it. The difference between the speaker and the 
 orator may be seen in this : — 
 
 A good speaker is one who explains things with distinct- 
 ness, terseness, and lucidity. 
 
 240
 
 PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY 24 1 
 
 An orator displays energy, compression, and passion. 
 
 The object of the speaker is to give information — the 
 object of the orator is to incite to action. The speaker 
 illumines the understanding — the orator impels and directs 
 the passions. The speaker is a guide, the orator is a 
 master. A speech is light — an oration is force. Europe 
 heard it in Gambetta's voice of storm, thunder, and fire. 
 The second Sir Robert Peel's voice stands next in my 
 mind for volcanic force, summoning attention and holding 
 it. He who considers what the qualities of the public 
 speaker are, will better understand what the qualities of 
 the orator are. Pitt in the last century, and Chamberlain 
 in this, are notable examples of commanding speakers. 
 Romilly, in his Dialogue with Percival, says ' Pitt, who 
 could speak fluently three hours together, came about us 
 like the tide along the Lancashire sands, always shallow, 
 but always just high enough to drown us.' Chamberlain, 
 who singularly resembles Pitt in personal features, is not 
 ' shallow ' save intermittently, but he has Pitt's overcoming- 
 ness in his clearness and directness, lacking Pitt's com- 
 manding voice and dignity of gesture. I was present a 
 few years ago in an assembly at which Mr Chamberlain 
 spoke, as did also several other distinguished persons. A 
 stranger who knew none of them would say that Mr 
 Chamberlain was the most gentlemanly speaker of them 
 all, save Mr Gladstone, in readiness, undemonstrativeness, 
 in resolution of tone and directness of expression ; dis- 
 playing not the force of passion, but the force of will, 
 which are characteristics of the gentlemanly speaking, I go 
 no further. Other qualities of the gentlemanly manner are 
 considerate courtesy, which is modest before genius, and 
 which never wounds the susceptibility of the humblest by 
 contemptuousness or disparagement — attainments which do 
 not always accompany gifts of speech. 
 
 The good speaker is the Light-giver. I once asked 
 John Stuart Mill as to the qualities of the late Lord 
 
 Q
 
 242 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Derby, then Lord Stanley ; he said, ' Lord Stanley is the 
 only young nobleman I know who thinks it necessary to 
 give reasons for the opinions he holds.' Logic is the light 
 of speech. John Arthur Roebuck was the most mathe- 
 matical speaker in Parliament in his time. He knew that 
 the shortest distance between one point and another was a 
 straight line, and he took it. Sitting at his table one day, 
 he told me what he was going to say at Salisbury, where, at 
 the Bishop's request, he was to deliver prizes to students. 
 A fortnight later, I read a report of his speech in the Times, 
 which, so far as I remembered, was word for word what he 
 had said to me. The reason was that the words of a perfect 
 statement are not changeable. If any term can be changed 
 for the better it means that a wrong word has been used. 
 Thus, to a trained mind, understanding is in place of 
 memory. The chosen words recur to the speaker because 
 they are inevitable; none others will express the sense 
 intended. 
 
 John Stuart Mill was a speaker of similar quality. He 
 had principles, which guide the politician (as the Pole star 
 does the mariner) through the tumultuous sea of party 
 questions, which to other minds are trackless. A principle 
 is a magnet which draws particles of sense, like steel, from 
 all quarters to itself. He had also promptness in repartee, 
 which always commands admiration in Parliament. When 
 Lord Cranbrook, then Mr Gathorne Hardy, whom Mr 
 Justin M'Carthy describes as ' fluent as the sand in an hour- 
 glass, and stirring as the roll of a drum — but often as dry as 
 the sand and empty as the drum ' — when he (Mr Hardy) 
 taunted Mr Mill with saying that the Tories were the 
 ' stupid party,' Mr Mill at once rejoined : ' The honourable 
 member misunderstands me. I never said that every Tory 
 was stupid — what I said was, that if a man was stupid he 
 was sure to be a Tory.' 
 
 Lord Cranbrook was a type of the explosive speaker. 
 His father was an ironmaster, and Lord Cranbrook always
 
 PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY 243 
 
 spoke like a bhst furnace. He produced common-places 
 red-hot, and spoke them with a red face, as I have often 
 seen him. He would have been leader of the House when 
 his party was in power but for his explosive tendencies. 
 
 Lord Sherbrooke, when Mr Lowe, displayed a classical 
 clearness and brightness of speech. When he was con- 
 temptuous his sentences had teeth in them, which left their 
 mark upon the mind. In the grey of a morning in 1868, 
 when the Liberals had deserted Mr Gladstone, and left him 
 with only a majority of five on a question of State, Mr 
 Gladstone, with his usual high spirit, at once resigned. 
 The alarmed deserters thought they might reassure him 
 by a vote of confidence in him, and as Mr Lowe emerged 
 into the lobby they asked his opinion of the idea. His 
 answer was, ' I think, gentleman, that you cannot unpuU a 
 man's nose,' which ended that project. 
 
 Lord Derby, the son of the Rupert of Debate, was not a 
 fluent speaker, but he excelled in vigorous lucidity. The 
 hearer came to see exactly what Lord Derby saw, and what 
 otherwise he would not see — the common-sense of a con- 
 tested question, which only few persons ever do perceive. 
 
 In ease, in grace, in silvery tones, in the confidence he 
 created that he could say, and continue to say, whatever he 
 willed to say, no speaker, save one, in his parliamentary days 
 exceeded Lord Coleridge. 
 
 Lord Westbury had in him the making of a Lord Chan- 
 cellor of the quality of Lord Bacon. All the details of the 
 most complicated subject seemed to lie open before his mind, 
 in clear order. Never from a form so lusty and bucolic in 
 appearance did words proceed so low, so continuous, so 
 pellucid, so keen, and so unerring. His sentences were as 
 clear cut as though turned out of one of Sharp and Roberts' 
 lathes. I once heard him plead a case, when the court ad- 
 journed for lunch as he arrived at the word sesquipedalian. 
 He had got only ' sesqui ' pronounced. When the court re- 
 turned he went on with ' pedalian ' as though no intenup-
 
 244 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 tion had occurred. He never lost the continuity of his 
 argument. In reply in the House of Lords to the Bishop 
 of Oxford, then unfairly known as 'Soapy Sam,' Lord 
 Westbury remarked with ungentlemanly rudeness upon ' the 
 saponaceous oratory of the right reverend prelate.' 
 
 Of all the great speakers of our time none have been more 
 instructive or more self-possessed than Cobden. He was 
 one of the great masters of statement in Parliament or on 
 the platform. Demands of agitation left him too little time 
 to predetermine what he would say, but he determined it 
 while he was saying it. Like Bunyan — w-ho saw principles 
 like men walking in the streets — so Cobden saw sentences 
 as palpable things. He saw his words in the air before him 
 as they left his lips. If he had put a proposition in terms 
 redundant he restated it with retrenchment— that it might 
 be more clearly seen. If the terms used were too brief he 
 supplied those lacking — lest his argument might be incom- 
 plete. If a phrase went too far he qualified it, so that when 
 he left it, ignorance could not misunderstand his meaning, 
 nor malignity pervert it. When it was proposed in the 
 House of Commons to go to war with America to procure 
 cotton, so that our Lancashire weavers might not starve, Mr 
 Cobden answered to the effect that war is not proposed by 
 any honourable members from hatred to the American 
 people — no one professes that ; nor from love of war — no 
 one had the inhumanity to avow that. The contention is 
 that war would save us expense in supporting our unem- 
 ployed weaver population by bringing cotton from the 
 South. 'Since economy is the reason,' said Cobden, 'it 
 might be well to observe that it would be far cheaper to 
 feed all our unemployed people on turtle soup and cham- 
 pagne than go to war for cotton.' It would be better for 
 the weavers, and neither make bad blood between kindred 
 nor shed good blood in fratricidal battle. 
 
 Such is good public speaking — whose qualities are that it 
 gives light, information, and direction without wasting time
 
 PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY 245 
 
 by prolixity or perplexing the public understanding by 
 ambiguity, or depraving the public ear by verbiage. 
 
 The orator is of a different order. He is a speaker in- 
 spired by purpose and passion. He has a torrid fervour — 
 energy, action — the power of seeing the essential parts of 
 his subject, velocity and fitness of expression, presenting an 
 impelling argument with a directness that cannot be mis- 
 taken, and a force that cannot be evaded. Sometimes a 
 single burst of scorn is a speech, as when Henry Clay, in 
 slavery abolition days, made the famous retort to the slave- 
 owners who tried to drown his voice by hisses, by exclaim- 
 ing, * That is the sound you hear when the waters of truth 
 drop upon the fires of hell.' 
 
 There are six names in the memory of most persons which 
 illustrate the characteristics of parliamentary oratory — Shiel, 
 O'Connell, Beaconsfield, Cowen, Bright and Gladstone. 
 
 Shiel was a small man with a small voice, two disadvan- 
 tages which only genius can cancel. He had a voice which 
 squealed, but his sentences had a flame in them which 
 scorched the adversary they touched. At other times, as 
 Hawthorne said, ' He spoke with a strange wild sound like 
 a language half blown away by the wind.' Shiel had Irish 
 fervour of speech and French vivacity of action. There may 
 be those who remember seeing Stella Colas as Juliet, in the 
 garden scene with Romeo, throw herself forward over the 
 balcony as though she would fall over ; so Shiel threw his 
 body across the table of the House of Commons in uttering 
 his famous reply to the Duke of Wellington or Lord Lynd- 
 hurst, who had said the Irish were aliens in race, blood 
 and religion. His accents were in his hair, his eyes, in his 
 arms, in every limb. He was alive all over, and from this 
 confluence of action proceeded a piercing stream of 
 sentences of scorn and fire. 
 
 O'Connell had the three greatest qualities of an orator, 
 (i) a commanding figure — his words came from above you ; 
 (2) a voice which could be heard by everyone, without which
 
 246 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 the entire audience cannot be moved ; (3) the sagacity to 
 say things which most interested those who heard them. 
 O'Connell, besides a majestic stature, had a three-fold voice : 
 one of persuasiveness in the law court, one of dignity in 
 Parliament, another of resounding raciness on the platform. 
 He told us at a meeting in London how the birth-rate in 
 Dublin had decreased 5000 a year for four years, adding, ' I 
 charge the British Government with the murder of those 
 20,000 infants who never were born.' He saw nothing 
 absurd in it, nor under his magical voice did his hearers 
 until the next day. An Irish schoolmaster, of Birming- 
 ham, who was present, was more self-possessed. Mr Sam 
 Timmins told me that the discerning schoolman prodded a 
 friend near liim and said, ' That is worthy of my country- 
 
 men.* 
 
 Addressing the Newhall Hill meeting in Birmingham, at 
 which 200,000 persons were computed to be present, 
 O'Connell observed a compact mass of 400 women from 
 Rowley Regis, who had marched to Birmingham in the 
 early morning. Grim and stalwart, with lusty arms, they 
 maintained their position against the pressure of the vast 
 throng. O'Connell's quick eye rested upon them for a 
 moment and began his oration, exclaiming, ' Surrounded as 
 I am by the fair, the gentle and the good.' They might be 
 ' good ' — the Black Country industries did not make women 
 'fair,' and had they been 'gentle' they had never been in 
 that turbulent throng, but the intrepid compliment told. 
 The women cheered, and cheered afterward everything he 
 said. The men near cheered because the women did, and 
 the crowd behind cheered because those before them cheered, 
 and so the fortune of the great oration was made. Anyone 
 can read how it was done in the first Lord Lytton's Neiv 
 Timon, where he says : — 
 
 Once to my sight the giant thus was given, 
 
 Walled by wide air and roofed by boundless heaven.
 
 PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY 247 
 
 Beneath his feet the human ocean lay, 
 And wave on wave flowed into space away. 
 Methought no clarion could have sent its sound 
 Even to the centre of the hosts around ; 
 And as I thought arose the sonorous swell, 
 As from church tower swings the silver bell. 
 Aloft and clear, from airy tide to tide 
 It glided, easy as a bird may glide, 
 To the last verge of that vast audience sent. 
 It played with each wild passion as it went. 
 
 No member of Parliament in my time won in so short a 
 time the reputation of an orator as Joseph Cowen. This 
 came to pass by his speech in the House of Commons on 
 the Bill for giving the title of Empress to the Queen. The 
 House, impatient to vote, was filled with cries of ' Divide, 
 divide,' when he rose for the first time to address it. All 
 that could be seen was his dark, luminous eye, for his stature 
 is short ; all that could be heard was a new voice of mani- 
 festly honest tone. His argument was historical, compact, 
 brief, in which three things were said never before or since 
 heard in that House. He spoke of the Prince Napoleon as 
 ' the son of a usurper ; ' he said ' the divine right of kings 
 was killed on the scaffold with Charles I. ; ' and declared 
 that ' the superstition of royalty had never taken deep hold 
 on the people of this country.' All this was unusual and 
 bold. Of all the sentences none were weak, and their 
 impetuous rush never ceased until the end — and Mr Cowen 
 acquired the fame of an orator in a single night. 
 
 If regard be had to the triumphs of public speaking, Lord 
 Beaconsfield might be described as the greatest orator of 
 our time. Race, religion, fortune and character were 
 against him — but he had the instinct and art of expression, 
 and was the only man in Europe in his time who had climbed 
 on phrases to power. He did not study principles — he studied 
 men, whom he labelled with disabling phrases as a professor 
 would a plant, a shell, or a bird. His voice was an organ of 
 policy, not of feeling. He might have been sincere in a way
 
 248 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 of his own — but he never gave the impression, even by 
 accident, that he beheved what he said. He was no more 
 English in his mind than Napoleon the Corsican was French, 
 whom Madame de Stael said was ' a man of unknown nature.' 
 Disraeli was as distinct in his ideas as though he belonged to 
 another world. But he understood this world ; he influenced 
 men like a master. He advanced himself as only the un- 
 friended can — by being of service to his employers or his 
 party. He had audacity and his courage never forsook him. 
 His ambition was to dazzle men. He bewildered others, 
 but never lost himself. Once when he was overcome, not 
 by what he felt but from what he had taken, he could not 
 stand at the Treasury table without clutching it, when he 
 exclaimed that ' he was thankful there was a table between 
 him and Mr Gladstone, or that right honourable and impetu- 
 ous gentleman might spring up and attack him personally.' 
 All he meant was that he might, but for the table, fall into 
 the arms of his adversary. Thus he gave the public to 
 believe that he needed protection, when all he needed was 
 support. His merit was that he introduced pleasantry into 
 politics. His wit stood him in the place of principle. He 
 touched public affairs with a light hand ; and being without 
 prejudices or preferences, he often stated with admirable 
 force the case to which he was opposed, when it did not 
 interfere with the purpose in hand. As Cobden once said 
 of Palmerston, he was entirely impartial, he had no bias — 
 not even towards the truth. 
 
 Disraeli's oratory was based on a Jewish craving for 
 effect, an instinct of speech, and early knowledge of himself. 
 In Vivian Grey he described himself as he always remained 
 — gracious to those who aided his ambition, vindictive to 
 any who opposed him. Mr Stansfeld, who had no mean 
 power of his own, early expressed in Parliament that con- 
 tempt for Disraelian principles, which Lord Salisbury — 
 when Viscount Cranbourne — published a Review to expose. 
 After Stansfeld's speech, Disraeli said to a friend, ' I will do
 
 PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY 249 
 
 for that educated mechanic ; ' a well-chosen phrase of hatred 
 and malice. Soon after, he commenced nightly attacks on 
 Stansfeld, as a friend of Mazzini, saying there was an under- 
 ground passage between Thurloe Square, where Mazzini 
 visited Stansfeld, and the Treasury bench on which Stans- 
 feld then sat. This continued until ended by Bernal Osborne, 
 with his Jewish wit, often as effective as Disraeli's, but with 
 a generous vein in it. Sir Richard Strachey, whose elon- 
 gated visage was blue, rendered so by some gunpowder 
 explosion, abetted the attack. After this had gone on for a 
 month, Osborne broke in, 'Mr Speaker, I think this farce 
 has gone on long enough. Here, every night towards 
 twelve o'clock, in stalks the honourable member for Norwich, 
 like a tragedy king, with his dagger and his poisoned bowl ; 
 and he not only acts the character, he looks it.' This hit 
 at Sir Richard's blue visage extinguished him in ridicule 
 and laughter. He probably disposed of his dagger and 
 bowl in Wardour Street, for it no more appeared in the 
 House. Thus wit succeeded where reason had failed. 
 Whoever stood in Disraeli's way he stabbed with words as 
 a bravo would with a dagger. Lord Beaconsfield was the 
 most polished gladiator Parliament has known since the days 
 of Canning, and he would have been one of the first of 
 orators had he cared for anything save the effect of it on his 
 own fortunes. 
 
 We now turn to him whom Mr Beresford Hope described 
 as the ' White Lion of Birmingham ' — Mr Bright, who had 
 the voice of an organ, at once strong and harmonious, which 
 swelled but never screeched. A resolute face, and a resolute 
 tone, gave him a commanding manner; this, united to a 
 stately way of thinking, gave him ascendency in oratory. 
 Disregarding details, he puts the relevance of a question so 
 strongly that it was difficult to express in other words the 
 same idea with equal force. As I have said elsewhere, take 
 this passage in one of Bright's orations, in which you see his 
 passion for justice and his method of speech. He evrlaims, —
 
 250 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 ' I believe there is no permanent greatness in a nation, 
 except it be based on morality. I do not care for military 
 greatness or military renown ; I care for the condition of 
 the people among whom I live. There is no man in 
 England less likely to speak irreverently of the crown and 
 monarchy of England than I am; but crowns, coronets, 
 mitres, military displays, pomp of war, wide colonies and a 
 huge empire, are, in my view, all trifles light as air, and not 
 worth considering unless with them you can have a fair 
 share of comfort, contentment, and happiness among the 
 great body of the people. Palaces, baronial castles, great 
 halls and stately mansions do not make a nation. The 
 nation in every country dwells in the cottage.' 
 
 Here is the Homeric trend of simplicity and power, not 
 among metaphysical abstractions (which flit before the mind 
 like shadows) but among men and things, palpable to every 
 one, and touching living interests. But let anyone turn to 
 the record of Mr Bright's speeches in the Anti-Corn Laws 
 days, and compare the recurrence of famous figures of speech 
 thirty years later, where he described the army and navy 
 as kept up for the outdoor relief of the aristocracy, and he 
 will see that the crude form of the earlier day and the 
 finished expression of later years, is as different as the flint- 
 headed spear of the Mongol from the rapier of Toledo. A 
 famous statue is not cut out of the first block the sculptor 
 lays his hands upon, nor is an oration perfected except by 
 many efi"orts. 
 
 In the clearness and melody of a far-reaching voice, in 
 spontaneity of expression, in fertility of thought begotten 
 by the subject while speaking upon it — in action animated 
 by the sense of mastery and conviction, Mr Gladstone 
 excels all living orators. He poises himself on words as an 
 eagle poises himself in the air. When the Opposition 
 speakers in Parliament have unexpectedly collapsed, Mr 
 Gladstone (when leader of the House) is suddenly called 
 upon by the Speaker to close the debate. To reply at once
 
 PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY 25 I 
 
 on what has not been said, as well as upon what has, re- 
 quires consideration. I have heard Mr Gladstone on such 
 occasions speak for several minutes without saying anything. 
 What you hear is a well-woven texture of articulation — an 
 unbroken continuity of argumentative mist — an almost 
 infinite and coherent extension of glittering vapour. The 
 circumambient air is thick with words, all connected — with 
 nothing. An Italian poet has described exactly what takes 
 place : — 
 
 I certainly beheld (nor do suppose 
 
 My sight deceived me aught) that in the air, 
 A fume or vapour thin and subtle rose, 
 
 And by the wind began revolving there : 
 Thence to the topmost clouds its sprays it throws, 
 
 But of a substance so exceeding rare, 
 That scarce the naked eye its form could see : 
 
 It seemed as like the clouds composed to be. 
 
 All at once the cloud is cleared away with a sudden 
 gesture and you hear the words ' Mr Speaker.' The orator 
 then has made up his mind as to the scope of his reply, and 
 then follows a stream of sentences direct, compact, and 
 pungent — crisp as the curling wave, definite as the bullet. 
 Mr Gladstone is the greatest orator of our time, who can be 
 serious and humorous, earnest without being heavy, vehement 
 without imputation — a very rare attainment. In all the 
 hurricane of personalities, at one time blown upon him from 
 every quarter, only one charge of imputation was brought 
 against Mr Gladstone, and that was that he had described 
 an opponent as a 'certain' person. It is not giving a 
 political but a rhetorical opinion to say that there is no 
 example on record of any speaker of Mr Gladstone's 
 eminence, who has displayed his abstinence from personal 
 imputation — the easiest and most popular of all the arts of 
 oratory. Invective relieves the speaker of the trouble of 
 proof, and delights the auditor v.ho ceases to think of the
 
 252 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 question at issue, and does not know that it is withdrawn 
 from his sight. Outraged partisans then appear upon the 
 scene and principles disappear. 
 
 Of the two great orators of whom I have spoken, Mr 
 Gladstone has the subtler reason — Mr Bright had the 
 stronger fire. Mr Gladstone is moved by a sense of duty, 
 which seeks for reasons and waits for occasions. Mr Bright 
 was incited by a sense of justice, which is impetuous and 
 acts from indignation. Mr Bright's eloquence was more 
 volcanic and imposing; Mr Gladstone's more resembles 
 lightning — greater in vividness, and revealing under its 
 flashes a greater extent of hidden country. Mr Bright 
 seemed to take just the quantity of words upon the platform 
 which he required, and, like parts of a well-fitting structure, 
 each word fell into its place as the mighty oration proceeded. 
 With Mr Gladstone it is as though he took upon the platform 
 with him vast piles of the English language, from which 
 he takes, with a swift hand, whatever he requires for the 
 purpose of the moment; words of strength, or beauty, or 
 brightness — of light, or shade, or force, until each passage 
 is perfect. When a sentence is begun, you cannot always 
 foresee how Mr Gladstone will end it. But the great artist 
 never fails. His eye sees all the while the fitting word lying 
 by his side, and he dashes it in with the spontaneity of a 
 master, and light is difi"used all over the argument, as in a 
 picture which has just received the final touch of genius. 
 That is Parliamentary oratory. The audience is the most 
 cultivated and critical in the world. The finish which is 
 applauded in the Senate would seem tameness on the 
 platform. 
 
 In that arena where distinction won reaches to posterity, 
 there are discerning plaudits for those feUcities of speech 
 which Tennyson describes in Virgil ; — 
 
 Landscape-lover, lord of language, more than he that sang the 
 
 Works and Days. 
 All the chosen coin of fancy flashing out from many a golden phrase ;
 
 PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY 253 
 
 Thou that singtst wheat and woodland, tilth and vineyard, hive 
 
 and horse and herd. 
 All the charm of all the Muses often flowering in a lonely word. 
 
 The qualities of the noblest style are all comprised in this 
 splendid praise. But the House of Commons, though 
 fastidious, is not foolish — neither is it impatient to do right ; 
 as a rule, it is not impatient to do anything, but it likes to 
 know what it is doing. It thinks with Mark Antony — 
 
 Who tells me true, 
 Tho' in the tale lie death, 
 I hear him as he flattered. 
 
 And the working-class member who, like Mr Burt, is 
 diffident without being afraid and intelligent without being 
 presumptuous, may gain the ear of the House. It may be 
 charmed by a picturesque phrase, as it was by the Irish 
 member who praised the whisky of his country above all 
 other 'because it went down the throat like a torchlight 
 procession.' The House gives ear to an honest voice. There 
 are some members of Parliament in whose voice there is an 
 accent of petty larcency. But he who, speaking with sincerity 
 of manner, gives information upon subjects which he 
 knows and is known to know, he is listened to, however un- 
 pretending or vernacular may be the language in which 
 he tells his story. 
 
 I omit many high names and many illustrations of the 
 distinction other speakers and orators have attained which 
 would interest the readers nearly as much as those I have 
 cited. I omit them lest by too great variety I distract 
 attention from the nature of oratory, which it is my duty to 
 make clear and keep clear in the reader's mind. Most of us 
 hope that the EngUsh Parliament may maintain its ascendency 
 as the first political assembly in the world. Most of us hope 
 that its members will always so comport themselves in
 
 254 PUBLIC SrEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 dignity and excellence as to challenge the imitation of public 
 men. Whatever time may be given to increase public 
 interest in the high character of Parliament, or inspire any 
 who may go there with the desire to sustain it, is of the 
 nature of patriotism. 
 
 Long may it remain the merit of Parliament that what 
 a man says shall be more regarded than how he says it. 
 Landor warned one, inattentive to this, who had brilliance 
 without purpose : — 
 
 Here lies our honest friend, Sam Parr, 
 A better man than most men are. 
 So learned, he could well dispense 
 Sometimes with merely common sense ; 
 So voluble, so eloquent, 
 You little heeded what he meant. 
 
 The speaker and the orator alike must mean something, 
 and something distinctive. All men cannot be orators, but 
 every man will speak better and write better by knowing the 
 qualities which go to make the orator. Lord Brougham 
 defined oratory in the sense in which he himself excelled in 
 it, as the power of seeing, when you begin a senti nee, all 
 through it, and of knowing at the opening what the end is 
 to be. 
 
 Protracted and parenthetical as Brougham's sentences 
 often were, there was never confusion in them ; they always 
 terminated intelligibly. The parenthesis, when limited and 
 direct, is a sign of mastery, showing that the speaker never 
 loses sight of his subject. Concentration and directness 
 make the force of speech. Too many objects presented to 
 the mind prevent the points essential being seen. Too 
 much said means something relevant hidden by a crowd of 
 words, which essential something should stand distinct, 
 clear, open, alone, and endowed with the glory of space. 
 Economy in words, stopping at sufficiency, implies mastery 
 of statement. Captain Cuttle said 'his power to put his
 
 PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY 255 
 
 hands on a few words whenever he wanted them came 
 from his not wasting them as some do.' Walter Savage 
 Landor, who himself equalled Plutarch in the vigour which 
 comes of terseness, said : — 
 
 ' Phocion conquered with few soldiers, and he convinced 
 with few words. I know not what better description I 
 could give you either of a great captain or a great orator.'
 
 INDEX TO 
 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE 
 
 Agitation, Limited, 218. 
 
 Meteorological, 3. 
 
 AM Pacha, discovers guilt by scales, 
 20. 
 
 Alienation begotten by manner, 31. 
 
 Allen Brydges, the Waker, 189. 
 
 Allsop, Thomas, 2. 
 
 Alma Tadema's comparison, 229. 
 
 Amberley, Lord, his courageous hesi- 
 tation, 33. 
 
 Amenities of Educated Journalists, 
 60. 
 
 American orator's simile. An, 209. 
 
 Antony Mark, his preference, 254. 
 
 Arab wisdom, 91. 
 
 Archdeacon and the maid, The, 29. 
 
 Arnold, Dr, his defence of inquijy, 
 
 73- 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, his repellent re- 
 iteration, 132. 
 
 instructive when not con- 
 temptuous, 215. 
 
 Aspiration regulated by deliberate- 
 ness, 10. 
 
 Attainment measurable by tendency, 
 6. 
 
 Average attainment, 16. 
 
 Baconian ideas of Shakespeare, 
 162. 
 
 Bacon. Lord, on custom, 93. 
 
 Bain, Professor A., defends con- 
 flict of opinion, 81. 
 
 Bailey. Samuel, his rhetorical dis- 
 cover}', 43. 
 
 R 
 
 Bailey, Samuel, defends debate 
 76. 
 
 Barbauld, Mrs, on the praise of 
 Deity, 122. 
 
 Barker, Joseph, Saxon speech, 227. 
 
 Beaconsfield, Lord, his character- 
 istics, 249. 
 
 Beecher, Henrj' Ward, his infinite 
 variety, 193. 
 
 Bellew, Rev. Mr, 200. 
 
 Bentham's definition of prolixity, 
 
 95- 
 Bernal, Mr, Parliamentary sajdng 
 
 of, 153- 
 
 Burchard, Dr, his perilous allitera- 
 tion, 119. 
 
 Birrell, Augustine, his new view of 
 Emerson, 43. 
 
 Black, Dr, his test of mastery, 128. 
 
 William, his misadventure 
 
 with a printer, 233. 
 
 Blaine's presidential candidature de- 
 feated by a phrase, 119. 
 
 Blanc, Louis, his animation obliter- 
 ated his diminutiveness, 40 
 
 Boomerang similes, 204. 
 
 Bowen, E. E., his Harrow speech 
 day song, 173. 
 
 Bower, John, his unexpected author- 
 ship, I. 
 
 Bowring, Sir John, his Chinese 
 illustration, 29. 
 
 Bright, John, 109. 141, 145. 
 
 his economy in gesture, 38. 
 
 his descriptive power, 147. 
 
 his qualification for preachers, 
 
 180, 250. 
 
 his manner of mind, 250. 
 
 his self-culture, 250 
 
 Broadhurst, Henrj', M.P., 152.
 
 258 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Brooke, Rev. Stopford A., his 
 individuality of style, 193. 
 
 Brougham, Lord, his manifold pre- 
 caution, 127. 
 
 excelled in vehemence, 142. 
 
 his famous maxim, 168. 
 
 his parentheses, 255. 
 
 Bryant, on the ' unrelenting past,' 
 217. 
 
 Buddha's sa3nng, 229. 
 
 Bunyan's style, 225. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, on the value of 
 adversaries, 76. 
 
 his revising care, 125. 
 
 his method of argument, 179. 
 
 Burns, John, 152. 
 
 Burt, Thomas, his manner of speak- 
 ing, 149. 
 
 Burt, 254. 
 
 Butler defines smatterers, 192. 
 
 his 'greater mystery,' 225. 
 
 Byron, 213, 216. 
 
 on vegetarian vicissitudes, 62. 
 
 his representatives, 105. 
 
 his logical stanza in Childe 
 
 Harold, 21 7. 
 
 Canadian Minstrels at the Mansion 
 House, 187. 
 
 Canning's brutal reference, 63. 
 
 fastidious revisions, 125. 
 
 Canterbury, Archbishop of, on agi- 
 tators, 3. 
 
 Carleton's warning, 83. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, his illusion, 46. 
 
 a poet incapable of verse, 213. 
 
 Cattle market epithets, 236. 
 
 Cavan, The warning stone of, 232. 
 
 Chairman, duties in debate, 53, 108. 
 
 Chamberlain, Joseph, his quality of 
 speech, 10. 
 
 and Pitt, 242. 
 
 Channing, Dr, his weight avoir- 
 dupois, 166. 
 
 Character, marks of, 94. 
 
 Charms of Sunderland, 80. 
 
 Charnel House terms, 167. 
 
 Churchill Lord Randolph, his error 
 in epithet, 86. 
 
 Civilisation, a sense of proportion, 
 
 65. 
 Clay, Henry, his brilliant retort, 
 
 246. 
 Climates of the mind, 212. 
 Cobbett's syllogism, 19. 
 
 on forcible writing, 1 16. 
 
 Cobden, 96, 113, 131. 
 
 to Mr Delane, 4. 
 
 his reason for explicitness, 4. 
 
 his resentment at Delane, 71. 
 
 his persuasive oratory, 131. 
 
 his oratory argumentative, 
 
 141. 
 
 his mastery of statement, 245. 
 
 Coherence, an element of effective- 
 ness, 40. 
 
 Coleridge, Lord, his lute-like voice, 
 29, 
 
 his ability of resentment, 90. 
 
 the sense of continuity in 
 
 him, 244. 
 
 S. T., his warning, 68. 
 
 on arrangement, 92, 93. 
 
 CoUyer, Dr Robert, r66. 
 
 his prairie voice, 188. 
 
 Common sense, the natural sense of 
 mankind, 15, 17. 
 
 its qualities explained, 15. 
 
 Conviction, no warrant for pro- 
 mulgation, 85. 
 
 Consuelo's trial, 139. 
 
 Continental proverb. A, 160. 
 
 Corkles, Mr, The case of, ill. 
 
 Corpse's husband. The, 209. 
 
 Countess of Huntingdon warned, 
 184. 
 
 Courtney, Leonard, his three courses, 
 106. 
 
 Cowen, Joseph, his fire, colour, and 
 imagination, 142. 
 
 his first speech in Parlia- 
 ment, 248. 
 
 Cranbrook, Lord, his hour glass 
 and drum oratory, 243. 
 
 his explosivencss, 244. 
 
 Crisis, The, firing at it, 232. 
 
 Criticism involves respect, 90. 
 
 of public meetings, 1 10. 
 
 Crewless vessels on shoreless seas, 
 210. 
 
 Curran's first speech, 136. 
 
 Cuttle, Captain, judgment, 255.
 
 INDEX 
 
 259 
 
 D 
 
 Daily News on Cobden's oratory, 
 
 13I' 147. 
 
 Dale, Rev. Dr R. W., 182. 
 
 Dalling, Lord, his diplomatic fore- 
 sight, 235. 
 
 Dante's creativeness, 121. 
 
 Danton, his cannon voice, 144. 
 
 Davis, Thomas, on the speeches of 
 Curran, 206. 
 
 Davpson, George, the greatest plat- 
 form speaker of his day, 241. 
 
 Debate, all pervading, 50. 
 
 its five advantages, 51. 
 
 the cardinal rule of, 51. 
 
 Declamation of St Paul, 26. 
 
 Defence, Seven modes of, 57. 
 
 Definition defined, 24. 
 
 Delane's error, 71, 116. 
 
 Deliberation the beginning of power, 
 
 34- 
 Delivery defined, 26. 
 De Morny's sentimental hat, 152. 
 De Morgan on sufficiency of proof, 
 
 64, 85. 
 
 on proposition, 128. 
 
 on decimals, 13S. 
 
 Derby, Lord, his voice, 28, 244. 
 
 excelled in giving reasons, 
 
 243- 
 
 Devil's Advocate, The, 194. 
 
 Deviation a waste of attention, 
 70. 
 
 De Witt's injunction, 169. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, absurd explana- 
 tion of his style, 223. 
 
 Difficulty of ascertaining truth, 89. 
 
 Digressiveness a tendency of nature, 
 
 93- 
 
 Disadvantage of the falHng voice, 
 
 29. 
 Discovery, coincident, 175. 
 Discussion a condition of truth, 
 
 67. 
 
 does change conviction, 
 
 81. 
 
 Disraeli's account of Parliamentary 
 
 failure, 34. 
 
 of another world, 141. 
 
 Diversion is dispersion, 98. 
 Douglas, Frederick, his retort on the 
 
 ' dough-faces,' 171. 
 
 Dryden on Otway, 45. 
 
 his precaution, 146. 
 
 Duellistic imputations, 66, 85. 
 Dumont, on good and bad reasons, 
 
 his complaint, 206. 
 
 Duplicity a dishonouring imputa- 
 tion, 88. 
 
 Durham, Lord, his surmise, 140. 
 
 Dutch, The, their sagacious proverb, 
 117. 
 
 Early readers, i. 
 
 Earnestness the schoolmaster of 
 
 gesture, 38. 
 Editor, An, consideration for him 
 
 judicious, 117. 
 Eliot, George, confidence of her 
 
 little Jewess, 140. 
 
 her gobelin style, 228. 
 
 Elliott, Ebenezer, 228. 
 Elocution, its meaning, 8. 
 Emerson, estimate of conviction, 
 
 42, 
 
 on the style of Montaigne, 206. 
 
 Epithets best confined to opinion, 
 
 84. 
 
 no Parliamentary code of, 86. 
 
 Equine rhetoric, 17. 
 Erskine, Lord, his care for appear- 
 ance, 126. 
 Ethical laws of controversy, 64. 
 Europe on the chest, 209. 
 Evangelism against art, 180. 
 Excellence measurable by utility, 
 
 67. 
 Exeter, Bishop of, cobweb-minded, 
 
 225. 
 
 Factory girls' authorship, 166. 
 Fadladeen's opinion, 95. 
 Felton on similitudes, 208. 
 Feltham's parable of the goats, 250. 
 Fielding's observant saying, 172. 
 Fischer, Adolphe, error of, 239.
 
 26o 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Five things mistaken for reasons, 
 
 25- 
 Follett, Sir William, his forensic 
 
 method, 102. 
 Foote's Grand Panjandrum, 99. 
 ' Former and latter,' penal terms, 
 
 94. 
 Foster Vere, 138. 
 Fox, Charles James, his eloquence 
 
 effaced his figure, 40. 
 his brilliant recklessness, 125, 
 
 157- 
 
 W. J., his distinctiveness, 10. 
 
 his limited gesture, 38. 
 
 his famous exordium, 42. 
 
 a master of method, 100. 
 
 first discoverer of Tennyson, 
 
 213. 
 
 Franklin joins in Whitfield's collec- 
 tion, 184. 
 
 Free handling, 157. 
 
 Frederic the Great's text, 170. 
 
 French oratorj', 154, 155. 
 
 Fuller, Margaret, 128. 
 
 Futile reading, 197. 
 
 Galileo's epitaph at Monte Pincio, 
 
 227. 
 Gambetta, sense in his sentences, 
 
 38. 
 
 his lion voice, 242. 
 
 Garbling defined, 88. 
 
 Garrick, David, his escape by 
 
 lightness, 20. 
 General excellence impossible, 169. 
 Gentlemanly manner, The, 242. 
 Gibbon's boldness in argument, 55. 
 Gilchrist, Dr, on the futility of 
 
 rhetorical rules, 224. 
 Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., his 
 
 animated gesture, 38. 
 his justification of reasoned 
 
 controversy, 75. 
 fiis knowledge of epithets, 86, 
 
 112. 
 
 his circumambiency, 113, 141. 
 
 example of his oratory, 158. 
 
 on Cardinal Newman's preach- 
 ing, 165. 
 
 Gladstone, W. E., the excellencies 
 of his oratory, 242. 
 
 his ascendency in oratory, 
 
 250. 
 
 his compression, 252. 
 
 his unimputativeness, 252. 
 
 compared with Bright, 253. 
 
 Godwin's definition of a good 
 
 writer, 75. 
 Goethe's inevitableness, 143. 
 
 improves on Archimedes, 170. 
 
 Goodrich's story, 208. 
 Goschen, Mr, his filamentary speak- 
 ing, 28. 
 Grammar, ignorance of it unconceal- 
 
 able, II. 
 Grant, General, on Hancock's 
 
 anterior smile, 52. 
 Grattan's invective, 64. 
 
 comparison, 207. 
 
 Great preachers, sermons of, 192. 
 Great speakers, 241. 
 Great speaking, qualities of, 242. 
 Grece, Dr Clair J., on the rule of 
 
 Demosthenes, 139. 
 Green, J. R., his suggestive rule, 44. 
 Green, J. R., German and French 
 
 style, 227. 
 Grote, George, his phrase, ' reasoned 
 
 truth,' 182. 
 George, 229. 
 
 H 
 
 Hale, Dr E. Everett, his wise 
 
 suggestion, 233. 
 Hall, Prof., wise advice to a 
 
 divinity class, 196. 
 Hall, Rev. Robert, his momentum 
 
 oratory, 27. 
 
 his oratorical manner, 37, 40. 
 
 Hamilton's Parliamentary maxims, 
 
 56. 
 Hartington, Lord, 143. 
 Hazlitt and Burke, 13. 
 Headlam, Rev. Stewart D., on 
 
 agitators, 3. 
 Hedgehog manners, 105. 
 Heeren, Prof., 216. 
 Heldenmaier's maxim, 224. 
 Herberts, The two, George and 
 Lord Edward, 6, II.
 
 INDEX 
 
 261 
 
 Hibernian prophecy, An, 210. 
 Hobbes on futile reading, 96. 
 Hood's opinion that truth is not 
 
 china, 77. 
 Hooker, Richard, characteristics of, 
 
 144. 
 House of Commons, characteristics 
 
 of, 149. 
 Howell, George, 152. 
 Hughes, Rev. Hugh Price, his 
 
 essentials of modern preaching, 
 
 193- 
 
 Hugo, Victor, his fine simile, 204. 
 Humour, English and Scotch, 152. 
 Hunt, Leigh, his prophecy, 65. 
 
 his sunshine spirits, ic6. 
 
 his similitude of Dante's style, 
 
 121. 
 Hutton, Arthur W., on Cardinal 
 
 Newman's care, 237. 
 Huxley, Prof., the bloom of his 
 
 sentences, 226. 
 
 Imputative terms recited, 88. 
 Induction defined, 20. 
 Infallibility almost universal, 58. 
 Inferences distinct from intent, 71. 
 ' Ion ' letters, 2. 
 Intellectual repletion, 217. 
 Innuendoes require calculation, 167. 
 Irish poet, An, marvellous similes, 
 
 219, 220. 
 Irish skilfulness, 105. 
 Italian oratory, 156. 
 
 Jeffrey, Lord, his warning to 
 
 young thinkers, 163. 
 Jerrold, Douglas, his tact, 105. 
 
 his realism, 143. 
 
 on the spider mind, 225. 
 
 Johnson, Dr, his definition of 
 
 orator}', 7. 
 
 his mechanical ex plicitness, 227. 
 
 guilt decided by weight, 20. 
 
 — — - his theory of intention, 67. 
 
 his famous prologue, 217. 
 
 Dr, 228. 
 
 on contrariety of opinion, 233. 
 
 Jones, Lloyd, a lectur:. miscon- 
 ception, 176. 
 
 Jowett, Professor, defi.ies logic as 
 ' dodge,' 19. 
 
 K 
 
 Kames, Lord, 182. 
 
 143- 
 
 Kelly, Sir Fitzroy, when he wept, 
 
 97- 
 ICing, Rev. Dr, 9. 
 Kingsley, Canon, 194. 
 Kean, Edmund, he learns from the 
 
 prize ring, 161. 
 Keat's presage of power, 213. 
 Knibb, Rev. William, his colour in 
 
 statement, 193. 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage, the foo 
 on the platform, 221. 
 
 his character of Parr, 255. 
 
 his definition of a good oratoi 
 
 255- 
 Languages consist in distinctions o. 
 
 sound, 8. 
 Laurie, J. S., on intelligent reading, 
 
 200. 
 Lawson, Sir Wilfrid, the characte 
 
 of his humour, 152, 153. 
 Lassalle, Ferdinand, 149. 
 Leadership of ideas, 7. 
 Lecky, his vivid verse, 212. 
 Legislative reading, 201. 
 Leifchild, Dr, ruinous rules, 195. 
 Leigh, peerage, singular evidence 
 
 on, 21. 
 Leonardo di Vinci, 
 Liar, the term a breach of the 
 
 peace, 87. 
 Light, A, better seen revolving, 44 
 Lincoln's art of putting things, I2ji 
 Lind, Jenny, her discovery, 239. 
 Locke, on habit in learning, 138 
 
 learns from himself, 161. 
 
 Logic defined, 18. 
 
 the light of speech, 242.
 
 262 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lord Spraggle's success, 140. 
 Love, its rhetoric, 106. 
 Lowell, clergyman's evasion, 22. 
 Lucio's lesson to Isabella, 31. 
 Ludlow, General, his sagacious 
 
 stipulation, 45-51. 
 Luzzatti on the platform, 157. 
 Lyall, Miss Edna, her history of a 
 
 lie, 233. 
 Lyndhurst, Lord, his cold sagacity, 
 
 142. 
 Lytton, Lord, 140. 
 
 on Parliamentary oratory, 
 
 238. 
 
 his description of O'Connell 
 
 on the platform, 247. 
 
 M 
 
 Macaulay, as a momentum 
 speaker, 27, 205. 
 
 his criticism, 223. 
 
 his manner of speaking, 126. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, on truth of 
 premises, 19. 
 
 Macklin, discovered himself, 79. 
 
 his failure, 98. 
 
 Magee, Bishop, 194. 
 
 on naming sermons, 232. 
 
 his three kind of preachers, 
 
 232. 
 
 Malibran, the advice of Garcia to 
 her, 138, 241. 
 
 Manners do matter, 31. 
 
 Massillon, his famous sermon, 159. 
 
 finds wisdom in the cloister, 
 
 161. 
 
 his courtly oration, 176. 
 
 his parish, 184. 
 
 Mastery is certainty, 1 34. 
 
 Maule, Mr Justice, a fiend not dis- 
 qualified for a lawyer, 235. 
 
 Maurice, Rev. F. D., 194. 
 
 Mavor's superfluity of terms, 116. 
 
 Mazzini, 250. 
 
 M'Carthy, Justin, on Cardinal New- 
 man, 165, 141, 148, 243. 
 
 Meetings, public, regulated by 
 clamour, 112. 
 
 Men are four, 140. 
 
 Merit, The, of hitting is in the aim, 
 181. 
 
 Method, its commandingness, 92. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, on the utility of 
 logic, 16. 
 
 his deliberateness, 33. 
 
 on care in statement, 68. 
 
 his classic grace, 229, 242. 
 
 the path of principle, 243. 
 
 his notable repartee, 243. 
 
 Milton's error as to the ' encounters * 
 of truth, 76. 
 
 premeditated verse, 215. 
 
 Minor days of great poets, 213. 
 
 Mirabeau, his simile, 144, 206. 
 
 Misrepresentation intentional per- 
 version, 86. 
 
 Misunderstanding strong in well- 
 meaning people, 117. 
 
 Mogul Sultan Achar, none lost on 
 a straight road, 232. 
 
 Moliere's practice, 228. 
 
 Moore, Thomas, his warning against 
 verbiage, 47, 106. 
 
 Morelly's problem, 225. 
 
 Morley, John, on Burke's digressive- 
 ness, 99. 
 
 on Burke's style, 223. 
 
 Henry, his repellent preten- 
 sion, 175. 
 
 Muzart Pass, The, inscription there, 
 210. 
 
 N 
 
 Names have something in them, 
 82. 
 
 Napoleon, characteristics of, 47, 
 48. 
 
 Napoleon, Louis, 149-152, 
 
 Neale, Edward Vansittart, on store 
 squirrels, 207. 
 
 Negro scripture reading, 190. 
 
 New York Tribune, description 
 by, I. 
 
 New Moral World, The, 176. 
 
 Newhall Hill Oratory, 9. 
 
 Newman, Cardinal, his manner of 
 preaching, 165. 
 
 on accuracy of mind, 181. 
 
 his simile of heresy, 206. 
 
 Newman, F. W., 192. 
 
 Northcote, Sir Stafford, his un- 
 warranted complaint, 86.
 
 INDEX 
 
 263 
 
 Obadiah Turner's Journal, 188. 
 O'Connell, Daniel, on success in 
 
 aiming, 53. 
 his three manners of speech, 
 
 247. 
 
 his Newhall Hill speech, 247. 
 
 O'Connor, T. P., on Mr Sexton's 
 
 oratory, 129. 
 Official evasion, 23. 
 One tongue sufficient for excellence, 
 
 13- 
 
 07tus probanda often an advantage, 
 
 Opponents limited by their quali- 
 ties, 54. 
 
 Orator, The, his soliloquy, 35. 
 
 the defined, 246. 
 
 Oratory, its tragic material, 146. 
 
 Osborne, Bernal, his Jewish wit, 
 250. 
 
 Otway on Dryden, 45. 
 
 Overdoing is undoing, 183. 
 
 Owen, Robert, 131. 
 
 his principles stated by Victor 
 
 Hugo, 204. 
 
 Oyster ideas, 167. 
 
 Paderewski's patience in mastery, 
 
 236. 
 Paganini, 241. 
 Paine's unsuspected capacity, 35. 
 
 a master of metaphors, 206. 
 
 Paley, Archdeacon, his epithets, 86, 
 
 102. 
 
 his condition of interest, 168. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, his platform 
 
 artifice, 33. 
 Panchard on Mirabeau, 167. 
 Papers read, the length of, 109. 
 Parker, Rev. Joseph, D.D., upon 
 
 the first edition, 2. 
 Parker, his act of friendliness, 2. 
 
 on better hearers, 191. 
 
 his intrepid advice, 192. 
 
 on Berlin wool oratory, 204. 
 
 Parliament, characteristic of it, 254. 
 Parry, Serjeant John Humffrey, 
 
 151- 
 
 ' Parsons, of York,' his stateliness 
 
 of argument, 194. 
 Peel, Sir Robert, the second, 242, 
 Perfect expression, economy of, 4. 
 Phillips, Wendell, his theory of 
 
 ownership, 2. 
 Charles, his forensic un- 
 
 scrupulousness, 53, 97. 
 Pickard, Benjamin, 152. 
 Pitt's overcomingness, 10, 242. 
 
 worsted moments, 28. 
 
 his consideration in speech, 
 
 125. 
 Pope's demented aphorisms, 22. 
 
 his wise question, 24. 
 
 Practical efficiency, 5, 11, 16. 
 Praise the measure of him who 
 
 gives it, 122. 
 Preacher, A young, his despair, 
 
 164. 
 A coloured, of Chicago, 
 
 189. 
 A, his ill-conditioned simile, 
 
 202. 
 Presidential reading at British 
 
 Association, 198. 
 Principle, a path, 70. 
 Prolonged meetings, 109. 
 Proof, the mania of, 56. 
 Propagandism without a definition, 
 
 182. 
 Prudhon's abruptness, 185. 
 Public speaking when perfect, 245. 
 Punshon, Morley, his vividness of 
 
 delivery, 193. 
 
 Questioning a wise resource, 74. 
 Quickly, Mrs, her characteristic, 
 
 93- 
 Quickness, American and French, 
 
 154. 
 
 Rapidity, a cause of slovenliness, 
 
 10. 
 Reading, its freshness depends upon 
 
 the reader, 127.
 
 264 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Reading, art in it, 199. 
 
 measure in it, 199. 
 
 Real, A, negro sermon, 190. 
 Realism, unnoticed truth, 161. 
 Reason, the price of consent, 77. 
 Reasoning defined, 17. 
 Refracting mind. The, 88. 
 Repetition, tracing applications, 
 
 130. 
 Representative, grammar explained, 
 
 12. 
 Representation, the condition of 
 
 grammar, 12. 
 Republic of Learning, The, 5. 
 Repugnance, no proof of incapacity, 
 
 168. 
 Retrospection in speech, 231. 
 Rhetoric, the art of persuasion, 6. 
 
 Plato's definition, 6. 
 
 Rhetorical shocks require pre- 
 caution, 186. 
 Rickhert, Herr, what he heard, 
 
 210, 
 Ridicule, its nature, 68. 
 Ritson, Mr, on Hooker, 145. 
 Robespierre, a guillotine in his 
 
 sentences, 39. 
 his pertinacity in speech, 
 
 133- 
 
 Roche, Sir Boyle, his perpendicular 
 prostration, 216. 
 
 Roebuck, John Arthur, 113, 142. 
 
 his mathematical method, 243. 
 
 Rogers, Rev. J. Guiness, 1S2. 
 
 Rosebery, Lord, on Pitt's speak- 
 ing, 28. 
 
 Rosetti's Damozel, 214. 
 
 Royalist similes, 205. 
 
 Rufus, William, his dentistry of 
 truth, 83. 
 
 Rumour, suspicions of, 234. 
 
 Russell, Lord John, described by 
 Lord Lytton, 106. 
 
 Sand, George, 139. 
 
 a goddess of Lucidity wanted, 
 
 234- 
 Sarcasm, its quality, 68. 
 Satire, intellectual, 69. 
 Saul, a suspicious simile of, 203. 
 
 Schlegel, Frederic, his idea of good 
 
 prose, 121. 
 Scotch discernment, 167. 
 Scott, Walter, his homeric quality, 
 
 216. 
 Self — which self? 172. 
 Sense, the guide to emphasis, 30. 
 Sermon, a pathway to a point, 
 
 182. 
 
 value of written ones, 195. 
 
 Serum Fridavi, 9. 
 Shakespeare's art of thought, 162. 
 Shebbeare, Dr, his ears, 62. 
 Shelley's new roll repasts, 62 
 
 his melody, 214. 
 
 Sheppard, Jack, spiritualised, 207. 
 Sherbrooke, Lord, the teeth in his 
 
 sentences, 244. 
 Sheridan's preparation, 125. 
 Shiel squealed, 145. 
 
 his premeditation, 1 28. 
 
 his impassioned oratory, 246. 
 
 Siddons, Mrs, her wise preparation, 
 
 143- 
 
 Simile, a political, ill-conceived, 
 202. 
 
 explained, 202. 
 
 Smith, Toulmin, argument by de- 
 finition, 51. 
 
 Goldwin, his influence on 
 
 the Canadian press, 63. 
 
 his definition of oratory, 
 
 238. 
 
 Rev. Sidney, on cold de- 
 corum, 194. 
 
 Sneers of smatterers, 10. 
 
 Social difficulty of consistency in 
 
 piety, 188. 
 Sojourner Truth's famous reproach, 
 
 171. 
 Somerset, Lady Henry, her bear 
 
 simile, 204. 
 Speakers, mistakes of, no, ill. 
 Spurgeon, Rev. C. H., his wisdom 
 
 in collecting illustrations, 96. 
 Spurgeon, his friend, 181. 
 Stael, Madame de, her syllogism, 
 
 18. 
 Stage voice, The, 9. 
 Stansfield, Right Hon. Sir James, 
 
 his phrase of light, 172. 
 
 his contempt of Disraelian 
 
 principles, 249, 250.
 
 INDEX 
 
 265 
 
 State squirrels, 207. 
 
 Stating a case, 178. 
 
 Stevenson, R. Louis, on prevision 
 
 in arrangement, 236. 
 Stracey, Sir Richard, his dagger 
 
 and his bowl, 250. 
 St Beuve's method, 104. 
 St Jerome's maxim, 60. 
 St Paul, sajring of, 139. 
 Stupidity, attractive when perfect, 
 
 116. 
 Style defined, 222, 229. 
 Success of sound, 145. 
 Superlatives mostly dangerous, 69. 
 Surly, A, monk, 177. 
 Surprises provoke resentment, 41. 
 Suspicion, not proof, 84. 
 Swift, Dean, definition of good 
 
 breeding, 123. 
 
 saying of, 229. 
 
 Syllogism, The, explained, 18. 
 Symonds, J. Addington, on in- 
 
 evitableness, 236. 
 Systematic treatises, 3. 
 
 Talleyrand, diplomatic repeti- 
 tion, 133. 
 
 Talmud, The, its similes, 218. 
 
 Taste has its laws, 120. 
 
 Tennyson, Lord, describes Virgil's 
 style, 253. 
 
 Terms, misplacement of, in Candle- 
 
 riggs, 97- 
 Tests disregarded, 188. 
 Thackeray and Yates, case of, 89. 
 Theological epithets, 86. 
 Thiers, source of his success, 44. 
 Thorn of Inverury, his art of 
 
 hesitation, 103. 
 Thompson, George, 150. 
 Times, The, its self-contained 
 
 articles, 133. 
 Time, The, sister Oblivion, 216. 
 Tomkins, pricked, 189. 
 Too strong and too tedious, 226. 
 Towcester Show Woman, A, her 
 
 graphic speech, 224. 
 Traducing, a defamatory charge, 
 
 87. 
 
 Transition, The, argument obsolete, 
 
 46. 
 Truth in logic defined, 19. 
 Truth can be suppressed, 239, 
 Turner, out in the storm, 172. 
 
 u 
 
 Uncle Eben's simile, 211. 
 Undertaker talk, 207. 
 Understatements, 56. 
 University readmg, 198. 
 Utopian action belongs to Utopia, 
 45- 
 
 Vambery, Prof. Arminius, walks 
 
 on his tongue, 239. 
 Vickers, Rev. Mr, 1. 
 Vinet's unusual advice, 233. 
 Voltaire, the fame maker of Mas- 
 
 sillon, 183. 
 
 W 
 
 Walsall Literary Institute, 10. 
 Warburton, Bishop, his malevolent 
 
 simile, 121. 
 Wellington, his economy in men, 
 
 47- 
 his decision of judgment, 148. 
 
 169. 
 
 his defamation of his country- 
 men, 246. 
 
 Wesley's length of a sermon, 172. 
 
 Westbury, Lord, his Baconian pre- 
 cision, 244. 
 
 ' WTiat did iMr Gladstone say ? ' 
 HI. 
 
 Whately, Archbishop, wise advice 
 to preachers, 124. 
 
 Whewell, Professor, 139. 
 
 White, Blanco, his famous sonnet, 
 218. 
 
 White, William Hale, 144, 158. 
 
 Whitfield's forty minutes' discourse, 
 172. 
 
 his preaching 184.
 
 266 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Wilson, John, 152. 
 
 Wolseley, Lord, his wise counsel, 
 
 32. 
 Words superfluous, impediments of 
 
 sense, 171. 
 W^ordsworth, on the art of verse, 
 
 215. 
 Working men in Parliament, 150. 
 Writing, reducible to two letters. 
 
 14. 
 
 Writing for the press, and rule for, 
 
 114. 
 down to others, limited, 167. 
 
 Zelus, Rev. David, his singular 
 epitaph 97.
 
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