is, to be readable, and of orators, to be interesting; and this is
a gift of Nature; as Demosthenes, the most laborious student in
that kind, signified his sense of this necessity when he wrote,
“Good Fortune,” as his motto on his shield. As we know, the power of
discourse of certain individuals amounts to fascination, though it may
have no lasting effect. Some portion of this sugar must intermingle.
The right eloquence needs no bell to call the people together, and no
constable to keep them. It draws the children from their play, the
old from their arm-chairs, the invalid from his warm chamber: it holds
the hearer fast; steals away his feet, that he shall not depart,--his
memory, that he shall not remember the most pressing affairs,--his
belief, that he shall not admit any opposing considerations. The
pictures we have of it in semi-barbarous ages, when it has some
advantages in the simpler habit of the people, show what it aims at. It
is said that the Khans, or story-tellers, in Ispahan and other cities
of the East, attain a controlling power over their audience, keeping
them for many hours attentive to the most fanciful and extravagant
adventures. The whole world knows pretty well the style of these
improvisators, and how fascinating they are, in our translations of the
“Arabian Nights.” Scheherezade tells these stories to save her life,
and the delight of young Europe and young America in them proves that
she fairly earned it. And who does not remember in childhood some white
or black or yellow Scheherezade, who, by that talent of telling endless
feats of fairies and magicians, and kings and queens, was more dear and
wonderful to a circle of children than any orator in England or America
is now? The more indolent and imaginative complexion of the Eastern
nations makes them much more impressible by these appeals to the fancy.
These legends are only exaggerations of real occurrences, and every
literature contains these high compliments to the art of the orator
and the bard, from the Hebrew and the Greek down to the Scottish
Glenkindie, who
“harpit a fish out o’ saut-water,
Or water out of a stone,
Or milk out of a maiden’s breast
Who bairn had never none.”
Homer specially delighted in drawing the same figure. For what is the
“Odyssey” but a history of the orator, in the largest style, carried
through a series of adventures furnishing brilliant opportunities to
his talent? See with what care and pleasure the poet brings him on the
stage. Helen is pointing out to Priam, from a tower, the different
Grecian chiefs. “The old man asked: ‘Tell me, dear child, who is
that man, shorter by a head than Agamemnon, yet he looks broader in
his shoulders and breast. His arms lie on the ground, but he, like a
leader, walks about the bands of the men. He seems to me like a stately
ram, who goes as a master of the flock.’ Him answered Helen, daughter
of Jove: ‘This is the wise Ulysses, son of Laertes, who was reared
in the state of craggy Ithaca, knowing all wiles and wise counsels.’
To her the prudent Antenor replied again: ‘O woman, you have spoken
truly. For once the wise Ulysses came hither on an embassy, with
Menelaus, beloved by Mars. I received them, and entertained them at my
house. I became acquainted with the genius and the prudent judgments
of both. When they mixed with the assembled Trojans, and stood, the
broad shoulders of Menelaus rose above the other; but, both sitting,
Ulysses was more majestic. When they conversed, and interweaved stories
and opinions with all, Menelaus spoke succinctly,--few but very sweet
words, since he was not talkative, nor superfluous in speech, and was
the younger. But when the wise Ulysses arose, and stood, and looked
down, fixing his eyes on the ground, and neither moved his sceptre
backward nor forward, but held it still, like an awkward person, you
would say it was some angry or foolish man; but when he sent his
great voice forth out of his breast, and his words fell like the
winter snows, not then would any mortal contend with Ulysses; and we,
beholding, wondered not afterwards so much at his aspect.’”[B] Thus he
does not fail to arm Ulysses at first with this power of overcoming
all opposition by the blandishments of speech. Plutarch tells us that
Thucydides, when Archidamus, king of Sparta, asked him which was the
best wrestler,--Pericles or he,--replied, “When I throw him, he says he
was never down, and he persuades the very spectators to believe him.”
Philip of Macedon said of Demosthenes, on hearing the report of one of
his orations, “Had I been there, he would have persuaded me to take up
arms against myself”; and Warren Hastings said of Burke’s speech on
his impeachment, “As I listened to the orator, I felt for more than
half an hour as if I were the most culpable being on earth.”
In these examples, higher qualities have already entered; but the power
of detaining the ear by pleasing speech, and addressing the fancy and
imagination, often exists without higher merits. Thus separated, as
this fascination of discourse aims only at amusement, though it be
decisive in its momentary effect, it is yet a juggle, and of no lasting
power. It is heard like a band of music passing through the streets,
which converts all the passengers into poets, but is forgotten as soon
as it has turned the next corner; and unless this oiled tongue could,
in Oriental phrase, lick the sun and moon away, it must take its place
with opium and brandy. I know no remedy against it but cotton-wool, or
the wax which Ulysses stuffed into the ears of his sailors to pass the
Sirens safely.
There are all degrees of power, and the least are interesting, but
they must not be confounded. There is the glib tongue and cool
self-possession of the salesman in a large shop, which, as is well
known, overpower the prudence and resolution of housekeepers of both
sexes. There is a petty lawyer’s fluency, which is sufficiently
impressive to him who is devoid of that talent, though it be, in so
many cases, nothing more than a facility of expressing with accuracy
and speed what everybody thinks and says more slowly, without new
information, or precision of thought,--but the same thing, neither less
nor more. It requires no special insight to edit one of our country
newspapers. Yet whoever can say off currently, sentence by sentence,
matter neither better nor worse than what is there printed, will be
very impressive to our easily pleased population. These talkers are
of that class who prosper, like the celebrated schoolmaster, by being
only one lesson ahead of the pupil. Add a little sarcasm, and prompt
allusion to passing occurrences, and you have the mischievous member
of Congress. A spice of malice, a ruffian touch in his rhetoric,
will do him no harm with his audience. These accomplishments are
of the same kind, and only a degree higher than the coaxing of the
auctioneer, or the vituperative style well described in the street-word
“jawing.” These kinds of public and private speaking have their use and
convenience to the practitioners; but we may say of such collectively,
that the habit of oratory is apt to disqualify them for eloquence.
One of our statesmen said, “The curse of this country is eloquent men.”
And one cannot wonder at the uneasiness sometimes manifested by trained
statesmen, with large experience of public affairs, when they observe
the disproportionate advantage suddenly given to oratory over the most
solid and accumulated public service. In a Senate or other business
committee, the solid result depends on a few men with working-talent.
They know how to deal with the facts before them, to put things into a
practical shape, and they value men only as they can forward the work.
But a new man comes there, who has no capacity for helping them at all,
is insignificant, and nobody in the committee, but has a talent for
speaking. In the debate with open doors, this precious person makes a
speech, which is printed, and read all over the Union, and he at once
becomes famous, and takes the lead in the public mind over all these
executive men, who, of course, are full of indignation to find one who
has no tact or skill, and knows he has none, put over them by means of
this talking-power which they despise.
Leaving behind us these pretensions, better or worse, to come a little
nearer to the verity,--eloquence is attractive as an example of the
magic of personal ascendency,--a total and resultant power, rare,
because it requires a rich coincidence of powers, intellect, will,
sympathy, organs, and, over all, good fortune in the cause. We have
a half-belief that the person is possible who can counterpoise all
other persons. We believe that there may be a man who is a match for
events,--one who never found his match,--against whom other men being
dashed are broken,--one of inexhaustible personal resources, who can
give you any odds and beat you. What we really wish for is a mind
equal to any exigency. You are safe in your rural district, or in the
city, in broad daylight, amidst the police, and under the eyes of a
hundred thousand people. But how is it on the Atlantic, in a storm,--do
you understand how to infuse your reason into men disabled by terror,
and to bring yourself off safe then?--how among thieves, or among an
infuriated populace, or among cannibals? Face to face with a highwayman
who has every temptation and opportunity for violence and plunder, can
you bring yourself off safe by your wit, exercised through speech?--a
problem easy enough to Cæsar or Napoleon. Whenever a man of that
stamp arrives, the highwayman has found a master. What a difference
between men in power of face! A man succeeds because he has more power
of eye than another, and so coaxes or confounds him. The newspapers,
every week, report the adventures of some impudent swindler, who, by
steadiness of carriage, duped those who should have known better. Yet
any swindlers we have known are novices and bunglers, as is attested
by their ill name. A greater power of face would accomplish anything,
and, with the rest of their takings, take away the bad name. A greater
power of carrying the thing loftily, and with perfect assurance, would
confound merchant, banker, judge, men of influence and power,--poet
and president,--and might head any party, unseat any sovereign, and
abrogate any constitution in Europe and America. It was said that a
man has at one step attained vast power, who has renounced his moral
sentiment, and settled it with himself that he will no longer stick
at anything. It was said of Sir William Pepperel, one of the worthies
of New England, that, “put him where you might, he commanded, and saw
what he willed come to pass.” Julius Cæsar said to Metellus, when that
tribune interfered to hinder him from entering the Roman treasury,
“Young man, it is easier for me to put you to death than to say that I
will”; and the youth yielded. In earlier days, he was taken by pirates.
What then? He threw himself into their ship, established the most
extraordinary intimacies, told them stories, declaimed to them; if they
did not applaud his speeches, he threatened them with hanging,--which
he performed afterwards,--and, in a short time, was master of all on
board. A man this is who cannot be disconcerted, and so can never play
his last card, but has a reserve of power when he has hit his mark.
With a serene face, he subverts a kingdom. What is told of him is
miraculous; it affects men so. The confidence of men in him is lavish,
and he changes the face of the world, and histories, poems, and new
philosophies arise to account for him. A supreme commander over all
his passions and affections; but the secret of his ruling is higher
than that. It is the power of Nature running without impediment from
the brain and will into the hands. Men and women are his game. Where
they are, he cannot be without resource. “Whoso can speak well,” said
Luther, “is a man.” It was men of this stamp that the Grecian States
used to ask of Sparta for generals. They did not send to Lacedæmon
for troops, but they said, “Send us a commander”; and Pausanias, or
Gylippus, or Brasidas, or Agis, was despatched by the Ephors.
It is easy to illustrate this overpowering personality by these
examples of soldiers and kings; but there are men of the most peaceful
way of life, and peaceful principle, who are felt, wherever they go, as
sensibly as a July sun or a December frost,--men who, if they speak,
are heard, though they speak in a whisper,--who, when they act, act
effectually, and what they do is imitated; and these examples may be
found on very humble platforms, as well as on high ones.
In old countries, a high money-value is set on the services of men who
have achieved a personal distinction. He who has points to carry must
hire, not a skilful attorney, but a commanding person. A barrister
in England is reputed to have made thirty or forty thousand pounds
_per annum_ in representing the claims of railroad companies before
committees of the House of Commons. His clients pay not so much for
legal as for manly accomplishments,--for courage, conduct, and a
commanding social position, which enable him to make their claims
heard and respected.
I know very well, that, among our cool and calculating people, where
every man mounts guard over himself, where heats and panics and
abandonments are quite out of the system, there is a good deal of
scepticism as to extraordinary influence. To talk of an overpowering
mind rouses the same jealousy and defiance which one may observe
round a table where anybody is recounting the marvellous anecdotes
of mesmerism. Each auditor puts a final stroke to the discourse by
exclaiming, “Can he mesmerize _me_?” So each man inquires if any orator
can change _his_ convictions.
But does any one suppose himself to be quite impregnable? Does he think
that not possibly a man may come to him who shall persuade him out of
his most settled determination?--for example, good sedate citizen as
he is, to make a fanatic of him,--or, if he is penurious, to squander
money for some purpose he now least thinks of,--or, if he is a prudent,
industrious person, to forsake his work, and give days and weeks to
a new interest? No, he defies any one, every one. Ah! he is thinking
of resistance, and of a different turn from his own. But what if one
should come of the same turn of mind as his own, and who sees much
farther on his own way than he? A man who has tastes like mine, but in
greater power, will rule me any day, and make me love my ruler.
Thus it is not powers of speech that we primarily consider under this
word _eloquence_, but the power that, being present, gives them their
perfection, and, being absent, leaves them a merely superficial value.
Eloquence is the appropriate organ of the highest personal energy.
Personal ascendency may exist with or without adequate talent for its
expression. It is as surely felt as a mountain or a planet; but when
it is weaponed with a power of speech, it seems first to become truly
human, works actively in all directions, and supplies the imagination
with fine materials.
This circumstance enters into every consideration of the power of
orators, and is the key to all their effects. In the assembly, you
shall find the orator and the audience in perpetual balance; and the
predominance of either is indicated by the choice of topic. If the
talents for speaking exist, but not the strong personality, then there
are good speakers who perfectly receive and express the will of the
audience, and the commonest populace is flattered by hearing its low
mind returned to it with every ornament which happy talent can add. But
if there be personality in the orator, the face of things changes. The
audience is thrown into the attitude of pupil, follows like a child its
preceptor, and hears what he has to say. It is as if, amidst the king’s
council at Madrid, Ximenes urged that an advantage might be gained of
France, and Mendoza that Flanders might be kept down, and Columbus,
being introduced, was interrogated whether his geographical knowledge
could aid the cabinet, and he can say nothing to one party or to the
other, but he can show how all Europe can be diminished and reduced
under the king, by annexing to Spain a continent as large as six or
seven Europes.
This balance between the orator and the audience is expressed in what
is called the pertinence of the speaker. There is always a rivalry
between the orator and the occasion, between the demands of the hour
and the prepossession of the individual. The emergency which has
convened the meeting is usually of more importance than anything the
debaters have in their minds, and therefore becomes imperative to them.
But if one of them have anything of commanding necessity in his heart,
how speedily he will find vent for it, and with the applause of the
assembly! This balance is observed in the privatest intercourse. Poor
Tom never knew the time when the present occurrence was so trivial that
he could tell what was passing in his mind without being checked for
unseasonable speech; but let Bacon speak, and wise men would rather
listen, though the revolution of kingdoms was on foot. I have heard
it reported of an eloquent preacher, whose voice is not yet forgotten
in this city, that, on occasions of death or tragic disaster, which
overspread the congregation with gloom, he ascended the pulpit with
more than his usual alacrity, and, turning to his favorite lessons of
devout and jubilant thankfulness,--“Let us praise the Lord,”--carried
audience, mourners, and mourning along with him, and swept away all the
impertinence of private sorrow with his hosannas and songs of praise.
Pepys says of Lord Clarendon (with whom “he is mad in love”), on his
return from a conference, “I did never observe how much easier a man do
speak when he knows all the company to be below him, than in him; for,
though he spoke indeed excellent well, yet his manner and freedom of
doing it, as if he played with it, and was informing only all the rest
of the company, was mighty pretty.”[C]
This rivalry between the orator and the occasion is inevitable, and
the occasion always yields to the eminence of the speaker; for a great
man is the greatest of occasions. Of course, the interest of the
audience and of the orator conspire. It is well with them only when his
influence is complete; then only they are well pleased. Especially, he
consults his power by making instead of taking his theme. If he should
attempt to instruct the people in that which they already know, he
would fail; but, by making them wise in that which he knows, he has
the advantage of the assembly every moment. Napoleon’s tactics of
marching on the angle of an army, and always presenting a superiority
of numbers, is the orator’s secret also.
The several talents which the orator employs, the splendid weapons
which went to the equipment of Demosthenes, of Æschines, of Demades
the natural orator, of Fox, of Pitt, of Patrick Henry, of Adams, of
Mirabeau, deserve a special enumeration. We must not quite omit to name
the principal pieces.
The orator, as we have seen, must be a substantial personality. Then,
first, he must have power of statement,--must have the fact, and
know how to tell it. In any knot of men conversing on any subject,
the person who knows most about it will have the ear of the company,
if he wishes it, and lead the conversation,--no matter what genius
or distinction other men there present may have; and in any public
assembly, him who has the facts, and can and will state them, people
will listen to, though he is otherwise ignorant, though he is hoarse
and ungraceful, though he stutters and screams.
In a court of justice, the audience are impartial; they really wish to
sift the statements and know what the truth is. And in the examination
of witnesses there usually leap out, quite unexpectedly, three or four
stubborn words or phrases which are the pith and fate of the business,
which sink into the ear of all parties, and stick there, and determine
the cause. All the rest is repetition and qualifying; and the court
and the county have really come together to arrive at these three or
four memorable expressions, which betrayed the mind and meaning of
somebody.
In every company, the man with the fact is like the guide you hire to
lead your party up a mountain, or through a difficult country. He may
not compare with any of the party in mind, or breeding, or courage, or
possessions, but he is much more important to the present need than
any of them. That is what we go to the court-house for,--the statement
of the fact, and the elimination of a general fact, the real relation
of all the parties; and it is the certainty with which, indifferently
in any affair that is well handled, the truth stares us in the face,
through all the disguises that are put upon it,--a piece of the
well-known human life,--that makes the interest of a court-room to the
intelligent spectator.
I remember, long ago, being attracted by the distinction of the
counsel, and the local importance of the cause, into the court-room.
The prisoner’s counsel were the strongest and cunningest lawyers in
the Commonwealth. They drove the attorney for the State from corner to
corner, taking his reasons from under him, and reducing him to silence,
but not to submission. When hard pressed, he revenged himself, in his
turn, on the judge, by requiring the court to define what salvage was.
The court, thus pushed, tried words, and said everything it could
think of to fill the time, supposing cases, and describing duties of
insurers, captains, pilots, and miscellaneous sea-officers that are or
might be,--like a schoolmaster puzzled by a hard sum, who reads the
context with emphasis. But all this flood not serving the cuttle-fish
to get away in, the horrible shark of the district-attorney being still
there, grimly awaiting with his “The court must define,”--the poor
court pleaded its inferiority. The superior court must establish the
law for this, and it read away piteously the decisions of the Supreme
Court, but read to those who had no pity. The judge was forced at last
to rule something, and the lawyers saved their rogue under the fog
of a definition. The parts were so well cast and discriminated, that
it was an interesting game to watch. The government was well enough
represented. It was stupid, but it had a strong will and possession,
and stood on that to the last. The judge had a task beyond his
preparation, yet his position remained real: he was there to represent
a great reality,--the justice of states, which we could well enough see
beetling over his head, and which his trifling talk nowise affected,
and did not impede, since he was entirely well-meaning.
The statement of the fact, however, sinks before the statement of
the law, which requires immeasurably higher powers, and is a rarest
gift, being in all great masters one and the same thing,--in
lawyers, nothing technical, but always some piece of common sense,
alike interesting to laymen as to clerks. Lord Mansfield’s merit
is the merit of common sense. It is the same quality we admire in
Aristotle, Montaigne, Cervantes, or in Samuel Johnson, or Franklin. Its
application to law seems quite accidental. Each of Mansfield’s famous
decisions contains a level sentence or two, which hit the mark. His
sentences are not always finished to the eye, but are finished to the
mind. The sentences are involved, but a solid proposition is set forth,
a true distinction is drawn. They come from and they go to the sound
human understanding; and I read without surprise that the black-letter
lawyers of the day sneered at his “equitable decisions,” as if they
were not also learned. This, indeed, is what speech is for,--to make
the statement; and all that is called eloquence seems to me of little
use, for the most part, to those who have if, but inestimable to such
as have something to say.
Next to the knowledge of the fact and its law is method, which
constitutes the genius and efficiency of all remarkable men. A crowd
of men go up to Faneuil Hall; they are all pretty well acquainted with
the object of the meeting; they have all read the facts in the same
newspapers. The orator possesses no information which his hearers have
not; yet he teaches them to see the thing with his eyes. By the new
placing, the circumstances acquire new solidity and worth. Every fact
gains consequence by his naming it, and trifles become important. His
expressions fix themselves in men’s memories, and fly from mouth to
mouth. His mind has some new principle of order. Where he looks, all
things fly into their places. What will he say next? Let this man
speak, and this man only. By applying the habits of a higher style of
thought to the common affairs of this world, he introduces beauty and
magnificence wherever he goes. Such a power was Burke’s, and of this
genius we have had some brilliant examples in our own political and
legal men.
Imagery. The orator must be, to a certain extent, a poet. We are
such imaginative creatures, that nothing so works on the human mind,
barbarous or civil, as a trope. Condense some daily experience into a
glowing symbol, and an audience is electrified. They feel as if they
already possessed some new right and power over a fact, which they can
detach, and so completely master in thought. It is a wonderful aid to
the memory, which carries away the image, and never loses it. A popular
assembly, like the House of Commons, or the French Chamber, or the
American Congress, is commanded by these two powers,--first by a fact,
then by skill of statement. Put the argument into a concrete shape,
into an image,--some hard phrase, round and solid as a ball, which they
can see and handle and carry home with them,--and the cause is half
won.