dealing with facts, of illuminating them, of sinking them by ridicule
or by diversion of the mind, rapid generalization, humor, pathos,
are keys which the orator holds; and yet these fine gifts are not
eloquence, and do often hinder a man’s attainment of it. And if we
come to the heart of the mystery, perhaps we should say that the truly
eloquent man is a sane man with power to communicate his sanity. If
you arm the man with the extraordinary weapons of this art, give him
a grasp of facts, learning, quick fancy, sarcasm, splendid allusion,
interminable illustration,--all these talents, so potent and charming,
have an equal power to insnare and mislead the audience and the orator.
His talents are too much for him, his horses run away with him; and
people always perceive whether you drive, or whether the horses take
the bits in their teeth and run. But these talents are quite something
else when they are subordinated and serve him; and we go to Washington,
or to Westminster Hall, or might well go round the world, to see a
man who drives, and is not run away with,--a man who, in prosecuting
great designs, has an absolute command of the means of representing his
ideas, and uses them only to express these; placing facts, placing men;
amid the inconceivable levity of human beings, never for an instant
warped from his erectness. There is for every man a statement possible
of that truth which he is most unwilling to receive,--a statement
possible, so broad and so pungent that he cannot get away from it, but
must either bend to it or die of it. Else there would be no such word
as eloquence, which means this. The listener cannot hide from himself
that something has been shown him and the whole world, which he did
not wish to see; and, as he cannot dispose of it, it disposes of him.
The history of public men and affairs in America will readily furnish
tragic examples of this fatal force.
For the triumphs of the art somewhat more must still be required,
namely, a reinforcing of man from events, so as to give the double
force of reason and destiny. In transcendent eloquence, there was
ever some crisis in affairs, such as could deeply engage the man to
the cause he pleads, and draw all this wide power to a point. For
the explosions and eruptions, there must be accumulations of heat
somewhere, beds of ignited anthracite at the centre. And in cases where
profound conviction has been wrought, the eloquent man is he who is no
beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a certain belief. It
agitates and tears him, and perhaps almost bereaves him of the power
of articulation. Then it rushes from him as in short, abrupt screams,
in torrents of meaning. The possession the subject has of his mind is
so entire, that it insures an order of expression which is the order
of Nature itself, and so the order of greatest force, and inimitable
by any art. And the main distinction between him and other well-graced
actors is the conviction, communicated by every word, that his mind is
contemplating a whole, and inflamed by the contemplation of the whole,
and that the words and sentences uttered by him, however admirable,
fall from him as unregarded parts of that terrible whole which he
sees, and which he means that you shall see. Add to this concentration
a certain regnant calmness, which, in all the tumult, never utters a
premature syllable, but keeps the secret of its means and method; and
the orator stands before the people as a demoniacal power to whose
miracles they have no key. This terrible earnestness makes good the
ancient superstition of the hunter, that the bullet will hit its mark,
which is first dipped in the marksman’s blood.
Eloquence must be grounded on the plainest narrative. Afterwards, it
may warm itself until it exhales symbols of every kind and color,
speaks only through the most poetic forms; but, first and last, it
must still be at bottom a biblical statement of fact. The orator is
thereby an orator, that he keeps his feet ever on a fact. Thus only
is he invincible. No gifts, no graces, no power of wit or learning or
illustration, will make any amends for want of this. All audiences
are just to this point. Fame of voice or of rhetoric will carry people
a few times to hear a speaker; but they soon begin to ask, “What
is he driving at?” and if this man does not stand for anything, he
will be deserted. A good upholder of anything which they believe, a
fact-speaker of any kind, they will long follow; but a pause in the
speaker’s own character is very properly a loss of attraction. The
preacher enumerates his classes of men, and I do not find my place
therein; I suspect, then, that no man does. Everything is my cousin;
and whilst he speaks things, I feel that he is touching some of my
relations, and I am uneasy; but whilst he deals in words, we are
released from attention. If you would lift me, you must be on higher
ground. If you would liberate me, you must be free. If you would
correct my false view of facts,--hold up to me the same facts in the
true order of thought, and I cannot go back from the new conviction.
The power of Chatham, of Pericles, of Luther, rested on this strength
of character, which, because it did not and could not fear anybody,
made nothing of their antagonists, and became sometimes exquisitely
provoking and sometimes terrific to these.
We are slenderly furnished with anecdotes of these men, nor can we help
ourselves by those heavy books in which their discourses are reported.
Some of them were writers, like Burke; but most of them were not,
and no record at all adequate to their fame remains. Besides, what
is best is lost,--the fiery life of the moment. But the conditions
for eloquence always exist. It is always dying out of famous places,
and appearing in corners. Wherever the polarities meet, wherever the
fresh moral sentiment, the instinct of freedom and duty, come in
direct opposition to fossil conservatism and the thirst of gain, the
spark will pass. The resistance to slavery in this country has been a
fruitful nursery of orators. The natural connection by which it drew
to itself a train of moral reforms, and the slight yet sufficient
party organization it offered, reinforced the city with new blood from
the woods and mountains. Wild men, John Baptists, Hermit Peters, John
Knoxes, utter the savage sentiment of Nature in the heart of commercial
capitals. They send us every year some piece of aboriginal strength,
some tough oak-stick of a man who is not to be silenced or insulted
or intimidated by a mob, because he is more mob than they,--one who
mobs the mob,--some sturdy countryman, on whom neither money, nor
politeness, nor hard words, nor eggs, nor blows, nor brickbats, make
any impression. He is fit to meet the bar-room wits and bullies; he is
a wit and a bully himself, and something more: he is a graduate of the
plough, and the stub-hoe, and the bushwhacker; knows all the secrets
of swamp and snow-bank, and has nothing to learn of labor or poverty
or the rough of farming. His hard head went through, in childhood, the
drill of Calvinism, with text and mortification, so that he stands
in the New England assembly a purer bit of New England than any, and
flings his sarcasms right and left. He has not only the documents in
his pocket to answer all cavils, and to prove all his positions, but
he has the eternal reason in his head. This man scornfully renounces
your civil organizations,--county, or city, or governor, or army,--is
his own navy and artillery, judge and jury, legislature and executive.
He has learned his lessons in a bitter school. Yet, if the pupil be of
a texture to bear it, the best university that can be recommended to a
man of ideas is the gauntlet of the mobs.
He who will train himself to mastery in this science of persuasion must
lay the emphasis of education, not on popular arts, but on character
and insight. Let him see that his speech is not differenced from
action; that, when he has spoken, he has not done nothing, nor done
wrong, but has cleared his own skirts, has engaged himself to wholesome
exertion. Let him look on opposition as opportunity. He cannot be
defeated or put down. There is a principle of resurrection in him, an
immortality of purpose. Men are averse and hostile, to give value to
their suffrages. It is not the people that are in fault for not being
convinced, but he that cannot convince them. He should mould them,
armed as he is with the reason and love which are also the core of
their nature. He is not to neutralize their opposition, but he is to
convert them into fiery apostles and publishers of the same wisdom.
The highest platform of eloquence is the moral sentiment. It is what
is called affirmative truth, and has the property of invigorating the
hearer; and it conveys a hint of our eternity, when he feels himself
addressed on grounds which will remain when everything else is taken,
and which have no trace of time or place or party. Everything hostile
is stricken down in the presence of the sentiments; their majesty is
felt by the most obdurate. It is observable that, as soon as one acts
for large masses, the moral element will and must be allowed for,
will and must work; and the men least accustomed to appeal to these
sentiments invariably recall them when they address nations. Napoleon,
even, must accept and use it as he can.
It is only to these simple strokes that the highest power
belongs,--when a weak human hand touches, point by point, the eternal
beams and rafters on which the whole structure of Nature and society
is laid. In this tossing sea of delusion, we feel with our feet the
adamant; in this dominion of chance, we find a principle of permanence.
For I do not accept that definition of Isocrates, that the office of
his art is, to make the great small and the small great; but I esteem
this to be its perfection,--when the orator sees through all masks to
the eternal scale of truth, in such sort that he can hold up before
the eyes of men the fact of to-day steadily to that standard, thereby
making the great great, and the small small, which is the true way to
astonish and to reform mankind.
All the chief orators of the world have been grave men, relying on
this reality. One thought the philosophers of Demosthenes’s own time
found running through all his orations,--this namely, that “virtue
secures its own success.” “To stand on one’s own feet” Heeren finds the
key-note to the discourses of Demosthenes, as of Chatham.
Eloquence, like every other art, rests on laws the most exact and
determinate. It is the best speech of the best soul. It may well stand
as the exponent of all that is grand and immortal in the mind. If it do
not so become an instrument, but aspires to be somewhat of itself, and
to glitter for show, it is false and weak. In its right exercise, it
is an elastic, unexhausted power,--who has sounded, who has estimated
it?--expanding with the expansion of our interests and affections. Its
great masters, whilst they valued every help to its attainment, and
thought no pains too great which contributed in any manner to further
it;--resembling the Arabian warrior of fame, who wore seventeen weapons
in his belt, and in personal combat used them all occasionally;--yet
subordinated all means; never permitted any talent--neither voice,
rhythm, poetic power, anecdote, sarcasm--to appear for show; but were
grave men, who preferred their integrity to their talent, and esteemed
that object for which they toiled, whether the prosperity of their
country, or the laws, or a reformation, or liberty of speech or of the
press, or letters, or morals, as above the whole world, and themselves
also.
DOMESTIC LIFE.
DOMESTIC LIFE.
The perfection of the providence for childhood is easily acknowledged.
The care which covers the seed of the tree under tough husks and stony
cases provides for the human plant the mother’s breast and the father’s
house. The size of the nestler is comic, and its tiny beseeching
weakness is compensated perfectly by the happy patronizing look of the
mother, who is a sort of high reposing Providence toward it. Welcome to
the parents the puny struggler, strong in his weakness, his little arms
more irresistible than the soldier’s, his lips touched with persuasion
which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected
lamentations when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful,
the sobbing child,--the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow
his vexation,--soften all hearts to pity, and to mirthful and
clamorous compassion. The small despot asks so little that all reason
and all nature are on his side. His ignorance is more charming than
all knowledge, and his little sins more bewitching than any virtue.
His flesh is angels’ flesh, all alive. “Infancy,” said Coleridge,
“presents body and spirit in unity: the body is all animated.” All
day, between his three or four sleeps, he coos like a pigeon-house,
sputters, and spurs, and puts on his faces of importance; and when he
fasts, the little Pharisee fails not to sound his trumpet before him.
By lamplight he delights in shadows on the wall; by daylight, in yellow
and scarlet. Carry him out of doors,--he is overpowered by the light
and by the extent of natural objects, and is silent. Then presently
begins his use of his fingers, and he studies power, the lesson of
his race. First it appears in no great harm, in architectural tastes.
Out of blocks, thread-spools, cards, and checkers, he will build his
pyramid with the gravity of Palladio. With an acoustic apparatus of
whistle and rattle he explores the laws of sound. But chiefly, like his
senior countrymen, the young American studies new and speedier modes of
transportation. Mistrusting the cunning of his small legs, he wishes
to ride on the necks and shoulders of all flesh. The small enchanter
nothing can withstand,--no seniority of age, no gravity of character;
uncles, aunts, grandsires, grandams, fall an easy prey: he conforms to
nobody, all conform to him; all caper and make mouths, and babble, and
chirrup to him. On the strongest shoulders he rides, and pulls the hair
of laurelled heads.
“The childhood,” said Milton, “shows the man, as morning shows the
day.” The child realizes to every man his own earliest remembrance,
and so supplies a defect in our education, or enables us to live over
the unconscious history with a sympathy so tender as to be almost
personal experience.
Fast--almost too fast for the wistful curiosity of the parents,
studious of the witchcraft of curls and dimples and broken words--the
little talker grows to a boy. He walks daily among wonders: fire,
light, darkness, the moon, the stars, the furniture of the house, the
red tin horse, the domestics, who like rude foster-mothers befriend and
feed him, the faces that claim his kisses, are all in turn absorbing;
yet warm, cheerful, and with good appetite the little sovereign subdues
them without knowing it; the new knowledge is taken up into the life of
to-day and becomes the means of more. The blowing rose is a new event;
the garden full of flowers is Eden over again to the small Adam; the
rain, the ice, the frost, make epochs in his life. What a holiday is
the first snow in which Twoshoes can be trusted abroad!
What art can paint or gild any object in after-life with the glow which
Nature gives to the first baubles of childhood! St. Peter’s cannot
have the magical power over us that the red and gold covers of our
first picture-book possessed. How the imagination cleaves to the warm
glories of that tinsel even now! What entertainments make every day
bright and short for the fine freshman! The street is old as Nature;
the persons all have their sacredness. His imaginative life dresses all
things in their best. His fears adorn the dark parts with poetry. He
has heard of wild horses and of bad boys, and with a pleasing terror he
watches at his gate for the passing of those varieties of each species.
The first ride into the country, the first bath in running water,
the first time the skates are put on, the first game out of doors in
moonlight, the books of the nursery, are new chapters of joy. The
“Arabian Nights’ Entertainments,” the “Seven Champions of Christendom,”
“Robinson Crusoe,” and the “Pilgrim’s Progress,”--what mines of thought
and emotion, what a wardrobe to dress the whole world withal, are
in this encyclopædia of young thinking! And so by beautiful traits,
which, without art, yet seem the masterpiece of wisdom, provoking the
love that watches and educates him, the little pilgrim prosecutes the
journey through nature which he has thus gayly begun. He grows up the
ornament and joy of the house, which rings to his glee, to rosy boyhood.
The household is the home of the man, as well as of the child. The
events that occur therein are more near and affecting to us than
those which are sought in senates and academies. Domestic events are
certainly our affair. What are called public events may or may not
be ours. If a man wishes to acquaint himself with the real history
of the world, with the spirit of the age, he must not go first to
the state-house or the court-room. The subtle spirit of life must be
sought in facts nearer. It is what is done and suffered in the house,
in the constitution, in the temperament, in the personal history, that
has the profoundest interest for us. Fact is better than fiction, if
only we could get pure fact. Do you think any rhetoric or any romance
would get your ear from the wise gypsy who could tell straight on the
real fortunes of the man; who could reconcile your moral character and
your natural history; who could explain your misfortunes, your fevers,
your debts, your temperament, your habits of thought, your tastes,
and, in every explanation, not sever you from the whole, but unite you
to it? Is it not plain that not in senates, or courts, or chambers
of commerce, but in the dwelling-house must the true character and
hope of the time be consulted? These facts are, to be sure, harder to
read. It is easier to count the census, or compute the square extent
of a territory, to criticise its polity, books, art, than to come to
the persons and dwellings of men, and read their character and hope
in their way of life. Yet we are always hovering round this better
divination. In one form or another, we are always returning to it. The
physiognomy and phrenology of to-day are rash and mechanical systems
enough, but they rest on everlasting foundations. We are sure that
the sacred form of man is not seen in these whimsical, pitiful, and
sinister masks (masks which we wear and which we meet), these bloated
and shrivelled bodies, bald heads, bead eyes, short winds, puny and
precarious healths, and early deaths. We live ruins amidst ruins. The
great facts are the near ones. The account of the body is to be sought
in the mind. The history of your fortunes is written first in your life.
Let us come, then, out of the public square, and enter the domestic
precinct. Let us go to the sitting-room, the table-talk, and the
expenditure of our contemporaries. An increased consciousness of the
soul, you say, characterizes the period. Let us see if it has not only
arranged the atoms at the circumference, but the atoms at the core.
Does the household obey an idea? Do you see the man,--his form, genius,
and aspiration,--in his economy? Is that translucent, thorough-lighted?
There should be nothing confounding and conventional in economy, but
the genius and love of the man so conspicuously marked in all his
estate, that the eye that knew him should read his character in his
property, in his grounds, in his ornaments, in every expense. A man’s
money should not follow the direction of his neighbor’s money, but
should represent to him the things he would willingliest do with it. I
am not one thing and my expenditure another. My expenditure is me. That
our expenditure and our character are twain, is the vice of society.
We ask the price of many things in shops and stalls, but some things
each man buys without hesitation, if it were only letters at the
post-office, conveyance in carriages and boats, tools for his work,
books that are written to his condition, etc. Let him never buy
anything else than what he wants, never subscribe at others’ instance,
never give unwillingly. Thus, a scholar is a literary foundation.
All his expense is for Aristotle, Fabricius, Erasmus, and Petrarch.
Do not ask him to help with his savings young drapers or grocers to
stock their shops, or eager agents to lobby in legislatures, or join a
company to build a factory or a fishing-craft. These things are also
to be done, but not by such as he. How could such a book as Plato’s
Dialogues have come down, but for the sacred savings of scholars and
their fantastic appropriation of them?
Another man is a mechanical genius, an inventor of looms, a builder
of ships,--a ship-building foundation, and could achieve nothing
if he should dissipate himself on books or on horses. Another is a
farmer,--an agricultural foundation; another is a chemist,--and the
same rule holds for all. We must not make believe with our money, but
spend heartily, and buy _up_ and not _down_.
I am afraid that, so considered, our houses will not be found to have
unity, and to express the best thought. The household, the calling,
the friendships, of the citizen are not homogeneous. His house ought
to show us his honest opinion of what makes his well-being when he
rests among his kindred, and forgets all affectation, compliance,
and even exertion of will. He brings home whatever commodities and
ornaments have for years allured his pursuit, and his character must be
seen in them. But what idea predominates in our houses? Thrift first,
then convenience and pleasure. Take off all the roofs, from street to
street, and we shall seldom find the temple of any higher god than
Prudence. The progress of domestic living has been in cleanliness, in
ventilation, in health, in decorum, in countless means and arts of
comfort, in the concentration of all the utilities of every clime in
each house. They are arranged for low benefits. The houses of the rich
are confectioners’ shops, where we get sweetmeats and wine; the houses
of the poor are imitations of these to the extent of their ability.
With these ends housekeeping is not beautiful; it cheers and raises
neither the husband, the wife, nor the child; neither the host, nor
the guest; it oppresses women. A house kept to the end of prudence is
laborious without joy; a house kept to the end of display is impossible
to all but a few women, and their success is dearly bought.
If we look at this matter curiously, it becomes dangerous. We need
all the force of an idea to lift this load; for the wealth and
multiplication of conveniences embarrass us, especially in northern
climates. The shortest enumeration of our wants in this rugged climate
appalls us by the multitude of things not easy to be done. And if you
look at the multitude of particulars, one would say: Good housekeeping
is impossible; order is too precious a thing to dwell with men and
women. See, in families where there is both substance and taste, at
what expense any favorite punctuality is maintained. If the children,
for example, are considered, dressed, dieted, attended, kept in proper
company, schooled, and at home fostered by the parents,--then does the
hospitality of the house suffer; friends are less carefully bestowed,
the daily table less catered. If the hours of meals are punctual, the
apartments are slovenly. If the linens and hangings are clean and fine,
and the furniture good, the yard, the garden, the fences are neglected.
If all are well attended, then must the master and mistress be studious
of particulars at the cost of their own accomplishments and growth,--or
persons are treated as things.