Eloquence is the child of Knowledge. When a mind is full, like a
wholesome river, it is also clear. Confusion and obscurity are much
oftener the results of ignorance than of inefficiency. Few are the men
who cannot express their meaning when the occasion demands the energy;
as the lowest will defend their lives with acuteness, and sometimes even
with eloquence. They are masters of their subject. Knowledge must be
gained by ourselves. Mankind may supply us with facts; but the results,
even if they agree with previous ones, must be the work of our own mind.
To make others feel, we must feel ourselves; and to feel ourselves, we
must be natural. This we can never be when we are vomiting forth the
dogmas of the schools. Knowledge is not a mere collection of words; and
it is a delusion to suppose that thought can be obtained by the aid of
any other intellect than our own. What is repetition, by a curious
mystery, ceases to be truth, even if it were truth when it was first
heard; as the shadow in a mirror, though it move and mimic all the
actions of vitality, is not life. When a man is not speaking or writing
from his own mind, he is as insipid company as a looking-glass. Before a
man can address a popular assembly with command, he must know something
of mankind, and he can know nothing of mankind without he knows
something of himself. Self-knowledge is the property of that man whose
passions have their play, but who ponders over their results. Such a man
sympathizes by inspiration with his kind. He has a key to every heart.
He can divine, in the flash of a single thought, all that they require,
all that they wish. Such a man speaks to their very core. All feel that
a master hand tears off the veil of cant, with which, from necessity,
they have enveloped their souls; for cant is nothing more than the
sophistry which results from attempting to account for what is
unintelligible, or to defend what is improper.