Oratory is the masterful art. Poetry, painting, music, sculpture,
architecture please, thrill, inspire; but oratory rules. The orator
dominates those who hear him, convinces their reason, controls their
judgment, compels their action. For the time being he is master.
Through the clearness of his logic, the keenness of his wit, the
power of his appeal, or that magnetic something which is felt and
yet cannot be defined, or through all together, he sways his
audience as the storm bends the branches of the forest. Hence it is
that in all times this wonderful power has been something longed for
and striven for. Demosthenes, on the beach, struggling with the
pebbles in his mouth to perfect his articulation, has been the great
example. Yet it is often true of the orator, as of the poet;
_nascitur_ _non_ _fit_. Patrick Henry seemed to be inspired as
"Give me liberty or give me death" rolled from his lips. The
untutored savage has shown himself an orator.
Who does not delight in oratory? How we gather to hear even an
ordinary speaker! How often is a jury swayed and controlled by the
appeals of counsel! Do we not all feel the magic of the power, and
when occasionally we are permitted to listen to a great orator how
completely we lose ourselves and yield in willing submission to the
imperious and impetuous flow of his speech! It is said that after
Webster's great reply to Hayne every Massachusetts man walking down
Pennsylvania Avenue seemed a foot taller.
This marvelous power is incapable of complete preservation on the
printed page. The presence, the eye, the voice, the magnetic touch,
are beyond record. The phonograph and kinetoscope may some day seize
and perpetuate all save the magnetic touch, but that weird,
illusive, indefinable yet wonderfully real power by which the orator
subdues may never be caught by science or preserved for the cruel
dissecting knife of the critic. It is the marvelous light flashing
out in the intellectual heavens which no Franklin has yet or may
ever draw and tie to earth by string of kite.
But while there is a living something which no human art has yet been
able to grasp and preserve, there is a wonderful joy and comfort in
the record of that which the orator said. As we read we see the very
picture, though inarticulate, of the living orator. We may never know
all the marvelous power of Demosthenes, yet _Proton_, _meg_, _o_
_andres_ _Athenaioi_, suggests something of it. Cicero's silver speech
may never reach our ears, and yet who does not love to read _Quousque_
_tandem_ _abutere_, _O_ _Catilina_, _patientia_ _nostra_? So if on
the printed page we may not see the living orator, we may look upon
his picture--the photograph of his power. And it is this which it is
the thought and purpose of this work to present. We mean to
photograph the orators of the world, reproducing the words which they
spake, and trusting to the vivid imagination of the thoughtful reader
to put behind the recorded words the living force and power. In this
we shall fill a vacant place in literature. There are countless books
of poetry in which the gems of the great poets of the world have been
preserved, but oratory has not been thus favored. We have many
volumes which record the speeches of different orators, sometimes
connected with a biography of their lives and sometimes as independent
gatherings of speeches. We have also single books, like Goodrich's
'British Eloquence,' which give us partial selections of the great
orations. But this is intended to be universal in its reach, a
complete encyclopedia of oratory. The purpose is to present the best
efforts of the world's greatest orators in all ages; and with this
purpose kept in view as the matter of primary importance, to
supplement the great orations with others that are representative and
historically important--especially with those having a fundamental
connection with the most important events in the development of
Anglo-Saxon civilization. The greatest attention has been given to
the representative orators of England and America, so that the work
includes all that is most famous or most necessary to be known in the
oratory of the Anglo-Saxon race. Wherever possible, addresses have
been published in extenso. This has been the rule followed in giving
the great orations. In dealing with minor orators, the selections
made are considerable enough to show the style, method, and spirit.
Where it has been necessary to choose between two orations of equal
merit, the one having the greater historical significance has been
selected. Of course it would not be possible, keeping within
reasonable limits, to give every speech of every one worthy to be
called an orator. Indeed, the greatest of orators sometimes failed.
So we have carefully selected only those speeches which manifest the
power of eloquence; and this selection, we take pleasure in assuring
our readers, has been made by the most competent critics of the
country.
We have not confined ourselves to any one profession or field of
eloquence. The pulpit, the bar, the halls of legislation, and the
popular assembly have each and all been called upon for their best
contributions. The single test has been, is it oratory? the single
question, is there eloquence? The reader and student of every class
will therefore find within these pages that which will satisfy his
particular taste and desire in the matter of oratory.
As this work is designed especially for the American reader, we have
deemed it proper to give prominence to Anglo-Saxon orators; and yet
this prominence has not been carried so far as to make the work a
one-sided collection. It is not a mere presentation of American or
even of English-speaking orators. We submit the work to the American
public in the belief that all will find pleasure, interest, and
instruction in its pages, and in the hope that it will prove an
Inspiration to the growing generation to see to it that oratory be
not classed among the "lost arts," but that it shall remain an
ever-present and increasing power and blessing to the world.