SUBJECT AND OBJECT.
We now enter upon the most practical part of our subject. We have seen
what natural qualities are indispensable, and how these, when possessed,
can be improved by training. The importance of a wide scope of knowledge
bearing upon oratory, and of understanding and having some command of
the powers of language has been pointed out. When a man has all of
these, and is still a diligent student growing daily in knowledge, he is
ready to consider the methods by which all his gifts and acquirements
may be concentrated upon a single speech. Some of the directions in this
and the immediately succeeding chapters are of universal application,
while others are thrown out as mere suggestions to be modified and
changed according to individual taste or particular circumstances.
A plan is necessary for every kind of speech. A rude mass of brick,
lumber, mortar, and iron, thrown together as the materials chance to be
furnished, does not constitute a house until each item is built into its
own place according to some intelligent design. A speech has the same
need of organization. A few minutes of desultory talk, whether uttered
in a low or high voice, to one person or to many, does not make a
speech. The talk may be good, or useful, or striking: it may be replete
with sparkling imagery, and full of valuable ideas that command
attention, and yet be no real discourse. The question, “What was all
this about? what end did the speaker have in view?” is a fatal
condemnation. The subject and object of every discourse should be
perfectly obvious—if not at the opening, surely at the close of the
address. The only safe method is to have a well-defined plan marked out
from beginning to end, and then to bring every part of the work into
subordination to one leading idea. The plan itself should be constructed
with some clear object in view.
It is better that this construction of the plan should be completed
before delivery begins. If you are suddenly called to speak on some
topic you have often thought over, the whole outline of the address,
with a plan perfect in every part, may flash upon you in a moment, and
you may speak as well as if you had been allowed months for preparation.
But such cases are rare exceptions. The man who attempts, on the spur of
the moment, to arrange his facts, draw his inferences, and enforce his
opinions, will usually find the task very difficult, even if the topic
is within his mental grasp, and his memory promptly furnishes him with
all necessary materials.
We will now consider the _subject_ and _object_ which every true
discourse, whatever its character, must possess.
First, as to the object: why is it that at a particular time an audience
assembles and sits in silence, while one man standing up, talks to them?
What is his motive in thus claiming their attention? Many of them may
have come from mere impulse, of which they could give no rational
explanation, but the speaker at least should have a definite purpose.
A clear aim tends powerfully to give unity and consistency to the whole
discourse, and to prevent him from wandering into endless digressions.
It binds all detached parts together and infuses a common life through
his address. Such a ruling aim cannot be too definitely recognized and
carefully kept in view, for it is the foundation of the whole discourse.
This object should not be too general in character. It is not enough
that we wish to please or to do good: it may be safely assumed that
speakers generally wish to do both. But how shall these ends be reached?
“What special good do I hope to accomplish by this address?”
When you have made the object definite, you are better prepared to adapt
all available means to its accomplishment. It should also be stated that
the more objects are subdivided the more precision will be augmented,
though there is a limit beyond which such division would be at the
expense of other qualities.
Your object will usually have reference to the opinion or the action of
those addressed, and the firmer your own conviction of the truth of that
opinion, or the desirableness of that action, the greater, other things
being equal, your persuasive power will be. If you do not know exactly
what you wish, there is little probability that your audience will care
to interpret your thought; they will take it for granted that you really
mean nothing, and even if you do incidentally present some truth
supported by good arguments, they will consider it a matter not calling
for any immediate consideration or definite decision on their part.
The speaker’s objects are comparatively few and are often determined by
his very position and employment. If you are engaged in a political
canvass you are seeking to confirm and retain the votes of your own
party, while persuading over to your side the opposition. Votes
constitute the object you seek, and to win them is your purpose. But
there are many ways by which that desirable end may be accomplished—some
wise and noble, others ignoble. But a political orator will gain in
power by keeping clearly in view his purpose and rejecting from his
speeches all things that merely arouse and embitter opponents, without,
at the same time, contributing to strengthen the hold of the speaker’s
own party upon its members.
If you are a lawyer you wish to win your case. The judge’s charge, the
jury’s verdict, are your objective points, and all mere display which
does not contribute directly or indirectly to these ends is worse than
wasted, as it may even interfere with your real purpose.
Much of your success will depend upon keeping the right object before
you at the right time. If you aim at that which is unattainable, the
effort is not only lost, but the object which you could have reached may
in the meantime have passed out of your reach. Everybody has heard
ministers arguing against some forms of unbelief which their hearers
know nothing about. This is worse than useless; it may suggest the very
errors intended to be refuted; and if this does not result, to think
that the refutation will be stored up until the time when the errors
themselves may be encountered, is to take a most flattering view of the
length of time during which sermons as well as other discourses are
remembered. You may avoid these errors by selecting some object which is
practicable at the moment of utterance: the first right step makes all
after success possible.
There is a difference between the object of a speech and its subject;
the former is the motive that impels us to speak, while the latter is
what we speak about. It is not uncommon for talkers to have a subject
without any definite object, unless it be the very general one of
complying with a form or fulfilling an engagement. When the period for
the talk comes—it would not be right to call it a speech—they take the
easiest subject they can find, express all the ideas they happen to have
about it, and leave the matter. Until such persons become in earnest,
and get a living object, true eloquence is utterly impossible.
The object of a discourse is the soul, while the subject is but the
body; or, as we may say, the one is the end, while the other is the
means by which it is accomplished. After the object is clearly realized
by the speaker, he can choose the subject to much better advantage. It
may happen that one object is so much more important than all other
practicable ones that it forces itself irresistibly on his attention and
thus saves the labor of choice; at other times he may have several
different objects with no particular reason for preferring one of them
in the order of time to another. In this case if a subject fills his
mind it will be well to discuss it with an aim toward the object which
may be best enforced by its means.
After all, it makes but little difference which of these two is chosen
first. It is enough that when you undertake to speak you have a subject
you fully understand, and an object that warms your heart and enlists
all your powers. You can then speak, not as one who deals with
abstractions, but as having a living mission to perform.
It is important that each subject should be complete in itself, and
rounded off from everything else. Its boundaries should be run with such
precision as to include all that belongs to it, but nothing more. It is
a common but grievous fault to have the same cast of ideas flowing
around every subject. There are few things in the universe which have
not some relation to everything else. If we do not, therefore, very
strictly bound our subject, we will find ourselves bringing the same
matter into each discourse and perpetually repeating our thoughts. If
ingenious in that matter, we may find a good excuse for getting our
favorite anecdotes and brilliant ideas into connection with the most
opposite kinds of subjects. An old minister once gave me an amusing
account of the manner in which he made outlines of the sermons of a
local celebrity. The first one was a very able discourse, with three
principal divisions—man’s fallen estate, the glorious means provided for
his recovery, and the fearful consequences of neglecting those means.
Liking the sermon very well, my informant went to hear the same man
again. The text was new, but the first proposition, was man’s fallen
estate; the second, the glorious means provided for his recovery; and
the last, the fearful consequences of neglecting those means. Thinking
that the repetition was an accident, another trial was made. The text
was at as great a remove as possible from the other two. The first
proposition was, _man’s fallen estate_; and the others followed in due
order. This was an extreme instance of a common fault, which is by no
means confined to the ministry. When an eloquent Congressman was once
delivering a great address, a member on the opposite benches rubbed his
hands in apparently ecstatic delight, and remarked in a stage whisper,
“Oh! how I have always loved to hear that speech!” In a book of widely
circulated sermon sketches, nearly every one begins by asserting that
man has fallen and needs the helps or is liable to the evils mentioned
afterward. No doubt this primary statement is important, but it might
sometimes be taken for granted. The fault which we have here pointed out
is not uncommon in preaching. Occasionally ministers acquire such a
stereotyped form of expression that what they say in one sermon is sure
to recur, perhaps in a modified form, in all others. This is
intolerable. There is an end to the patience of man. He tires of the
same old ideas, and wishes, when a new text is taken, that it may bring
with it some novelty in the sermon. The remedy against the evil under
consideration is found in the careful selection and definition of
subjects. Give to each its own territory and guard rigidly against all
trespassers. A speaker should not only see that what he says has some
kind of connection with the subject in hand, but that it has a closer
connection with that subject than any other he may be called upon to
discuss at or near the same time. A very great lecturer advertises a
number of lectures upon topics that seem to be totally independent. Yet
all the lectures are but one, except a few paragraphs in the
introduction of each. This is really a less fault in the case of an
itinerating lecturer than in most other fields of oratory, as the same
people hear the lecture but once. Yet even then the false assumption of
intellectual riches implied in the numerous titles cannot be justified.
The subject should be so well defined that we always know just what we
are speaking about. It may be of a general nature, but our knowledge of
it should be clear and adequate. This is more necessary in an extempore
than in a written speech, though the want of it will be severely felt in
the latter also. A strong, vividly defined subject will give unity to
the whole discourse, and probably leave a permanent impression on the
mind of the hearer. To aid in securing this it will be well to reduce
every subject to its simplest form, and then, by writing it as a compact
phrase or sentence, stamp it on the mind, and let it ring in every
utterance; that is, let each word aid in carrying out the central idea,
or in leading up to it. Those interminable discourses that begin
anywhere and lead nowhere, may be called speeches or sermons, by
courtesy, but they are not such.
To always preserve this unity of theme and treatment is not easy, and
calls, often, for the exercise of heroic self-denial. To see in the
mind’s eye what we know would please and delight listeners, pander to
their prejudices, or gain uproarious applause, and then turn away with
the words unspoken, merely because it is foreign to our subject—this is
as sore a trial as for a miser on a sinking ship to abandon his gold.
But it is equally necessary, if we would not fall into grave rhetorical
errors. Any speech which is constructed on the plan of putting into it
all the wise or witty or pleasing things the speaker can think of will
be a mere mass of more or less foolish talk. Shakespeare is often
reproached with having neglected the dramatic unities of place and time;
but he never overlooked the higher unities of subject and object. These
remarks do not imply that illustration should be discarded or even used
sparingly. The whole realm of nature may be ransacked for these gems,
and if they do illustrate, they are often better than statement or
argument. If the thing to be illustrated belongs to the subject, then
every apt illustration of it also belongs there.
It is possible that men of genius may neglect the unity of subject and
object, and still succeed by sheer intellectual force, as they might do
under any other circumstances. But ordinary men cannot with safety
follow the example of Sidney Smith. His hearers complained that he did
not “stick to his text,” and, that he might reform the more easily, they
suggested that he should divide his sermons as other ministers did. He
promised to gratify them, and the next Sabbath, after reading his text,
he began: “We will divide our discourse this morning into three parts:
in the first place, we will go _up_ to our text; in the second place, we
will go _through_ it; and in the third place, we will go _from_ it.”
There was general agreement that he succeeded best on the last head, but
preachers who are not confident of possessing his genius had better
confine themselves to the former two.
A true discourse is the orderly development of some one thought or idea
with so much clearness and power that it may ever after live as a point
of light in the memory. Other ideas may cluster around the central one,
but it must reign supreme. If the discourse fails in this particular
nothing else can redeem it. Brilliancy of thought and illustration will
be as completely wasted as a sculptor’s art on a block of clay.
A man of profound genius once arose to preach before a great assemblage,
and every breath was hushed. He spoke with power, and many of his
passages were of thrilling eloquence. He poured forth beautiful images
and solemn thoughts with the utmost profusion; yet when at the end of an
hour he took his seat, the prevailing sentiment was one of
disappointment. The address was confused—utterly destitute of any point
of union to which the memory could cling. Many of his statements were
clear and impressive, but he did not make evident what he was talking
about. It was an impressive warning against erecting a building before
laying a foundation.