when a man seeks literary power he goes to his room and plans an
article for the press. But this is to begin literary culture at the
wrong end. We speak a hundred times for every once we write. The
busiest writer produces little more than a volume a year, not so much
as his talk would amount to in a week. Consequently through speech it
is usually decided whether a man is to have command of his language or
not. If he is slovenly in his ninety-nine cases of talking, he can
seldom pull himself up to strength and exactitude in the hundredth case
of writing. A person is made in one piece, and the same being runs
through a multitude of performances. Whether words are uttered on paper
or to the air, the effect on the utterer is the same. Vigor or
feebleness results according as energy or slackness has been in
command. I know that certain adaptations to a new field are often
necessary. A good speaker may find awkwardnesses in himself when he
comes to write, a good writer when he speaks. And certainly cases occur
where a man exhibits distinct strength in one of the two, speaking or
writing, and not in the other. But such cases are rare. As a rule,
language once within our control can be employed for oral or for
written purposes. And since the opportunities for oral practice
enormously outbalance those for written, it is the oral which are
chiefly significant in the development of literary power. We rightly
say of the accomplished writer that he shows a mastery of his own
tongue.
Fortunate it is, then, that self-cultivation in the use of English must
chiefly come through speech; because we are always speaking, whatever
else we do. In opportunities for acquiring a mastery of language, the
poorest and busiest are at no large disadvantage as compared with the
leisured rich. It is true the strong impulse which comes from the
suggestion and approval of society may in some cases be absent; but
this can be compensated by the sturdy purpose of the learner. A
recognition of the beauty of well-ordered words, a strong desire,
patience under discouragements, and promptness in counting every
occasion as of consequence,--these are the simple agencies which sweep
one on to power. Watch your speech, then.
HAMLET TO THE PLAYERS
From "Hamlet"
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
_Hamlet_. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,
trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of your players
do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very
torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must
acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it
offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a
passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,
who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-
shows and noise. I could have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing
Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.
_I Player_. I warrant your honor.
_Hamlet_. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be
your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with
this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature;
for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end,
both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror
up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and
the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this
overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh,
cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must
in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theater of others. O, there be
players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that
highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of
Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted
and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made
men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
BELLARIO'S LETTER
From "The Merchant of Venice"
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
_Duke_. This letter from Bellario doth commend A young and learned
doctor to our court. Where is he?
_Nerissa_. He attendeth here hard by, To know your answer, whether
you'll admit him.
_Duke_. With all my heart. Some three or four of you Go give him
courteous conduct to this place. Meantime the court shall hear
Bellario's letter.
_Clerk_ (reads). "Your grace shall understand that at the receipt
of your letter I am very sick; but in the instant that your messenger
came, in loving visitation was with me a young doctor of Rome; his name
is Balthasar. I acquainted him with the cause in controversy between
the Jew and Antonio the merchant: we turned o'er many books together:
he is furnished with my opinion; which, bettered with his own learning,
the greatness whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him, at my
importunity, to fill up your grace's request in my stead. I beseech
you, let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend
estimation; for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I
leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish
his commendation."
CASCA, SPEAKING OF CĘSAR
From "Julius Cęsar"
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
_Casca_. You pull'd me by the cloak; would you speak with me?
_Brutus_. Ay, Casca; tell us what hath chanc'd to-day, That Cęsar
looks so sad.
_Casca_. Why, you were with him, were you not?
_Brutus_. I should not, then, ask Casca what had chanc'd.
_Casca_. Why, there was a crown offered him; and being offered him, he
put it by with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell
a-shouting.
_Brutus_. What was the second noise for?
_Casca_. Why, for that too.
_Cassius_. They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for?
_Casca_. Why, for that too.
_Brutus_. Was the crown offered him thrice?
_Casca_. Ay, marry, was't, and he put it by thrice, every time
gentler than other; and at every putting-by mine honest neighbors
shouted.
_Cassius_. Who offered him the crown?
_Casca_. Why, Antony.
_Brutus_. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.
_Casca_. I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it: it was
mere foolery; I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a
crown;--yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of these coronets;--
and, as I told you, he put it by once: but, for all that, to my
thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again;
then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very loth to lay
his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it
the third time by: and still as he refused it, the rabblement shouted,
and clapped their chopped hands, and threw up their sweaty nightcaps,
and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Cęsar refused the
crown, that it had almost choked Cęsar; for he swooned, and fell down
at it: and for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my
lips, and receiving the bad air.
SQUANDERING OF THE VOICE
From "Lectures on Oratory" BY HENRY WARD BEECHER
How much squandering there is of the voice! How little there is of the
advantage that may come from conversational tones! How seldom does a
man dare to acquit himself with pathos and fervor! And the men are
themselves mechanical and methodical in the bad way who are most afraid
of the artificial training that is given in the schools, and who so
often show by the fruit of their labor that the want of oratory is the
want of education.
How remarkable is the sweetness of voice in the mother, in the father,
in the household! The music of no chorded instruments brought together
is, for sweetness, like the music of familiar affection when spoken by
brother and sister, or by father and mother.
Conversation itself belongs to oratory. How many men there are who are
weighty in argument, who have abundant resources, and who are almost
boundless in their power at other times and in other places, but who,
when in company among their kind, are exceedingly unapt in their
methods. Having none of the secret instruments by which the elements of
nature may be touched, having no skill and no power in this direction,
they stand as machines before living, sensitive men. A man may be a
master before an instrument; only the instrument is dead; and he has
the living hand; and out of that dead instrument what wondrous harmony
springs forth at his touch! And if you can electrify an audience by the
power of a living man on dead things, how much more should that
audience be electrified when the chords are living and the man is
alive, and he knows how to touch them with divine inspiration!
THE TRAINING OF THE GENTLEMAN
From "Personal Power," by permission of, and by special arrangement
with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of this author's
works.
BY WILLIAM J. TUCKER
In this talk about the part which the college may take in the training
of a gentleman, I have not dwelt, as you have noticed, upon forms or
conventionalities. Every gentleman respects form. Respect for form can
be taught, or at least inculcated, but not form itself. One comes to be
at ease in society by going into society. Manners come by observation.
We imitate, we follow the better fashion of society, the better
behavior of men. Good breeding consists first in the attention of
others in our behalf to certain necessary details, then in our
attention to them. We come in time to draw close and nice distinctions.
This little thing is right, that is not quite right. So we grow into
the formal habits of a gentleman. "Good manners are made up of constant
and petty sacrifices," says Emerson. It is well to keep this saying in
mind as a qualification of another of his more familiar sayings: "Give
me a thought, and my hands and legs and voice and face will all go
right. It is only when mind and character slumber that the dress can be
seen."
I like to see the well-bred man, to whom the details of social life
have become a second nature. I like also to see the play of that first
healthy instinct in a true man which scorns a mean act, which will not
allow him to take part in the making of a mean custom, which for
example, if he be a college fellow, will not suffer him to treat
another fellow as a fag. I am entirely sure that that man is a
gentleman.
So then it is, in this world of books, of companionship, of sport, of
struggle with some of us, of temptation also, and yet more of high
incentives, we are all set to the task of coming out, and of helping
one another to come out, as gentlemen. Do not miss, I beseech you, the
greatness of the task. Do not miss its constancy. It is more than the
incidental work of a college to train the efficient, the honorable, the
unselfish man. A college-bred man must be able to show at all times and
on all occasions the quality of his distinction.
MAKING THE POINT
BRUTUS TO THE ROMAN CITIZENS
From "Julius Cęsar"
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Be patient till the last.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be silent,
that you may hear: believe me for mine honor, and have respect to mine
honor, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and awake your
senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this
assembly, any dear friend of Cęsar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love
to Cęsar was no less than his. If, then, that friend demand why Brutus
rose against Cęsar, this is my answer,--Not that I loved Cęsar less,
but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Cęsar were living, and die
all slaves, than that Cęsar were dead, to live all free men? As Cęsar
loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate I rejoice at it; as he
was valiant, I honor him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There
is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honor for his valor; and
death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If
any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not
be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile
that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
I have done no more to Cęsar than you shall do to Brutus. The question
of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory not extenuated,
wherein he was worthy; nor his offenses enforced, for which he suffered
death. Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony: who, though he had
no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place
in the commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart,--
that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same
dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.
THE PRECEPTS OF POLONIUS
From "Hamlet"
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!
THE HIGH STANDARD
From the Lord Rector's address, University of Edinburgh, 1882
BY LORD ROSEBERY
Let us win in the competition of international well-being and
prosperity. Let us have a finer, better educated, better lodged, and
better nourished race than exists elsewhere; better schools, better
universities, better tribunals, ay, and better churches. In one phrase,
let our standard be higher, not in the jargon of the Education
Department, but in the acknowledgment of mankind. The standard of
mankind is not so exalted but that a nobler can be imagined and
attained. The dream of him who loved Scotland best would lie not so
much in the direction of antiquarian revival, as in the hope that his
country might be pointed out as one that in spite of rocks, and rigor,
and poverty, could yet teach the world by precept and example, could
lead the van and point the moral, where greater nations and fairer
states had failed. Those who believe the Scots to be so eminently vain
a race, will say that already we are in our opinion the tenth legion of
civilization. Well, vanity is a centipede with corns on every foot: I
will not tread where the ground is most dangerous. But if we are not
foremost, we may at any rate become so. Our fathers have declared unto
us what was done in their days and in the old time before them: we know
that we come of a strenuous stock. Do you remember the words that young
Carlyle wrote to his brother nine years after he had left this
University as a student, forty-three years before he returned as its
Rector?--
"I say, Jack, thou and I must never falter. Work, my boy, work
unweariedly. I swear that all the thousand miseries of this hard fight,
and ill-health, the most terrific of them all, shall never chain us
down. By the river Styx it shall not! Two fellows from a nameless spot
in Annandale shall yet show the world the pluck that is in Carlyles."
Let that be your spirit to-day. You are citizens of no mean city,
members of no common state, heirs of no supine empire. You will many of
you exercise influence over your fellow men: some will study and
interpret our laws, and so become a power; others will again be in a
position to solace and exalt, as destined to be doctors and clergymen,
and so the physical and spiritual comforters of mankind. Make the best
of these opportunities. Raise your country, raise your University,
raise yourselves.
ON TAXING THE COLONIES
Delivered in the House of Commons, March, 1775
BY EDMUND BURKE
Reflect, sirs, that when you have fixed a quota of taxation for every
colony, you have not provided for prompt and punctual payment. You must
make new Boston Port Bills, new restraining laws, new acts for dragging
men to England for trial. You must send out new fleets, new armies. All
is to begin again. From this day forward the empire is never to know an
hour's tranquillity. An intestine fire will be kept alive in the bowels
of the colonies, which one time or other must consume this whole
empire.
Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore have a perpetual
quarrel. Indeed, the noble lord who proposed this project seems himself
to be of that opinion. His project was rather designed for breaking the
union of the colonies than for establishing a revenue. But whatever his
views may be, as I propose the peace and union of the colonies as the
very foundation of my plan, it cannot accord with one whose foundation
is perpetual discord.
Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain and simple; the
other full of perplexed and intricate mazes. This is mild; that harsh.
This is found by experience effectual for its purposes; the other is a
new project. This is universal; the other calculated for certain
colonies only. This is immediate in its conciliatory operation; the
other remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what becomes the
dignity of a ruling people--gratuitous, unconditional, and not held out
as a matter of bargain and sale. I have done my duty in proposing it to
you. I have indeed tried you by a long discourse; but this is the
misfortune of those to whose influence nothing will be conceded, and
who must win every inch of their ground by argument. You have heard me
with goodness. May you decide with wisdom!
JUSTIFYING THE PRESIDENT
From a speech in the Senate, 1900
By JOHN C. SPOONER
Some one asked the other day why the President did not bring about a
cessation of hostilities. Upon what basis could he have brought about a
cessation of hostilities? Should he have asked Aguinaldo for an
armistice? If so, upon what basis should he have requested it? What
should he say to him? "Please stop this fighting"? "What for,"
Aguinaldo would say; "do you propose to retire?" "No." "Do you propose
to grant us independence?" "No, not now." "Well, why, then, an
armistice?" The President would doubtless be expected to reply: "Some
distinguished gentlemen in the United States, members of the United
States Senate, and others, have discovered a doubt about our right to
be here at all, some question whether we have acquired the Philippines,
some question as to whether we have correctly read the Declaration of
Independence; and I want an armistice until we can consult and
determine finally whether we have acquired the Philippines or not,
whether we are violating the Declaration of Independence or not,
whether we are trampling upon the Constitution or not." That is
practically the proposition.
No, Mr. President, men may say in criticism of the President what they
choose. He has been grossly insulted in this chamber, and it appears
upon the record. He has gone his way patiently, exercising the utmost
forbearance, all his acts characterized by a desire to do precisely
what the Congress had placed upon him by its ratification of the treaty
and its increase of the army. He has done it in a way to impress upon
the Filipinos, so far as language and action could do it, his desire,
and the desire of our people, to do them good, to give them the largest
possible measure of liberty.
BRITAIN AND AMERICA
From an address in the House of Commons, March, 1865
BY JOHN BRIGHT
Why should we fear a great nation on the American Continent? Some
people fear that, should America become a great nation, she will be
arrogant and aggressive. But that does not follow. The character of a
nation does not depend altogether upon its size, but upon the
intelligence, instruction, and morals of its people. You fancy the
supremacy of the sea will pass away from you; and the noble lord, who
has had much experience, and is supposed to be wiser on the subject
than any other man in the House, will say that "Rule Britannia," that
noble old song, may become obsolete. Well, inasmuch as the supremacy of
the seas means arrogance and the assumption of dictatorial power on the
part of this country, the sooner that becomes obsolete the better. I do
not believe that it is for the advantage of this country, or of any
country in the world, that any one nation should pride itself upon what
is termed the supremacy of the sea; and I hope the time is coming--I
believe the hour is hastening--when we shall find that law and justice
will guide the councils and will direct the policy of the Christian
nations of the world. Nature will not be baffled because we are jealous
of the United States--the decrees of Providence will not be overthrown
by aught we can do.
The population of the United States is now not less than 35,000,000.
When the next Parliament of England has lived to the age which this has
lived to, that population will be 40,000,000, and you may calculate the
increase at the rate of rather more than 1,000,000 of persons per year.
Who is to gainsay it? Will constant snarling at a great republic alter
this state of things, or swell us up in these islands to 40,000,000 or
50,000,000, or bring them down to our 30,000,000? Honorable members and
the country at large should consider these facts, and learn from them
that it is the interest of the nations to be at one--and for us to be
in perfect courtesy and amity with the great English nation on the
other side of the Atlantic.
VALUES AND TRANSITIONS
KING ROBERT OF SICILY
From "King Robert of Sicily," by permission of, and by special
arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of
this author's works.
BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW
Days came and went; and now returned again
To Sicily the old Saturnian reign;
Under the Angel's governance benign
The happy island danced with corn and wine.
Meanwhile King Robert yielded to his fate,
Sullen and silent and disconsolate.
Dressed in the motley garb that Jesters wear,
With look bewildered and a vacant stare,
Close shaven above the ears, as monks are shorn,
By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to scorn,
His only friend the ape, his only food
What others left,--he still was unsubdued.
And when the Angel met him on his way,
And half in earnest, half in jest, would say,
Sternly, though tenderly, that he might feel
The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel,
"Art thou the King?" the passion of his woe
Burst from him in resistless overflow,
And, lifting high his forehead, he would fling
The haughty answer back, "I am, I am the King!"
Almost three years were ended; when there came
Ambassadors of great repute and name
From Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine,
Unto King Robert, saying that Pope Urbane
By letter summoned them forthwith to come
On Holy Thursday to his city of Rome.
And lo! among the menials, in mock state,
Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait,
His cloak of fox-tails flapping in the wind,
The solemn ape demurely perched behind,
King Robert rode, making huge merriment
In all the country towns through which they went.
The Pope received them with great pomp and blare
Of bannered trumpets, on Saint Peter's square,
Giving his benediction and embrace
Fervent and full of apostolic grace.
While with congratulations and with prayers
He entertained the Angel unawares,
Robert, the Jester, bursting through the crowd,
Into their presence rushed, and cried aloud:
"I am the King! Look, and behold in me
Robert, your brother, King of Sicily!
This man who wears my semblance to your eyes,
Is an imposter in a king's disguise.
Do you not know me? does no voice within
Answer my cry, and say we are akin?"
The Pope in silence, but with troubled mien,
Gazed at the Angel's countenance serene;
The Emperor, laughing, said, "It is strange sport
To keep a madman for thy Fool at court!"
And the poor, baffled Jester in disgrace
Was hustled back among the populace.
LAYING THE ATLANTIC CABLE
An extract from "Masters of the Situation," a lecture
BY JAMES T. FIELDS