Modern Eloquence

rent that swept his audience along. The effect produced by Charles Fox, who by the exaggerations of party spirit was often compared to Demosthenes, seems to have arisen wholly from this earnestness, which made up for the want of almost every grace, both of manner and style. Guesses at Truth.

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Feeling and Speech.-Eloquence is speaking out-out of the abundance of the heart-the only source from which truth can flow in a passionate, persuasive torrent. Nothing can be juster than Quintilian's remark (X. 7, 15): "Pectus est, quod disertos facit, et vis mentis: ideoque imperitis quoque, si modo sint aliquo affectu concitati, verba non desunt." the heart and the power of intellect that make eloquence, and thus language never fails even the unskilful, provided their passions are excited.) This is the explanation of that singular psychological phenomenon, Irish eloquence; I do not mean that of the orators merely, but that of the whole people, men, women, and children. Guesses at Truth.

Prayer and Eloquence.-The ancient Romans used the same word to express the act of prayer and the act of public speaking, as if to imply that pleading with the Deity and pleading with the people were in some points essentially the same function. This puts the office of the orator on a plane as high as it raises the power of the people. If, as Dupanloup says, "Omnipotentia supplex," the suppliant is omnipotent, the orator is omnipotent, too. The will of the people is indeed the supreme arbiter in a republic, and he who could sway by eloquence this mighty power seemed to the fancy of the ancient world in some way to control the weapons of omnipotence, to brandish the bolts of Zeus, and shake the world with the thunder of his words.

Epiphanius Wilson.

The Preeminence of the Orator.-There are three ways in which a public speaker must be superior to those whom he is anxious to influence: he must know more, he must feel more keenly, and he must be able to express more clearly than they. The Hebrew prophet is represented as standing on the summit of a tower, from which he could see beyond the horizon of the audience gathered at its base. Thence he might discern the distant tempest gathering up the dust of the plain, or the cloud of locusts advancing like an armed host, or the first streaks of dawn invisible to the people in the valley. From this wide vision would come the deeper realization of

the woe or the joy which was approaching. By the gift of vivid speech he would convey his own impressions to his auditors. Perhaps the best example of this intellectual breadth and loftiness, this profound and earnest feeling, and their expression in words that thrilled and illuminated, is to be found in the speeches of Daniel Webster.

Epiphanius Wilson.

The Telling Phrase. To make the effect of an oration lasting in the memory of the hearers it is good to use some telling phrase or catchword in which the point of the contention is summarized or suggested. Unlettered people carry all their knowledge or wisdom in short rhymes and proverbs, which are delightful even to the most cultivated as being portable, racy, and seasoned with a kind of wit. As models of this sort of watchword we may point to the "Peace with honor" of Beaconsfield, the "toujours l'audace" (always to dare) of Danton, "the Cross of Gold" of W. J. Bryan, the "plumed knight" of Ingersoll, and the "iridescent dream" of Ingalls. Epiphanius Wilson.

True Eloquence.-When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech, farther than it is connected with high intellectual and moral attainments.

Clearness, force, and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it. They cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments, and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their own lives and the lives of their wives and children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then, words have lost their power. Rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued as in the presence of higher quaii

ties. Then, patriotism is eloquent. Then, self-devotion is eloquent.

The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward to his objectthis, this is eloquence, rather it is something greater and higher than eloquence; it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action. Daniel Webster.

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