Page images
PDF
EPUB

In this chapter and the one preceding are given some of the mechanical means of constructing speeches and delivering them, and in thus telling the student of oratory the specific way of accomplishing results, this book differs from the many that treat, or profess to treat, of oratory. Demosthenes says: "To censure is easy for any man; to show what measures the cause requires is the part of a counsellor." This is a nugget of wisdom, and in adopting it the author has used the injunction do instead of issuing a number of don'ts, as is the custom of many teachers. He tells primarily what to do and how to do it, and only in a secondary manner does he use the negative way of instruction. In this chapter, students are shown what means were employed by those who succeeded in mastering the art of vocal expression and how they may adopt them in aiming to accomplish the same results; and the author has no hesitancy in stating that if the student will properly qualify himself to become an orator by a diligent study of the method therein contained, he will rise to eminence in a field of labor that repays with honors and renown all who toil in it. This chapter treats of the mechanical means of producing oratory and making orators, but the psychological, or mental, means, which must be used in conjunction with the mechanical in order that there may be life in the production, will receive due attention in later chapters. Unless the mentality enters into the work of the orator, it will be devoid of action, and consequently not oratory; for, in the words of Demosthenes: "All speech without action appears vain and idle."

S

66

CHAPTER III

CONSTRUCTION

POKEN matter is a speech only when it possesses

three divisions: an opening, a body, and a conclusion. Without possessing these three divisions it may be a talk, but it is not a speech. This can be best explained by the author quoting from one of his previous works:* 'Every speech, no matter what its length or what its subject, should possess three parts: an opening or statement, a body or argument, a conclusion or appeal. The opening should contain a statement of the facts to be presented, or the points upon which the argument is to be made; the body should be given over to a presentation of the facts, a narration of the story, a description of the scene, or an argument of the cause; and the conclusion should be devoted to a summing up of the facts, an application of the story or the scene, or a deduction from the argument on the points.

"The opening may contain as many statements as the speaker desires, but he must make sure to argue upon and drive home in the body of the speech all that he mentions in the opening. Every statement in the opening must be like a plank in a platform, and all such

"Speech-Making," page 1. By Edwin Gordon Lawrence (The A. S. Barnes Company).

planks, or statements, must be fastened together properly in the argument, otherwise there will be gaps in the platform, or statement, through which the speaker's argument is liable to fall to failure."

A rambling story is not a speech; a talk that has not a clear opening, a convincing argument, or a logical conclusion, is not a speech; a statement without a body is not a speech. All these things may be talks, but only a well-defined, clearly-mapped-out discourse can be dignified with the name of speech. In order that one may be a speech-maker and not a babbler, he must work in accordance with a well-defined plan. He should carefully gather the material that is to be used, arrange the parts of the speech in their proper places, and deliver the speech in the best possible manner. No matter how excellent the material may be, it will prove of little value to the speaker unless it is arranged consecutively; built, as it were, point on point, or fact on fact, and developed according to his prearranged plan. It should be so knitted together as to cohere and form a structure that, resting on a firm foundation, will be compact and complete. Desultory talking is not speech making. The speaker should possess a definite object, and keep to that object until it has been clearly presented and convincingly demonstrated. Order should reign everywherein the arrangement of the words, the presentation of the ideas, and the delivery of the matter. Lack of attention to these details is the cause of many failing as public speakers who, had they given proper attention to the

perfection of the means to be employed, might have become clear thinkers and masterly presenters of wellordered thoughts. Length has nothing whatever to do with the question as to whether spoken matter is a speech or not. One might speak for an hour and not deliver a speech; and, on the other hand, a perfectly constructed speech might be produced in a minute or less. Here is matter that occupies less than two lines, or, to be exact, twenty-two words, and yet it possesses all the requirements of a speech:

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.*

We have the proposition that "The light of the body is the eye"; the argument, "if therefore thine eye be single"; and the conclusion, "thy whole body shall be full of light."

Specimen divisions of speeches of Demosthenes are here employed to emphasize these points, and students are advised to study closely the means adopted by this master of oratory and rhetoric in arranging his speeches. Two examples of each of the three divisions of a speech, and one example of a complete speech, are here presented in order that students may gain a practical and comprehensive idea regarding the construction of speeches.

* St. Matthew, vi :22.

DIVISIONS OF A SPEECH

OPENING

Against the Law of Leptines (355 B. C.). It was chiefly, men of the jury, because I deemed it good for Athens that the law should be repealed, but partly on account of the son of Chabrias, that I engaged to support these men to the utmost of my ability. It is plain enough, men of Athens, that Leptines, or whoever else defends the law, will have nothing to say for it on the merits, but will allege that certain unworthy persons obtaining immunity have evaded the public services, and will lay the greatest stress upon this point. I will pass by the injustice of such proceeding for a complaint against some to take the honour from all for it has in a manner been explained, and is doubtless acknowledged by you; but this I would gladly ask him: Granting most fully that not some but all were unworthy, why did he consider that you and they were to be dealt with alike? By enacting that none should be exempted, he took the exemption from those that enjoyed it; by adding that it should be unlawful to grant it hereafter, he deprived you of the power of granting. He can not surely say that, as he deprived the holders of their privilege because he deemed them unworthy of it, in the same manner he thought the people unworthy to have the power of giving their own to whom they pleased. But possibly he may reply that he framed the law so because the people are easily misled. Then what prevents your being deprived of everything, yea, of the government itself, according to such argument? For there is not a single department of your affairs in which this has not happened to you. Many decrees have you at various times been entrapped into passing. You have been persuaded ere now to choose the worse allies instead of the better. In short, amid the variety of your measures there

« PreviousContinue »