Bob Taylor's Magazine, Vol. I, No. 2, May 1905

by Various

The Humorous, the Pathetic and the Dramatic.

These are the ruling elements of the platform. Around them are built all the successes of the Lyceum, and the lack of them is responsible for all the failures that stand like tombstones, along the route, as we journey with the truly great.

We are all agreed on the efficacy of humor, and we join without dissent in lauding the man who has the power to make the world laugh. He is as much our benefactor as the man whose scholarly and laborious research solves for us some great scientific problem which sets civilization forward; for, does he not unlock for us the gates of mirth, and climax a day of toil with an hour of restful merriment? His side-splitting joke pays the Doctor’s bill in advance by keeping us well and hearty; it settles pro tem. the grocer’s bill by making us forget it. His clever story charms and fascinates us, and we follow him down sunny lanes of laughter, and through sighing groves of pathos until the cares and vexations of our busy lives recede from us like a troubled shore. With the God-like power of genius, he leads us out of the thorn-hedged paths of everyday life, into the happy garden of the ideal where the flowers of sentiment bloom perennial, and the song of every bird is a lilted fragment of the universal chorus of love. This magic garden on the margin of the dusty field of reality from which we dig our daily bread, is an oasis to which we may not long repair, but to linger for an hour rests us from toil and refreshes us for labor. From behind its roses no venomous serpent is privileged to strike, and from its peaceful skies no hurricane may swoop down to lay waste. ’Tis there that the eye of despair is kindled with hope, the brow of care is smoothed with forgetfulness, and the lips of melancholy are curled with a smile.

All hail to the man of humor and pathos! (He cannot possess one without possessing the other.) Pathos is but the gentle sister of humor. Her emotions have no kinship with sorrow; her tears are the trembling jewels of tender memories, and she has only to dry her eyes to disclose a smile.

Next to humor and pathos, the most important requisite to a successful career on the platform, is the dramatic element which enables a man to “suit the action to the word,” and by the subtle power of the actor’s art, bring us to worship or despise, at his will, the character he portrays, or the principle he advocates. We hang at highest tension on the words of such a man, when the same words spoken in a commonplace way, would send us to sleep in our seats. How often have we seen the beauty of the Lord’s Prayer marred by some guttural-voiced exhorter who delivered it as coldly as he would have read a report of the mule market, or the price of pumpkins! and yet it is said that the great Booth with his incomparable rendition of this sacred prayer could lead an audience into the very presence and smile of God. Since time began, the dramatic in art and literature has received the homage of all people and all nations. This love of the dramatic sits enthroned alike in the heart of the savage and the man of letters, the highwayman and the clergyman, the ignoramus and the intellectual Titan. This strange attribute in the make-up of humanity is at once a dangerous and a glorious element. Too often it has nerved the murderer’s hand and steeled the heart of cruelty, but civilization is the master which is taming it.

In the long gone ages of heartless kings and fawning subjects, when fierce gladiators met in the death struggle, and the cruel ruler and his multitudes cheered the ending of a human life, they were but satiating their unholy love of the dramatic. Before such a picture, the great common heart of to-day turns sick with horror, but there is another picture dimmed also with many centuries, which makes the blood leap with different emotions, and which the future will guard with jealous pride. It is the dramatic picture of a little band of Christians in the center of a vast arena, awaiting the approach of the wild beasts which are to tear their limbs apart, and quietly kneeling in their last prayer. The dramatic effect of that prayer sent a thrill through all the ages, and nerved the hearts of the millions who were to follow the martyrs, as no common incident could have done.

We worship tragedy, and find satisfaction only in thrilling climaxes, and out of the multitudes of the passing years, history hands us the names of only a few who have paid the price of deathless fame. The tragic death of Julius Cæsar magnified his mighty deeds a hundred fold, and the dramatic but inglorious climax of St. Helena sent the great Napoleon thundering into history.

GUY CARLTON LEE, Ph.D., LL.D.

Dr. Guy Carlton Lee, Literary Editor of the Baltimore Sun, and formerly of the faculties of Johns Hopkins and Columbia Universities, is the latest acquisition of the platform among the strong literary men of to-day. He is the most distinguished of our younger school of historians, and as an orator he belongs to the vigorous, dramatic type so ably represented by Wendling and Gunsaulus, who have long been familiar figures on the American platform. Dr. Lee’s first lecture tour will include the South the coming season, under the direction of The Rice Bureau of Nashville.