How to Master the Spoken Word / Designed as a Self-Instructor for all who would Excel in the Art of Public Speaking

by Edwin Gordon Lawrence

—William Jennings Bryan

The following vivid description of the delivery of the Blind Preacher, by the orator William Wirt, is a splendid example of modulation in a comprehensive sense, because it depends on the distinctive colors that are placed in the voice, as well as on inflection and emphasis, for its effective presentation.

It was some time before the tumult had subsided, so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious, standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of the subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But, no! the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic.

The first sentence, with which he broke the awful silence, was a quotation from Rousseau: “Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ, like a God.”

I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole manner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before did I completely understand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher; his blindness, constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton, and associating with his performance the melancholy grandeur of their geniuses; you are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody; you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the congregation were raised; and then the few minutes of portentous, death-like silence which reigned throughout the house; the preacher removing his white handkerchief from his aged face (even yet wet from the recent torrent of his tears), and, slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence, “Socrates died like a philosopher,” then, pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both clasped together with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his “sightless balls” to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his trembling voice—“but Jesus Christ, like a God!” If he had been indeed and in truth an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine.

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.”

FOOTNOTES:

[1]A Grecian pastoral poet who lived in the third century.

[2]Alfred Ayres in “Acting and Actors,” page 128.

[3]Page 157.