Chesterfield, in his letters to his son, said, "Manner is of as much importance as matter"; and that this has been the opinion of all great orators may be gathered from the vast labor expended by them on the cultivation of expression and delivery. How much stress was laid upon this by the greatest of all orators, Demosthenes, appears from a noted saying of his related by both Cicero and Quintilian, when, being asked what was the first point in oratory, he answered, action; and being asked what was the second, he answered, action; and afterward what was the third, he still answered, action. And Plutarch said of him that "he thought it a small matter to premeditate and compose, tho with the utmost care, if the pronunciation and propriety of gesture were not attended to." Esteeming delivery of such vast importance to the orator, there is no wonder that he should have labored for months together in his subterranean study to form his action and improve his voice.
To the superficial thinker, the study of gesture and of the management of the voice may appear to be but "vanity of vanities"—gaudy tinselry and worthless decoration; but the experience of all time has proved that they are powerful to persuade and strong to convince. We all know how much meaning—how much expression—how much power there may be in a look, in a tone of the voice, or in a motion. The impression they make on others is frequently much stronger than any that words can make. They are the language of nature, and are understood by all far better than words, which are only the arbitrary conventional symbols of ideas. The speaker who should use bare words, without aiding their meaning by proper tones and accents, would make but a feeble impression, and leave but a misty and indistinct conception of what he had delivered.
It is surprizing, indeed, to see how perfectly persons practised in the art of gestures can communicate even complicated trains of thought and long series of facts without the aid of words. This fact was known and appreciated by the ancient Greeks and Romans, who made the subject a study far more than have subsequent nations. Cicero informs us that it was a matter of dispute between the actor Roscius and himself whether the former could express a sentiment in a greater variety of ways by gestures, or the latter by words. During the reign of Augustus, both tragedies and comedies were acted by pantomime alone. It was perfectly understood by the people, who wept and laughed, and were excited in every way as much as if the words had been employed. It seems, indeed, to have worked upon their sympathies more powerfully than words; for it became necessary, at a subsequent period, to enact a law restraining members of the Senate from studying the art of pantomime—a practise to which, it seems, they had resorted in order to give more effect to their speeches before that body.
There have been volumes written on this subject of delivery, but they are little better than a "vexation of spirit." The tone of the voice, the look, the gesture, suited to express a thought or emotion, must be learned from experience and the example of living speakers and masters. Curran and many others have made it a practise to speak before a glass, that they might themselves judge of the propriety of their gestures, and correct those at fault. A more condensed or sensible treatise on this subject can not be found than Hamlet's direction to the players:
"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounce it to you—trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand; but use all gently, for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious, periwigpated 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.... 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 anything 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, tho it make the unskilful laugh, can not but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theater of others."
The student who shall follow these directions, which are as applicable to the speaker as to the player, will not go very far wrong.
The first consideration of a speaker must be to make himself heard by all those to whom he speaks. This, tho often neglected, is of the first importance, and is a matter that rests mainly in the management of the voice, and not in the strength of lungs. Nor is it, as many suppose, a natural talent, for the voice is susceptible of the greatest culture, and may be formed after almost any model. To make oneself audible, it is not necessary that the voice should be pitched on a high key. Strength of sound does not depend upon the key or note on which one speaks, but on the proper management of the voice. A speaker may render his voice strong and full while speaking in a middle or conversational tone, and will be able to give the most sustained force to that pitch, as it is the one to which in conversation he is accustomed. The conversational key is the one that the advocate should, with rare exceptions, adopt; otherwise he will exhaust himself and be heard with pain by his audience. Grattan tells us that he heard Lord Chatham speak in the House of Lords; and it was just like talking to one man by the buttonhole, except when he lifted himself in enthusiasm, and then the effect of the outbreak was immense; and of Harrison Gray Otis it is said that when you met him in the street and heard him talk, you heard the orator Otis almost as much as if he were in Faneuil Hall talking about politics.
In the next place, the student of advocacy must study to articulate clearly and distinctly. On this, as much as on the quantity of sound, depends the capacity to make oneself heard.
We need say nothing with regard to emphasis, pauses, tones and gestures. Every one who goes about his work in earnest will devote proper attention to these matters, and will gain more from experience and observation than from the rules laid down in the books. One thing seldom laid down in the books is of the highest importance to the advocate: that is, to study always to feel what he speaks. Unless he do this, his oratory will be little more than an empty and puerile flow of words. "The author who will make me weep," says Horace, "must first weep himself." "In reality," adds Henry Fielding, "no man can paint a distress well which he doth not feel while he is painting it; nor do I doubt but that the most pathetic and affecting scenes have been writ with tears." In Shakespeare's Richard II, the Duchess of York thus impeaches the sincerity of her husband:
"Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face,
His eyes do drop no tears; his prayers are jest;
His words come from his mouth; ours, from our breast;
He prays but faintly and would be denied;
We pray with heart and soul."