"To do children good," says a well-known writer, "they must be interested: they must be made to laugh, to cry, and then sent away happy." Are not the people still children? Are we not all children still, in more than one respect?
Let it not be supposed that in what has been said above, it is intended that any person whatever should be ridiculed or held up to contempt. On the contrary, irony should never be employed except against prejudices, vices, and crimes.
Another way of exciting interest is by lively, skilful, witty, and delicate sketches of men and manners. … The Frenchman is fond of being spoken to about himself, about his occupations, his characteristics, his trials, even his foibles and caprices. This fact is too much lost sight of. We descant on the Hebrews, the Jews, the Egyptians, Midianites, Philistines, and other nations of the past. Set all that aside, and speak more freely of the Gospel and Frenchmen, and of Frenchmen and the Gospel; of Frenchmen of the present age, of their virtues and vices. Do this, and you will not fail to interest your hearers: you will interest them in spite of themselves.
M. Lecourtier transcends in such portraiture. Hence, as before remarked, his sermons always attract crowded audiences; and he is never listened to with more attention then when delineating the inner history of a man or woman of the nineteenth century. Occasionally some are offended, and declare that they will not come to hear him again; but they seldom keep their word, for they find his discourses so interesting that they cannot stay away.
Humility is not our forte; on the contrary, we are all very fond of engaging the attention of others. Indeed, we prefer ill-usage to neglect; an instance of which is afforded by a letter addressed to a celebrated man by an obscure author, wherein he wrote:—"I entreat you to be kind enough to refute me, and, if need be, to abuse me, for that will bring me into notice."
Studies of men and manners are well-timed everywhere. They are understood by and interest all, because they draw forth a repetition of the speech made by the woman of Samaria:—"I have seen a man who hath told me all things that ever I did."
Nevertheless, we must not stop there. After depicting what is evil, we must combat, and overcome, and drive it away by the force of logic, and by the impulses of thought and heart combined. In this, also, we may find it easy to excite interest.
Every truth should be proved. The French mind is pre-eminently logical; but it is also prompt and quick, and likes neither that which is long, nor that which is heavy; nor that which affirms without proving, nor yet that which proves too much.