III
ORATORY
Oratory has always been a potent influence for good. The printing-press with its newspapers and magazines and tens of thousands of books has done much during the past fifty years to draw attention away from oratory. The printing-press is a huge blessing, and has greatly advanced during these years that oratory has declined in public esteem or public attention. But we are learning that there is yet something in the living man, in his voice and his manner and his mesmeric force, which cannot be expressed through the cold lead of type. Hence the need for orators, both men and women, has been steadily increasing during the past few years, until there seems to be a pressing demand for the restoration of the science and the art of oratory.
The country lad or the hard-working laborer or mechanic who thinks that public speaking is beyond his reach has done himself a wrong. It was such as they who oftener than can be told have become some of the greatest orators of history. Men who afterward became great as effective debaters made their first addresses to the cows in the pasture, to the pigs in pens, to the birds in trees, and to the dog and the cat upon the hearth. They often drew lessons concerning the effects of their addresses from the actions of the animal auditors which heard their talk, and were attracted or repulsed by what they heard and saw.
There is a mystery about public speaking. After years of study and application, some men cannot accomplish as much by their addresses as some uncultured laborer can do with his very first attempt. Some have imperfectly called this power "personal magnetism." While this is mainly born with men and women—as the power of the true poet and the true teacher—yet it can be cultivated to a surprising degree. The schools of elocution so often seem to fail to recognize the wide gulf that exists between elocution and oratory. The former is an art which deals primarily with enunciation, pronunciation, and gesture; the work of the later science is persuasive—it has to do mainly with influencing the head and the heart.
There is a law of oratory which does not seem to be understood or recognized by elocution teachers. The plow-boy in a debating society of the country school may feel that natural law, like Daniel Webster, without being conscious that he is following it. But there is a danger of losing this great natural power through injurious cultivation. The powerful speaker is consciously or unconsciously observant at all times of his audience, and he naturally adopts the tones, the gesture, and the language which attract the most attention and leave the most potent influence upon the audience. That is the law of all oratory, whether it applies to the domestic animals, to conversation with our fellows, to debates or addresses, lectures, speeches, sermons, or arguments. Where the orator has not been misdirected or misled by some superficial teacher of elocution, his aim will be first "to win the favorable attention of his audience" and then to strongly impress them with his opening sentence, his appearance, his manners, and his subject. His reputation will have also very much to do with winning this favorable impression at first. The words of the speaker either drive away or attract, and the speaker endeavors at the outset to command the attention of the hearers, whether they be dogs or congregation.
The beginner in oratory who is true to his instincts strives to adopt the methods which he feels will favorably impress those for whom he has a message. In his oration at the funeral of Julius Cæsar, Mark Anthony disarmed the enemies of Cæsar and of himself by opening his oration with, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him." Almost any man or woman can become an orator of power by keeping himself or herself natural while talking.
The second condition of a successful oration is the statements of the important facts or truths. Cicero, the elder Pitt, and Edward Everett held strictly to the statement of all the facts at the outset of their speech. Facts and truths are the most important things in all kinds of oratory; as they are the most difficult to handle, the audience is more likely to listen to them at the opening of the talk, and they must be placed before the hearers clearly and emphatically, before the speaker enters upon the next division of his address.