"Peter Piper, pickle-picker, picked six pecks of pickled peppers;
If Peter Piper, piping, picked six pecks of pickled peppers,
Where are the pecks of pickled peppers which Peter Piper picked?"
It was elocution, but it was not oratory. I had trouble in getting up another boy, but I finally did. He thought that oratory consisted entirely in elocutionary "inflections," so he delivered it:
"Peter Piper picked six pecks of pickled peppers;
If Peter piping picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?"
(With marked raising and lowering of the voice.)
It sounded like an old rooster in the barn in the morning. But being elocution, it was not oratory.
But the most illustrative and most absurd speech I ever heard was by a visitor in that class that day. He was sitting over near the aisle, and one of the students came and whispered to me: "That young man has graduated from an Eastern school of elocution, and he is going to act the heavy parts in tragedy upon the stage. He is a great elocutionist, and won't you get him to recite something to the class?" I fell into the trap, and went down to the young man, and said: "I understand you are an elocutionist. Will you come up and recite something for the class?"
As soon as he looked up at me I saw by his eyes there was something the matter with his head. I do not know just what, but things have happened since that make it no unkindness to refer to him the way I do. I said: "Please come up and recite something," and he replied: "Shall I recite the same thing the young men have been reciting?" I said, "You don't need to do that; take anything." He left his gold-headed cane—the best part of him—on the floor, and then he came up to the platform and leaned on the table and said to me: "Shall I recite the same thing the young men have been reciting?" I said: "You can if you wish. You are perfectly free to take anything you choose. The professor is away, anyhow. When the cat is away the mice will play."
Then he began to prepare himself for that recitation. I never saw such behavior in my life. He pulled up his sleeves, brushed back his hair, shook himself, moved the table away forward, and I slid far back by the door and left the platform open, for I didn't know what he was going to do next. Then he gave the selection:
"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper-r-rs;
If Peter Piper, piping piper, picked a peck of pickled pepper-r-r-rs,
Where's the peck of pickled pepper-r-r-rs Peter Piper pickle-picker-r-r picked?"
He rolled in a flutter the letter "r" in each line. That class looked up with awe, and applauded until he repeated it. It was still elocution, but it was not oratory. He thought that oratory consisted of rolling the "r's" and rolling himself. That is not oratory.