What a difference there is between the preacher who languidly reads his manuscript for twenty-five minutes to a hundred people, and closes the mighty effort with aching head, quivering nerves, and exhausted throat, and the typical camp-meeting orator! The latter works hard, addressing thousands of people for an hour and a half or two hours; but as the stamping foot, the tense arm, the nodding head, the fully expanded lungs, and the swaying body have all taken part, the blood and nervous energy have been sent in due proportion to every organ, and there is no want of balance. The man can repeat the same performances the next day, and continue it, as many itinerants have done, for months together. Similar examples of endurance have often been given in heated political canvasses by orators of the very highest eminence, as well as by others unknown to fame. Difference of cultivation or of earnestness will not suffice to explain the contrast between the two classes of speakers.
The chemical analogy is instructive, and goes far to account for the observed differences. When thought passes out of the mist and shadow of general conceptions into the definite form of words, it has immeasurably greater power to arouse and agitate the mind in which this transformation is made, than it can have when the same words are merely recalled in memory or read from a sheet of paper. When the whole process of expression takes place at once:—the mental glance over the subject; the coinage of thoughts into words and sentences; the utterance of the words as they rise to the lips; the selection of key, inflection, emphasis, gesture:—the man must have a very cold nature, or his theme be very dull, if, with a sympathizing audience before him, the tides of emotion do not begin to swell. But notice how other modes of delivery squander this wealth of emotion. The writer carefully elaborates his language. He is perfectly calm, or if there is any excitement, it is purely intellectual, and the quickened flow of blood is directed only to the brain. When the ardor of composition subsides, and he reviews his pages, the fire seems to have died out of them. While memorizing, or making himself familiar enough with what he has written to read it with effect, he may recall some of the first ardor, but only to have it again subside. When at last he stands up to speak, his production is a thrice-told tale. In but few cases will he feel the full inspiration of his message. If he recites, the effort of memory distracts his attention, and he is probably reading from a page of manuscript presented by his mental vision. If he reads directly, he must take a position to see his paper, and at least part of the time keep his eye fixed upon it. The address is felt to come, notwithstanding all the artifice he can employ, at least as much from the paper as from the man. The most profound culture in reading and declamation only suffices to bring back part of the emotion with which the genuine extemporizer starts.
As bearing upon the subject of the healthfulness of extempore speech, a reference to the writer’s own experience may not be improper. Severe and exceptional hardship in the civil war led to a complete breakdown in health. The hope of any kind of active work, or even of many months of life, seemed very slight. The question was not so much how to speak best, as how to speak at all. Fortunately, a long series of daily lectures, involving no great intellectual effort, proved that mere talking was not necessarily hurtful. Some elocutionary hints at the right time were also of great value. When the pulpit was entered, greater difficulty arose. A few trials of memorized preaching produced alarming nervous exhaustion. Reading was equally deleterious to throat and voice. One path alone seemed open; and entering upon that with confidence, which eighteen years of experience has only deepened, the writer found that extempore speech was, for him, probably the most healthful of all forms of exercise. It is not likely that one-third of this term of work would have been secured by any other kind of address.
Another important advantage is the saving of time afforded by this mode of speech. The hours otherwise wasted in word-elaboration may be more usefully employed in general studies. The field for an orator’s improvement is boundless; but if obliged to fully write a large number of discourses, he must either work very rapidly or very perseveringly to enter far into that field. But if less preparation is given to individual speeches, more time will be available for the improvement of the speaker. Or if he uses the same length of preparation for each discourse in the extempore mode, he can collect and classify a far greater amount of material, and the mental element will thus gain far more than the merely verbal loses.
Only the fourth or composite method of discourse remains for our consideration. At first glance, it seems to combine the advantages of all other methods, and for many minds it possesses great attraction. In it the less important parts of the speech are given off-hand, while passages of especial brilliancy or power are written fully, and either read or recited. Added variety may be given by reading some of these, and declaiming others from memory. A very brilliant and showy discourse may thus be constructed. But the difficulties are also very great. Full success requires a rare combination of desirable qualities. A good verbal memory, the power of composing effective fragments, and of declaiming or reading them well, are not often joined to all the qualities that make a ready and impressive extemporizer. For this reason it usually follows that in composite discourses one of the elements so greatly predominates as to dwarf the others. A manuscript discourse in which an extempore remark or two is interpolated must be classed with written discourses. Neither does extemporizing lose its special character, though some scattered quotations be read or repeated from memory. To pick up a book, in the midst of a speech, and read a theme or argument, or the statement of another’s position, does not make the discourse composite in character, unless such reading be the principal part of it. An eloquent speaker on one occasion occupied more than half his time, and produced far more than half his effect, by reciting poems of the author who was the nominal subject of his lecture. The performance would have been more appropriately styled, “Recitations from the poems of ——.” The few running comments introduced did not entitle it to be classed as an original production, because they were obviously not its governing motive.
How shall the advantages of extemporizing be secured, while avoiding its dangers? No commendation can be given to those who simply talk to an audience, giving forth only what may happen to be in mind at the moment of delivery. The most pedantic writing and lifeless reading would, as a habit, be preferable to such recklessness. Unwritten speech does not preclude the fullest preparation. The plans advocated in this volume will enable a speaker to gather materials as widely, arrange them as systematically, and hold them as firmly in hand, as if every word was written; while at the same time he may have all the freedom and play of thought, the rush of passion, and the energy of delivery that comes in the happiest moment of outgushing words. But those who are unwilling to labor may as well lay down the book. We do not profess to teach a process of labor-saving, though much labor will be changed from mechanical to intellectual, and after long experience the total saving may be great. But in the first stages those who have been accustomed to write in full will find that the change involves an increase, rather than a diminution, of work.
On all ordinary occasions a good speech must result from a previous ingathering of materials—the formation of a mental treasury in connection with a special subject. The speaker works for days or weeks in collecting from all sources and arranging in the happiest manner that which his hearers are to receive in an hour with no other labor than that of listening. The great advantage of writing is supposed to lie in this preparation. To-day an orator may write everything he knows about a subject; to-morrow, by means of reading, conversation, or further thought, he may have more ideas to record; and he may thus continue to widen and record his knowledge, until his time, or the subject itself, is exhausted. Then he may revise, select what is most appropriate, refine and polish his language, and finally come before an audience confident that he holds in his hand the very best that he can give them. But, alas! it is an essay, or treatise, rather than a speech! So far as his materials are suitable for a speech, they can be gathered and used as readily in an extempore discourse. The use of the pen as an instrument of accumulation and record is not to be despised. But in its final form, not a line of the most massive and complicated speech that the mind of man can produce need be written. Enriched by garnered thoughts—knowing where to begin and where to close—seeing a clear outline of the whole subject in mental vision—the trained speaker may possess every faculty, and use every resource of speech, in as serene confidence as if every word was fixed in memory or on manuscript.
Those who have only one speech to deliver, and that for show rather than service, will hardly credit these assertions. Graduating orations will probably always be recited from memory. In such cases the matter is of little value, while the form is everything. So well is this relation of fitness understood, that in serious address it is a severe condemnation to say, “He declaims just like a school-boy,” or “That is sophomoric.” The line of appropriateness may be suggested as follows: When the sole aim is to inform or please, or when an address is submitted for criticism, those who have the needed ability may very well read or recite. But when conviction or persuasion is sought, when public opinion or conduct is to be influenced, the indescribable but most potent charm of sincere, earnest, spontaneous words will ever prove most effective. No leader of a great, popular movement ever trusted to manuscript appeals, and but two or three of such leaders memorized their orations. These methods may well be reserved for the oratory of ornament and show.
May a word of advice be hazarded to those who, in spite of all these considerations, prefer to rely upon manuscript or memory? Be honest about it! Those modes of delivery have advantages when their resources are fully mastered. Do not seek credit for what you do not possess, but stand firmly on your own ground and make the most of it. If you recite, memorize perfectly and employ the most effective elocutionary devices. Do not hesitate to study the manner of good actors, for your recitations and theirs must have much in common. If you read, put the paper, not where it will be best hidden, but where it will do you the most good, and read as well as you can. Thoroughly good reading is far more interesting and attractive than reading which is a bad imitation—there are no good imitations—of spontaneous speech. Do not mark in your manuscript “Here become pathetic;” or at another place, “Here show surprise and indignation.” Reading is essentially quiet in its character, appealing to intellect and gentle feeling rather than stormy passion. You will thus realize all the success that is possible for you in the method you have chosen, and escape such well-grounded sarcasm as that of Sydney Smith, who thus describes a style of preaching common in his day:
“Discourses have insensibly dwindled from speaking to reading, a practice which is of itself sufficient to stifle every germ of eloquence. It is only by the fresh feelings of the heart that mankind can be very powerfully affected. What can be more ludicrous than an orator delivering stale indignation, and fervor a week old; turning over whole pages of violent passions, written out in goodly text; reading the tropes and apostrophes into which he is hurried by the ardor of his mind; and so affected at a preconcerted line and page that he is unable to proceed any further?”