CHAPTER VI.
Thought and Emotion.
Two kinds of preparation contribute to the production of eloquence. One is the preparation of the speaker, the other of the speech. The first is fully as important as the second. In ordinary cases both are indispensable. Some “born orators” speak well without appearing to pay any attention to the improvement of their faculties. Others are occasionally eloquent on a topic without special preparation. Yet these cases when closely examined will be found apparent rather than real exceptions to the rule above stated. The man who seems never to have cultivated the power of speech, and is yet able to blaze into fervid eloquence at will, has usually concealed his preparation or carried it on in such uncommon methods that they have not been recognized as preparations. On the other hand, a man who speaks well without a moment’s warning can do so only when the subject is thoroughly familiar to him. A ready and self-possessed speaker may grasp thoughts which have been long maturing in his mind, and give them forth to an audience in obedience to an unexpected summons, but if he is called upon when he knows nothing whatever of his subject, failure is inevitable, though he may possibly veil it more or less in a stream of platitudes. Ask a man at a moment’s warning to give an astronomical lecture. If he is perfectly familiar with the subject in general, and is also a practical orator, he may succeed well without preparing a special speech. But if he is ignorant of Astronomy, what kind of an address can he make? If he is the most eloquent man in the nation that faculty will avail him nothing, for he cannot extemporize the names of the planets, the laws which govern their motions, or any of the facts out of which his lecture must be woven. Precisely the same necessity of adequate information exists in every other field of intelligence. The ignorant man cannot possibly tell that which he does not know, although he may make a great show of knowledge out of small material; but even to do that with certainty requires careful premeditation and arrangement.
In this and following chapters we wish to treat of the kind of cultivation which makes a man ready to speak. The field is here very wide and some general considerations must be introduced, but we hope also to give valuable practical directions, especially to those who are yet at the beginning of their career.
In considering man as a speaker, we may classify his faculties into two broad divisions; those which furnish the materials of communication with his fellows; and those which furnish the means of such communication. The first class gives rise to thoughts and emotions in man’s own breast; the second enables him to arouse similar thoughts and emotions in the breasts of others. Our course, therefore, will be to consider, first, thought and emotion, and afterward those powers of body and mind by which we express, that is, press out from ourselves toward the receptive faculties of our fellow beings.
Thought, in the broad sense here given, embraces the knowledge of all facts, and all the reasoning that may be based upon those facts. Emotion is the mental feeling or response to knowledge, and comprises love, hate, joy, fear, sorrow, and hope. These two elements are the broad basis of all eloquence. Keen, profound, far-reaching thought—in other words, thought raised to its highest terms—and quick, sensitive, powerful emotion, are necessary to the highest eloquence. Compared with them, mere verbal fluency is less than dust in the balance. But such a combination—the highest degree of both thought and emotion—is rare, and many degrees less than the highest of either is available for genuine eloquence. To increase either or both, if it can be done without any corresponding sacrifice, is to increase eloquence in precisely the same proportion.
Education in the popular sense is the cultivation of thought with the added faculty of language. But we prefer to consider the latter power separately as one among the means of communicating thought.
How, then, shall thought-power be increased? There is no royal road. Every one of the faculties by which knowledge is accumulated and arranged or digested into new forms grows stronger by being employed upon its own appropriate objects. Exercise is then the means by which the material of knowledge is gathered, and all faculties strengthened for future gathering. Each fact gained adds to the treasury of thought. A broad and liberal education is of exceeding advantage. This may or may not be of the schools. Indeed, they too often substitute a knowledge of words for a knowledge of things. That fault is very serious to the orator, for the only way by which even language can be effectively taught, is by giving terms to objects, the nature of which has been previously learned.
But many persons need to speak who cannot obtain an education in the usual sense of the words—that is, college or seminary training. Must they keep their lips forever closed on that account? By no means.
A thousand examples, some of them the most eminent speakers the world has produced, encourage them to hope. Let such persons learn all they can. Wide, well-selected, and systematic reading will do wonders in supplying the necessary thought-material. Every book of history, biography, travels, popular science, which is carefully read, and its contents fixed in the mind, will be available for the purposes of oratory. Here a word of advice may be offered, which, if heeded, will be worth many months of technical education at the best colleges in the land; it is this: have always at hand some work that in its own sphere possesses real and permanent merit, and read it daily until completed. If notes are made of its contents, and the book itself kept on hand for reference, so much the better. If some friend can be found who will hear you relate in your own words what you have read, this also will be of great value. Many persons, especially in our own country, spend time enough in reading the minute details of the daily papers to make them thoroughly acquainted in ten years with forty volumes of the most useful books in the world. Think of it! This number may include nearly all the literary masterpieces. Which mode of spending the time will produce the best results? One newspaper read daily would amount to more than three hundred in a year, and allowing each paper to be equal to ten ordinary book pages, the result would be three thousand pages annually, or six volumes of five hundred pages each. In ten years this would reach sixty volumes! This number, comprising the world’s best books in history, poetry, science, and general literature, might be read slowly, with meditation and diligent note-taking, by the most busy man who was willing to employ his leisure in that way. Libraries and books are now brought within the reach of all, and the mass of what man knows can be learned in outline by any student who thirsts for knowledge. While thus engaged the student is on the direct road toward oratorical efficiency, though such knowledge will not in itself constitute eloquence. It is but one of its elements. Neither will the speaker have to wait until any definite quantity of reading has been accomplished before it becomes serviceable to him. All that he learns will be immediately available, and, with proper effort, the facility of speech and the material for speaking will keep pace with each other.
But personal observation of life and nature are just as necessary as reading. The world of books is very extensive, but it yields its treasures only to persons who bring to its study some independent knowledge of their own. We cannot hope to add much to the world’s stock of knowledge by what we see with our own eyes, but what we do see and hear will interpret for us what we learn from the far wider world of books. Gibbon tells us that his militia service, though of no great advantage in itself, was afterward very useful to the historian of the Roman Empire. What we behold of the landscape around us lays the foundation for understanding what poets and travelers tell us of other landscapes we may never see. Book knowledge will become real and vivid just in proportion as it is brought into comparison with the observation of our own senses. To the orator, this is far more important than to the ordinary student, for it adds greatly to the royal faculty of imagination. A description from the lips of a speaker who beholds at the moment a mental picture, accurate as a photograph, and bright with color, will be very different from another description built up only of words, however well chosen and melodious the latter may be. A little dabbling in natural science, a few experiments tried, an occasional peep through telescope or microscope at the worlds they open, and all other means of bringing knowledge under the scrutiny of our own senses, will greatly contribute to the power of the orator.