perpetual flow was like a river, and like Pactolus, its current was often enriched with glittering gold. He was not wanting in elegance, but perhaps he lacked force. He was a great and useful patriot, but not of the most exalted rank in the forum, who speak in tones of power, as cataracts "blow their trumpets from the steeps." put on from with Eloquence is not something to be out, but to be put out from within. It is manliness and not mannerism that makes the orator. Manner is something artificial, eloquence is natural, the external manifestation of the inmost soul. When one feels deeply he will be felt; the popular mind will recognize and revere him as quick as flesh feels fire. "The faculties of the orator are judgment and imagination: and reason and eloquence, the product of these faculties, must work on the judgment and feelings of his audience for the attainment of his end. The speaker who addresses the judgment alone, may be argumentative, but never can be eloquent; for argument instructs without interesting, and eloquence interests without convincing; but oratory is neither; it is the compound of both; it conjoins the feelings and opinions of men; it speaks to the passions through the mind, and to the mind, through the passions; and leads its audience to its just purpose by the combined and powerful agency of human reason and human feeling." It has been elegantly remarked that "a good style is like the crystal of a watch, attracting attention, not to itself, but to what is beneath it." Refined sensibility aetracts nothing from the utility of rugged strength, but rather augments its worth; as Apollo found a rough shell on the sea-shore, and with a delicate fibre formed it into a lyre. Indeed, we know that it was the practice of some of the eloquent Romans, and of all Athenian speakers, to learn from dramatists and musicians to impart graceful ease to their delivery, and modulation to their periods. "Thus was beauty sent from Heaven, In this dark world; for truth and good are one, O sons of earth! would ye dissolve the tie ?" The triumphs of true eloquence, the most august manifestations of power on earth, are never seen except when the orator comes forth in the simple majesty of truth, overpowered with the weight of his convictions, and the momentous import of his theme. Under such circumstances neither speaker nor hearer is much occupied with polish and prettiness; the grand question is, what is to be said, and how shall it be most forcibly expressed. There will be a background of skillful arrangement, coloring and decoration, but that which is brought into boldest relief, and made to absorb the profoundest attention, is the matter at issue. Entering with whole heart and soul into the subject of his discourse, the speaker transports with his pathos, fascinates with the pictures of his imagination, melts masses of listeners with gushes of ten. |