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    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO

    3 1822022366330Uj

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    ORATORYREV. HENRY WARD BEECHER

    CONTAINING ALSO

    THEWHITE SUNLIGHT OF POTENT WORDS

    BYREV. JOHN S. MACINTOSH, D. D.

    ANDTHE PLACE OF THE IMAGINATION IN THE ART OF

    EXPRESSIONBY

    REV. A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D. D.

    PhiladelphiaThe Perm Publishing Company

    1892

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    COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY

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    CONTENTS

    PAG8Oratory 7The White Sunlight of Potent Words ... 51The Place of the Imagination in the Art of

    Expression 73

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    3(15

    ORATORYAN ORATION

    REV. HENRY WARD BEECHERDELIVERED BEFORE THB

    NATIONAL SCHOOL OF ELOCUTION AND ORATORY UPON THB OCCASIONOF ITS THIRD ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT, HELB IN THB AMERI-CAN ACADEMY OF Music, PHILADELPHIA, MAY 29, 1876

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    ORATIONBY

    REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER.

    I congratulate myself, always, for theprivilege of appearing before a Philadel-phia audience intelligent, sympathetic,appreciative ; but never more than now,when the audience is assembled both tobehold, and to bear witness to, one of thenoblest institutions that could be estab-lished in your midst ; one of the mostneeded ; and one which I have reason tobelieve has been established under the in-spiration of the highest motives, not onlyof patriotism in education, but of religion

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    8itself. This city eminent in many re-spects for its institutions, and for itsvarious collections which make civiliza-tion so honorable I congratulate, thatnow, at last, it has established a school oforatory in this central position, equidis-tant from the South, from the West, andfrom the North, as a fitting centre fromwhich should go out influences that shallexalt, if not regenerate, public sentimenton the subject of oratory ; for, whileprogress has been made, and is making,in the training of men for public speak-ing, I think I may say that, relative tothe exertions that are put forth in otherdepartments of education, this subject isbehind almost all others. Training inthis department is the great want of ourday ; for we are living in a land whosegenius, whose history, whose institutions,whose people, eminently demand oratory.

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    There is nothing that draws men morequickly to any centre than the hope ofhearing important subjects wisely dis-cussed with full fervor of manhood ; andthat is oratory truth bearing upon con-duct, and character set home by the livingforce of the full man. And nowhere, inthe field, in the forum, in the pulpit, orin schools, is there found to be a livingvoice that informs of beauty, traces rug-ged truth, and gives force and energy toits utterance, that people do not crowdand throng there.We have demonstrations enough, for-tunately, to show that truth alone is notsufficient ; for truth is the arrow, butman is the bow that sends it home.There be many men who are the lightof the pulpit, whose thought is profound,whose learning is universal, but whoseoffices are unspeakably dull. They do

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    IOmake known the truth ; but without fer-vor, without grace, without beauty, with-out inspiration ; and discourse upon dis-course would fitly be called the funeralof important subjects !Nowhere else is there to be so large a

    disclosure of what is possible from manacting upon men, as in oratory. Inancient times, and in other lands, cir-cumstances more or less propitious devel-oped the force of eloquence in specialinstances, or among particular classes.But consider the nature of our own in-stitutions. Consider that nothing canlive in our midst until it has acceptedits mission of service to the whole people.Now and then, men, mistaking goodsense, speak contemptuously of populariz-ing learning, and of popularizing science;but popular intelligence is that atmos-phere in which all high scientific truth

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    II

    and research, and all learning, in itsamplest extent, are, by advance in civili-zation, to find their nourishment andstimulation ; and throughout our landthe people demand to know what are theprinciples of government, what is theprocedure of courts, what is the bestthought in regard to national policy,what are the ripening thoughts respectingthe reformations of the times, what issocial truth, what is civil truth, and whatis divine truth. These things are dis-cussed in the cabin, in the field, in thecourt-house, in the legislative hall, every-where, throughout forty or fifty millionsof people. This is in accordance withthe nature of our institutions and ourcustoms ; and to the living voice morelargely than to any other source are weindebted for the popularization of learn-ing and knowledge, and for motive force,

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    which the printed page can scarcely givein any adequate measure.Yet, though this is in accordance withthe necessity of our times, our institu-tions and our customs, I think thatoratory, with the exception of here andthere an instance which is supposed to benatural, is looked upon, if not with con-tempt, at least with discredit, as a thingartificial ; as a mere science of ornamen-tation ; as a method fit for actors who arenot supposed to express their own senti-ments, but unfit for a living man whohas earnestness and sincerity and pur-pose.

    Still, on the other hand, I hold thatoratory has this test and mark of divineprovidence, in that God, when He makesthings perfect, signifies that He is doneby throwing over them the robe of beauty;for beauty is the divine thought of excel-

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    13lence. All things, growing in theirearlier stages, are rude. All of them arein vigorous strength, it may be ; but notuntil the blossom conies, and the fruithangs pendant, has the vine evinced forwhat it was made. God is a God ofbeauty ; and beauty is everywhere thefinal process. When things have cometo that, they have touched their limit.Now, a living force that brings to itself

    all the resources of imagination, all theinspirations of feeling, all that is influen-tial in body, in voice, in eye, in gesture,in posture, in the whole animated man, isin strict analogy with the divine thoughtand the divine arrangement ; and there isno misconstruction more utterly untrueand fatal than this : that oratory is anartificial thing, which deals with baublesand trifles, for the sake of making bubblesof pleasure for transient effect on mer-

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    curial audiences. So far from that, it isthe consecration of the whole man to thenoblest purposes to which one can addresshimself the education and inspiration ofhis fellow-men by all that there is inlearning, by all that there is in thought,by all that there is in feeling, by allthat there is in all of them, sent homethrough the channels of taste and ofbeauty. And so regarded, oratory shouldtake its place among the highest depart-ments of education.

    I have said that it is disregardedlargely ; so it is ; and one of the fruits ofthis disregard is that men fill all theplaces of power how ? With force mis-directed ; with energy not half so fruitfulas it might be ; with sincerity that knowsnot how to spread its wings and fly. Ithink that if you were to trace and toanalyze the methods which prevail in all

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    the departments of society, you wouldfind in no other such contempt of culture,and in no other such punishment of thiscontempt.May I speak of my own profession,

    from a life-long acquaintance from nowforty years of public life and knowledgeand observation ? May I say, withoutbeing supposed to arrogate anything tomy own profession, that I know of nonobler body of men, of more various ac-complishments, of more honesty, of moreself-sacrifice, and of more sincerity, thanthe clergymen of America? And yet,with exceptional cases, here and there, Icannot say that the profession representseminence : I mean eminence, not in elo-quence, but in oratory. I bear them wit-

    . ness that they mean well ; I bear themwitness that in multitudes of cases theyare grotesque ; that in multitudes of other

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    i6cases they are awkward ; and that inmultitudes still greater they are dull.They are living witnesses to show howmuch can be done by men that are inearnest without offices, and without theadjuvants of imagination and of taste, bytraining; and they are living witnessesalso, I think, of how much is left undoneto make truth palatable, and to make meneager to hear it and eager to receive it, bythe lack of that very training which theyhave despised or neglected, at any rate.

    Or, shall I ask you to scrutinize themanner and the methods that prevail inour courts the everlasting monotone andseesaw ? Shall I ask you to look at theintensity that raises itself to the highestpitch in the beginning, and that then,running in a screaming monotone,wearies, if it does not affright, all thathear it ?

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    17Or, shall I ask you to consider the wild

    way in which speaking takes place in ourpolitical conflicts throughout the countrythe bellowing of one, the shouting of

    another, the grotesqueness of a third, andthe want of any given method, or anyemotion, in almost all of them.How much squandering there is of thevoice ! How little is there of the advan-tage that may come from conversationaltones ! How seldom does a man dare toacquit himself with pathos and fervor !And the men are themselves mechanicaland methodical in the bad way, who aremost afraid of the artificial training thatis given in the schools, and who so oftenshow by the fruit of their labor that thewant of oratory is the want of education.How remarkable is sweetness of voicein the mother, in the father, in the house-hold ! The music of no chorded instru-

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    i8ments brought together is, for sweetness,like the music of familiar affection whenspoken by brother and sister, or by fatherand mother.

    Conversation itself belongs to oratory.Where is there a wider, a more amplefield for the impartation of pleasure orknowledge than at a festive dinner ? andhow often do we find that when men,having well eaten and drunken, arise tospeak, they are well qualified to keepsilence and utterly disqualified to speak !How rare it is to find felicity of dictionon such occasions ! How seldom do wesee men who are educated to a fine senseof what is fit and proper at gatherings ofthis kind ! How many 111211 there arewho are weighty in argument, who haveabundant resources, and who are almostboundless in their power at other timesand in other places, but %vho when in

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    company among their kind are exceed-ingly unapt in their methods. Havingnone of the secret instruments by whichthe elements of nature may be touched,having no skill and no power in thisdirection, they stand as machines beforeliving, sensitive men. A man may be asa master before an instrument ; only theinstrument is dead ; and he has the livinghand ; and out of that dead instrumentwhat wondrous harmony springs forth athis touch ! And if you can electrify anaudience by the power of a living man ondead things, how much more should thataudience be electrified when the chordsare living and the man is alive, and heknows how to touch them with divineinspiration !

    I advocate, therefore, in its full extent,and for every reason of humanity, ofpatriotism, and of religion, a more

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    thorough culture of oratory ; and I de-fine oratory to be the art of influencingconduct with the truth set home by allthe resources of the living man. Its aimis not to please men, but to build themup ; and the pleasure which it imparts isone of the methods by which it seeks todo this. It aims to get access to men byallaying their prejudices. A person who,with unwelcome truths, undertakes tocarry them to men who do not wantthem, but who need them, undertakes atask which is like drawing near to afortress. The times have gone by, butyou remember them, when, if I hadspoken here on certain themes belongingto patriotism which now are our glory, Ishould have stood before you as before somany castles locked and barred. Howunwelcome was the truth ! But if onehad the art of making the truth beautiful ;

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    if one had the art of coaxing the keeperof the gate to turn the key and let theinterloping thought come in ; if one couldby persuasion control the cerberus ofhatred, of anger, of envy, of jealousy,that sits at the gate of men's souls, andwatches against unwelcome truths ; if onecould by eloquence give sops to thismonster, and overcome him, would it notbe worth while to do it ? Are we to goon still cudgeling, and cudgeling, andcudgeling men's ears with coarse pro-cesses ? Are we to consider it a specialprovidence when any good comes fromour preaching or our teaching ? Are wenever to study how skillfully to pick thelock of curiosity, to unfasten the door offancy, to throw wide open the halls ofemotion, and to kindle the light of inspi-ration in the souls of men ? Is there anyreality in oratory ? It is all real.

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    First, in the orator is the man. Letno man who is a sneak

    tryto be an

    orator. The method is not the substanceof oratory. A man who is to be anorator must have something to say. Hemust have something that in his verysoul he feels to be worth saying. Hemust have in his nature that kindlysympathy which connects him with hisfellow-men, and which so makes him apart of the audience which he moves asthat his smile is their smile, that his tearis their tear, and that the throb of hisheart becomes the throb of the hearts ofthe whole assembly. A man that ishumane, a lover of his kind, full of allearnest and sweet sympathy for theirwelfare, has in him the original element,the substance of oratory, which is truth ;but in this world truth needs nursing andhelping ; it needs every advantage ; for

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    tire underflow of life is animal, and thechannels of human society have beentaken possession of by lower influencesbeforehand. The devil squatted on humanterritory before the angel came to dispos-sess him. Pride and intolerance, arro-gance and its cruelty, selfishness and itsgreed, all the lower appetites and pas-sions, do swarm, and do hold in thrallthe under-man that each one of us yetcarries the man of flesh, on which thespirit-man seeks to ride, and by whichtoo often he is thrown and trampled underfoot. The truth in its attempt to weanthe better from the worse needs everyauxiliary and every adjuvant.

    Therefore, the man who goes forth tospeak the truth, whether men will hearor whether they will forbear, and goeswith the determination that the}- shallhear ; the man who carries victory in his

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    24hope ; the man who has irrefragiblecourage it is not enough that he has inhis soul this element, which, though it bedespised, is the foundation element, andwhich comes first by birth, thanks to yourfather and mother, thanks to the provi-dence that gave you such a father andsuch a mother, and thanks to the Godwho inspires it and sanctifies it. Withthis predisposition and this substance oftruth which men need, and which is to re-fashion human life in all its parts, thequestion arises whether there is need ofanything more than gracious culture.Well, so long as men are in the body theyneed the body. There are some whothink they have well-nigh crucified thebody. If they have, why are they linger-ing here below, where they are not useful,and where they are not needed ? So longas men touch the ground, and feel their

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    25own weight, so long they need the apti-tudes and the instrumentalities of thehuman body ; and one of the very firststeps in oratory is that which trains thebody to be the welcome and glad servantof the soul which it is not always ; formany and many a one who has acres ofthought has little bodily culture, and aslittle grace of manners ; and many andmany a one who has sweetening insidehas cacophony when he speaks. Harsh,rude, hard, bruising, are his words.The first work, therefore, is to teach a

    man's body to serve his soul ; and in thiswork the education of the bodily presenceis the very first step. We had almost ex-tinguished the power of the human bodyby our pulpits, which, in early days, werethe sources and centres of popular elo-quence such as there was ; for men fol-lowed the Apocalyptic figure of the

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    candlestick, the pulpit in the church rep-resenting the candlestick, and the ministerbeing supposed to be the light in it. Inthose days of symbolizatioii everythinghad to be symbolized ; and when a churchwas built they made a pulpit that waslike the socket of a candlestick, and put aman into it ; and thus entubbed he lookeddown afar upon his congregation to speakunto them ! Now, what man could win acoy and proud companion if he wereobliged to court at fifty feet distancefrom her ? or, what man, pleading for hislife, would plead afar off, as through aspeaking trumpet, from the second story,to one down below ?Nay, men have been covered up. The

    introduction of platforms has beenthought, on the whole, to be a somewhatdiscourteous thing. I will tell you, if youwill indulge me, a little reminiscence of

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    27iny own experience. In the churchwhere I minister there v>

    ras 110 pulpit ;there was only a platform ; and some ofthe elect ladies, honorable and precious,waited upon me to know if I would notpermit a silk screen to be drawn acrossthe front of my table, so that my legs andfeet need not be seen. My reply to themwas, U I will, on one condition thatwhenever I make a pastoral call at yourhouses you will have a green silk baginto which I ma}- put my legs."

    If the legs and feet are tolerable in asaloon, or in a social room, why are theynot tolerable on a platform ? It takes thewhole man to make a man ; and at timesthere are no gestures that are comparableto the simple stature of the man himself.So it behooves us to train men to use thewhole of themselves. Frequently the footis emphasis, and the posture is oftentimes

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    power, after a word, or accompanying aword ; and men learn to perceive thethought coming afar off from the manhimself who foreshadows it by his action.You shall no longer, when men areobliged to stand disclosed before the wholeaudience, see ministers bent over a desk,like a weary horse crooked over a hitch-ing block, and preaching first on one leg,and then on the other. To be a gentle-man in the presence of an audience is oneof the first lessons which oratory willteach the young aspiring speaker.

    But, beside that, what power there isin posture, or in gesture ! By it, howmany discriminations are made ; howmany smooth things are rolled off ; howmany complex things men are made tocomprehend ! How many things thebody can tongue when the tongue itselfcannot well utter the thing desired ! The

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    29tongue and the person are to co-operate ;and having been trained to work together,the result is spontaneous, unthought of,unarranged for.Now, to the real natural man and the

    natural man is the educated man; not thething from which he sprang how muchis to be added ! Many a man will hearthe truth for the pleasure of hearing it,who would not hear it for the profit ofhearing it ; and so there must be some-thing more than its plain statement.Among other things, the voice perhapsthe most important of all, and the leastcultured should not be forgotten. Howmany men are there that can speak fromday to day one hour, two hours, threehours, without exhaustion, and withouthoarseness ? But it is in the power of thevocal organs, and of the ordinary vocalorgans, to do this. What multitudes of

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    30men weary themselves out because theyput their voice on a hard run at the top ofits compass ! and there is no relief tothem, and none, unfortunately, to theaudience. But the voice is like anorchestra. It ranges high up, and canshriek betimes like the scream of aneagle ; or it is low as a lion's tone ; andat every intermediate point is some pecu-liar quality. It has in it the mother'swhisper and the father's command. Ithas in it warning and alarm. It has in itsweetness. It is full of mirth and full ofgayety. It glitters, though it is not seenwith all its sparkling fancies. It rangeshigh, intermediate, or low, in obedience tothe will, unconsciously to him who usesit; and men listen through the long hour,wondering that it is so short, and quiteunaware that they have been bewitchedout of their weariness by the charm of a

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    voice, not artificial, not prearranged in theman's thought, but by assiduous trainingmade to be his second nature. Such avoice answers to the soul, and it is itsbeating.Now, against this training manifold

    objections are made. It is said that it isunworthy of manhood that men should beso trained. The conception of a man isthat of blunt earnestness. It is said thatif a man knows what he wants to say, hecan say it ; that if he knows what hewants to have men do, the way is for himto pitch at them. That seems to be aboutthe idea which ordinarily prevails on thissubject. Shoot a man, as you would arocket in war ; throw him as you would ahand-grenade ; and afterward, if youplease, look to see where he hits ; andwoe be to those who touch the fragments !Such appears to be the notion which

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    32many have on this subject. But whereelse, in what other relation, does a manso reason ? Here is the highest functionto which any man can address himselfthe attempt to vitalize men ; to givewarmth to frigid natures ; to give aspi-rations to the dull and low-flying ; togive purpose to conduct, and to evolvecharacter from conduct ; to train everypart of one's self the thinking power ;the perceptive power ; the intuitions ; theimagination ; all the sweet and overflow-ing emotions. The grace of the body ;its emphasis ; its discriminations ; thepower of the eye and of the voice allthese belong to the blessedness of thiswork.

    " No," says the man of the school ofthe beetle, " buzz, and fight, and hitwhere you can." Thus men disdainthis culture as though it were something

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    33effeminate ; as though it were a scienceof ornamentation ; as though it were ameans of stealing men's convictions, notenforcing them ; and as though it lackedcalibre and dignity.

    But why should not this reasoning beapplied to everything else ? The veryman who wrill not train his own voice topreach, to lecture, to discourse, whetherin the field or in the legislative hall, or inthe church, will pay large dues throughweary quarters to drill his daughter'svoice to sing hymns, and canzonets, andother music. This is not counted to beunworthy of the dignity of womanhood." But," it is said, " does not the voicecome by nature?" Yes ; but is there any-thing that comes by nature which staysas it comes if it is worthily handled? Wereceive one talent that we may make itfive ; and we receive five talents that we

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    may make them ten. There is no onething in man that he has in perfection tillhe has it by culture. We know that inrespect to everything but the voice. Isnot the ear trained to acute hearing ? Isnot the eye trained in science ? Do mennot school the eye, and make it quick-see-ing by patient use ? Is a man, becausehe has learned a trade, and was not bornwith it, thought to be less a man ? Be-cause we have made discoveries of scienceand adapted them to manufacture ; be-cause we have developed knowledge bytraining, are we thought to be unmanly ?Shall we, because we have unfolded ourpowers by the use of ourselves for thatnoblest of purposes, the inspiration andelevation of mankind, be less esteemed ?Is the school of human training to be dis-dained when by it we are rendered moreuseful to our fellow-men ?

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    35But it is said that this culture is artifi-

    cial ; that it is mere posturing ; that it issimple ornamentation. Ah ! that is notbecause there has been so much of it, butbecause there has been so little of it. Ifa man were to begin, as he should, early ;or if, beginning late, he were to addicthimself assiduously to it, then the gracesof speech, the graces of oratory, would beto him what all learning must be beforeit is perfect, namely, spontaneous. If hewere to be trained earlier, then his train-ing would not be called the science of os-tentation or of acting.Never is a man thoroughly taught until

    he has forgotten how he learned. Do youremember when you tottered from chairto chair? Xow you walk without think-ing that you learned to walk. Do youremember when your inept hands wan-dered through the air toward the candle,

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    36or toward the mother's bosom ? Nowhow regulated, how true to your wish,how quick, how sharp to the touch, arethose hands ! But it was by learningthat they became so far perfected. Theirperfection is the fruit of training.

    Let one think of what he is doing, andhe does it ill. If you go into your parlor,where your wife and children arc, youalways know what to do with yourselfor almost always ! You are not awkwardin your postures, nor are you awkwardwith your hands ; but let it be understoodthat there are a dozen strangers to bepresent, and you begin to think how toappear well before them ; and the resultof your thinking about it is that youappear very ill. Where to put yourhands, and where to put yourself, you donot know ; how to stand or how to sittroubles you ; whether to hold up one

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    37hand or the other hand, or to hold bothdown, or both up, is a matter of thoughtwith you.

    Let me walk on the narrowest of theseboards upon which I stand, and I walkwith simplicity and perfect safety, becauseI scarcely think of walking ; but lift thatboard fifty feet above the ground, and letme walk on it as far as across this build-ing, and let me think of the consequencesthat would result if I were to fall, andhow I would tremble and reel ! The mo-ment a man's attention is directed to thatwhich he does, he does it ill. When thething which a man does is so completelymastered as that there is an absence ofvolition, and he does it without knowingit, he does it easily ; but when the voli-tion is not subdued, and when, therefore,he does not act spontaneously, he is con-scious of what he does, and the conscious-

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    ness prevents his doing it easily. Uncon-sciousness is indispensable to the doing athing easily and well.Now, in regard to the training of the

    orator, it should begin in boyhood, andshould be part and parcel of the lessonsof the school. Grace; posture; force ofmanner ; the training of the eye, that itmay look at men, and pierce them, andsmile upon them, and bring summer tothem, and call down storms and winterupon them ; the development of the hand,that it may wield the sceptre, or beckonwith sweet persuasion these things donot come artificially ; they belong to man.Why, men think that Nature means thatwhich lies back of culture. Then youought never to have departed from baby-hood ; for that is the only nature you hadto begin with. But is nature the acornforever ? Is not the oak nature ? Is not

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    39that which comes from the seed the bestrepresentation of the divine conception ofthe seed? And as men we are seeds.Culture is but planting them and trainingthem according to their several natures;and nowhere is training nobler than inpreparing the orator for the great work towhich he educates himself the elevationof his kind, through truth, throughearnestness, through beauty, throughevery divine influence.But it is said that the times are chang-

    ing, and that we ought not to attempt tomeddle with that which God has providedfor. Say men, " The truth is before you ;there is your Bible ; go preach the Wordof God." Well, if you are not to meddlewith what God has provided for, why wasnot the Bible sent instead of you ? Youwere sent because the very object of apreacher was to give the truth a living

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    40form, and not have it lie in the dead letter.As to its simplicity and as to its beauty,I confute you with your own doctrine ;for, as I read the sacred text, it is, "Adornthe doctrine of God our Saviour." Weare to make it beautiful. There are timeswhen we cannot do it. There are timesfor the scalpel, there are times for thesword, and there are times for the battle-axe ; but these are exceptional. " Letevery one of us please his neighbor forhis good to edification " is a standingcommand ; and we are to take the truth,of every kind, and if possible bring it inits summer guise to men.But it is said, " Our greatest orators

    have not been trained." How do youknow? It may be that Patrick Henrywent crying in the wilderness of poorspeakers, without any great training ; Iwill admit that now and then there are

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    gifts so eminent and so impetuous thatthey break through ordinary necessities ;but even Patrick Henry was eloquent onlyunder great pressure ; and there remainthe results of only one or two of hisefforts. Daniel Webster is supposed inmany respects to have been the greatestAmerican orator of his time ; but therenever lived a man who was so studious ofeverything he did, even to the buttons onhis coat, as Daniel Webster. Henry Claywas prominent as an orator, but thoughhe was not a man of the schools, he wasa man who schooled himself; and by hisown thought and taste and sense of thatwhich was fitting and beautiful, he be-came, through culture, an accomplishedorator.

    If you go from our land to other lands ;if you go to the land which has beenirradiated by parliamentary eloquence ;

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    42if you go to the people of Great Britain ;if you go to the great men in ancienttimes who lived in the intellect ; if yougo to the illustrious names that every onerecalls Demosthenes and Cicero theyrepresent a life of work.Not until Michael Angelo had been theservant and the slave of matter did helearn to control matter ; and not until hehad drilled and drilled and drilled himselfwere his touches free and easy as thebreath of summer, and full of color as thesummer itself. Not until Raphael hadsubdued himself by color was he thecrowning artist of beauty. You shall notfind one great sculptor, nor one greatarchitect, nor one great painter, nor oneeminent man in any department of art,nor one great scholar, nor one greatstatesman, nor one divine of universalgifts, whose greatness, if you inquire, you

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    43will not find to be the fruit of study, andof the evolution that comes from study.

    It is said, furthermore, that oratory isone of the lost arts. I have heard it saidthat our struggles brought forth not oneprominent orator. This fact reveals alaw which has been overlooked namely,that aristocracy diminishes the number ofgreat men, and makes the few so muchgreater than the average that they standup like the pyramids in the deserts ofEgypt ; whereas, democracy distributesthe resources of society, and brings upthe whole mass of the people ; so thatunder a democratic government great mennever stand so high above the average asthey do when society has a level farbelow them. Let building go up onbuilding around about the tallest spirein this city, and you dwarf the spire,though it stand as high as heaven,

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    44because even-thing by which it is sur-rounded has risen higher.Now, throughout our whole land there

    was more eloquence during our strugglesthan there was previously ; but it was infar more mouths. It was distributed.There was in the mass of men a highermethod of speaking, a greater power inaddressing their fellow-men ; and thoughsingle men were not so prominent asthey would have been under other circum-stances, the reason is one for which weshould be grateful. There were moremen at a higher average, though therewere fewer men at ail extreme altitude.Then it is said that books, and espe-

    cially newspapers, are to take the placeof the living voice. Never ! never! Themiracle of modern times, in one respect, isthe Press ; to it is given a wide field anda wonderful work ; and when it shall be

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    45clothed with all the moral inspirations,with all the ineffable graces, that comefrom simplicity and honesty and convic-tion, it will have a work second almost tonone other in the land. Like the light, itcarries knowledge every day round theglobe. What is done at St. Paul's in themorning is known, or ever half the dayhas run around, in Wall Street, NewYork. What is done in New York at therising of the sun, is, before the noontidehour known in California. By the powerof the wire, and of the swift-followingengine, the papers spread at large vastquantities of information before myriadreaders throughout the country ; but theoffice of the papers is simply to convey in-formation. They cannot plant it. Theycannot open the soil and put it into thefurrow. They cannot enforce it. It isgiven only to the living man, standing

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    46before men with the seed of knowledge inhis hand, to open the furrows in the livingsouls of men, and sow the seed, and coverthe furrows again. Not until human na-ture is other than it is, will the functionof the 'living voice the greatest force onearth among men cease. Not until thenwill the orator be useless, who brings tohis aid all that is fervid in feeling ; whoincarnates in himself the truth ; who isfor the hour the living reason, as well asthe reasoner ; who is for the moment themoral sense; who carries in himself theimportunity and the urgency of zeal ; whobrings his influence to bear upon men invarious ways ; who adapts himself contin-ually to the changing conditions of themen that are before him ; who plies themby softness and by hardness, by light andby darkness, by hope and by fear ; whostimulates them or represses them at his

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    47will. Nor is there, let me say, on God'sfootstool, anything so crowned and soregal as the sensation of one who faces anaudience in a worthy cause, and with am-plitude of means, and defies them, fightsthem, controls them, conquers them.Great is the advance of civilization ;might}7 are the engines of force, but manis greater than that which he produces.Vast is that machine which stands in thedark unconsciously lifting, lifting theonly humane slave the iron slave theCorliss engine ; but he that made the en-gine is greater than the engine itself.Wonderful is the skill by which that mostexquisite mechanism of modern life, thewatch, is constructed; but greater is theman that made the watch than the watchthat is made. Great is the Press, greatare the hundred instrumentalities and in-stitutions and customs of society ; but

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    above them all is man. The living forceis greater than any of its creationsgreater than society, greater than its laws.

    k The Sabbath was made for man, and notman for the Sabbath," saith the Lord.Man is greater than his own institutions.And this living force is worthy of all cul-ture of all culture in the power ofbeauty ; of all culture in the direction ofpersuasion ; of all culture in the art ofreasoning.To make men patriots, to make menChristians, to make men the sons of God,let all the doors of heaven be opened, andlet God drop down charmed gifts wingedimagination, all-perceiving reason, andall-judging reason. Whatever there isthat can make men wiser and better letit descend upon the head of him who hasconsecrated himself to the work of man-kind, and who has made himself an oratorfor man's sake and for God's sake.

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    THE WHITE SUNLIGHTOF

    P O T K N T WORDSAN ORATION

    BYREV. JOHN S. MACINTOSH, D. D.

    DELIVERED BEFORE THENATIONAL SCHOOL OF ELOCUTION AND ORATORY UPON IHB OCCASIONOF ITS EIGHTH ANNUAL COMMENCEMRNT, HELD AT THE AMERI-

    CAN ACAOEMV OF MUSIC, PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 14, l88l

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    THE)

    OF

    OF the countless acts of kindness andgratifying expressions of esteem thathave marked and sweetened my returnafter long absence to my native city andbeloved land, among the very foremostand most flattering must be ranked byme the strongly-expressed invitation todeliver this annual address before Phila-delphia's critical sons and cultureddaughters.From this honorable task I, not un-

    naturally nor surprisingly, at firstshrank. Knowing on the one side sowell the distinguished and masterly

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    52speakers who, to your pleased profit andto their owii enhanced fame, had pre-ceded ma upon this stage of perfectspeech and purest song, and had madethis oration at once a high honor and atoil-fraught duty, and knowing upon theother side even better at once my nativeinability to stand a peer of such famousforerunners, and also the stern, distract-ing pressure of clamant and incessantwork in this fresh field and amid athousand thought - troubling circum-stances which made adequate preparationfor me an insuperable impossibility, Ihad twice felt itmy plain duty to put awayfrom me the delightful labor and thetempting request. But the pleadings ofa lady whose worth and work demandmost sympathetic consideration, and thepersuasions of friends whose words ofrequest are stronger than the commands

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    53of a master, "have at last placed me whereI shall need all the gracious indulgencewhich hard-wrought and overtasked menso freely extend to an overstrainedbrother, and the tender considerationwhich thoughtful gentlewomen neverfail to show to the plain, blunt man whosimply tells the thoughts that inly movehim.

    Yet not of constraint, but willingly,am I here this night. For me it is apure, strong joy to face my bright andstirring theme, to front this inspiritingthrong and forecast the toilsome buttriumphant days that shall summon outthe powers of these ardent students ofthe art of speech : the place, the audience,the object of our gathering, are cheeringand pleasant ; and I feel that around meis playing a soft and kindly light as Icome to speak to you of " The White

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    54Sunlight of Potent Words," longing asI do that soon in our glorious land allour spokesmen shall be true-souledprophets, whose utterances, light-bornand light-shedding, shall prove themchildren of the light, whose luminouswords shall chase night and spread dayin a hundred fields of thought, and be,therefore, words of power well chosenand perfectly spoken.This striking phrase, u The white sun-

    light of potent words," occurs in one ofhis books who was himself no mean sunin the literary world, whose words weretruly forces : I mean that freshest andmost striking instance of Atavism whichour Knglish-speaking nation has everstudied, Carlyle's worshipful portraitureof his strong-souled, true-tongued, clean-handed, God-fearing father. As the sternson depicts so vividly his sterner sire, he

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    55presents him to us as one who loved thewhite sunlight of exact truth and toldhis own clear thoughts in potent words.As I read them the terms engraved them-selves upon my memory, and as Isearched for my subject they flashed backwith light and furnished me with thetheme desired one not, perchance, inap-propriate to this occasion. These wordsof Carlyle seemed to me to set forth withsunny vividness and striking freshnessexactly what each lover of eloquence,what all earnest, practical, successfulspeakers, what you in this prosperous,admirably - conducted and influentialschool of oratory, seek to understand,appreciate, and acquire the prophet'ssecret, \\\z strength and beauty of thought-ful, cultured, impressive, and implusivespeech. Of speech, I say, the might andmagic of the spoken soul ; not scripture,

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    56the written soul ; for scripture that is,writing is at the best but the preciousand splendid artifice to embalm thoughtand perpetuate some silent emblems ofthe once-active spirit-life ; but speech,hot, glowing, fresh-born, fire-kindlingspeech, that indeed is more than kinglypower : " the tongue is the glory of man."O precious, awful power wherewith wemay yield high glory to God and minis-ter grace and good to men ! how shall Imake this sublime gift serve its destinedends, change its grand possibility intoglorious potency ? how shall I perfectinto a true servant of my fellows and anacceptable sacrifice to my Maker thisdivine gift? how shall I find, fashion,fling forth those winged words that provemy heavenly origin those arrows of thesoul that, tipped with fire and swifterthan lightning, slay the monsters of

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    57wrong ; those spirit-waves, living and life-giving, that break fresh out of the sea oflife and roll onward and upward till theystrike upon the footstool of niy listeningLord?How shall I attain to this the one true

    ideal of a true spokesman ? By makingspeech and only Ity making speech arevelation of realities ; a revelation ex-act, reliable, challenging tests the keen-est, eyes the strongest. Such revelationis light, for light is that which makesmanifest ; and the grace, the grandeur,the glory of speech is the manifestationof truth to the creatures of conscience.Such manifestation of truth, clean, exact,luminous, is light yes, white light ;and that is the very life and essence ofthe highest eloquence and the truestoratory.Days there are in autumn when the

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    53air seems to have been filtered throughsome pure fleecy medium and made ab-solutely dry ; when the light is whollycolorless, with an all-penetrating, razor-like keenness in it ; when the sun poursdown beams from which, like his Mas-ter's sight, nothing is hidden ; then allthings stand out sharply cut, fully un-folded, exactly known, in the white light.Such light, such revelation, is the idealof eloquence ; with it we have the verylife and essence of this in many respectshighest of the fine arts.There is, or ought to be, a soul in

    speech.As in ourselves we have three great

    parts life, form, action, or, in otherwords, essence, embodiment, exerciseso in oratory there is the essence, or thesubstance, or the throbbing, thrilling,informing life ; and then there is the

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    59expression, the embodiment, in the ap-propriate harmonious forms of actual ut-terance ; and then there is the exercise,the action, of the whole man, whereinlies the witchery, the spell, of speech.

    I. THE ESSENCE OR SUBSTANCE OFELOQUENCE.

    Here, as so often, a false start is ruin,but well begun is half ended. Startwith the true substance, seek first thestrength of speech which is truth,reality and you will in due time, be-cause loving truth, add beauty, grace,and sweetness. But foolishly reversethe order start with, think first of, aimchiefly after, beauty and you will neverreach the highest beaut}^ and utterlymiss strength. It is the voice, there-fore, not only of a holy morality, but

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    6oalso of high reflective art, of a really no-ble, resistless eloquence, that falls uponour ear as we catch, the old words,clarion-like and commanding : Speakye every man truth with his neighbor.

    Search the eloquence of the past forthe secret of its great strength, and youwill find truth truth which to this veryhour makes the manly yet skillful plead-ings of Judah for the suspected Benja-min before the disguised Joseph, theswelling periods of Moses, the blunt,soldier-like sentences of Joshua, thelightning-flashes of Nathan's attack onDavid, the scathing irony of Elijah, thecomforting words of Isaiah, the deep-toned voice of Peter, the gleaming utter-ances of Paul, and the seraphic teach-ings of John thrill and charm and en-chain us.

    Search, ye that would know the secret

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    6iof eloquence, and ye shall find truth tobe the strength of the great classicspeakers truth, which Demosthenes,master of orators, flung as well-wroughtgold into those still-resounding orationswhich outring the delighted wonder ofthe growing centuries and outlast thekeenest examination of pitiless criticism.Search, and ye shall find truth, whichPlato, Cicero, and Quintilian declare tobe the very throbbing, informing life ofall abiding and impulsive eloquence ;truth, which Theremin makes the veryvirtue of eloquence ; which Shedd in hisscholarly, suggestive essays declares tobe the very glory of noble speech ;which Coleridge and Marsh, with Bacon,affirm to be the force and the fire of elo-quence. Search, and you will find thatthe secret of eloquence is truth truth,which makes Demosthenes grander than

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    62

    ^Eschines, Cicero than Hortensius, Mas-sillon than Bossuet, Burke than Fox,Webster than Hayne, Gladstone thanDisraeli. Search, and you shall findtruth ; truth, which alone can fill thegood man, who only, according to Quin-tilian, has in him the possibility of theorator, with those heart-filling, com-manding convictions that create the fieryenergy of a Chatham and the resistlesssweep of a Mirabeau ; truth, whichsneaking tricksters fear more than thesurging mobs of their furious dupes, andtyrants hate more than the pointed steelof resolute patriots ; truth, which free-men love like a mother's voice, andwhich heroic men crave after more thanafter Hebe's nectar.And still, ye students of eloquence,

    that truth must be the very soul andsubstance of speech, else there can be no

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    63harmony of intellect, imagination, emo-tion, and will, by which alone is securedthe complex unity of high discourse;still truth must be the life of speech,else there can be no light-flooded reason,hence no healthy throb of strongly-beat-ing heart, and liencs no mighty surge ofwill whose tremendous forces and resist-less activities whelm and bury the badin darksome depths, and raise the goodwith glorious uplift to rest on eternalheights in victorious safety and reigncalm and unchallenged benefactors andsaviors of their kind.How, you ask, shall we grow rich in

    truth, this royalty of speech ? Pursuethe path just begun by you; walk for-ward, earnest, toiling, appreciative stu-dents, in the long-drawn and crowdedhalls and galleries of our own teemingEnglish literature. Study all the writers

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    64you can, but see to it that ye live with,that you love with pure hearts fervently,only the truest of our English seers,those most noble souls who occupy ourOlympic heights ; and if ye make thetruest your models, companions, and mas-ters, you will see and grasp truth, thetruth will live within you ; then soonthe fire will burn and your tongue willspeak the gleaming, glowing words thatlight and warm, that vivify and beautify.

    II. THE EXPRESSION OF THE TRUTH.When the heart loves truth, soon the

    adequate and appropriate expression willbecome at once a necessity and an anxi-ety. Life is ever joined to organizationin man's world ; spirit is wedded to form ;the idea must be embodied. That ex-pression is the work and glory of the

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    65orator's art. The vision of beauty isunveiled before the painter's imaginativesoul, the possible angel greets the mus-ing sculptor from the huge rough marbleblock, witching tones of spirit-voicesfloat around the delighted ears of therapt musician ; and Mitrillo and Ra-phael, Angelo and Thorwaldsen, Handeland Beethoven, embody in fitting artisticforms the truth within them, and theworld gathers in moved delight and withwondering souls. The eloquent orator isbrother in art to the painter, the sculp-tor, the poet, and the musician ; and theproof of his relationship lies in theappropriateness, . vividness, exactness,rhythm, and music of his culturedspeech, for these constitute the form ofbeauty given by him to the truth thathe has felt or seen or heard. In thatclothing of the ethereal essence with the

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    66fair and fitting body lies the art andskill the painful labor, but the' exhila-rating joy of the true prophet.Teachers of your fellows, yon have

    caught in your lonely hours and rever-ent thinking soul-ravishing views ofpurity, righteousness, and charity ; oryou have heard the thousand variedvoices of sky and sea and earth caroling,thundering, whispering their mysticmessages to your open hearts andresponsive spirit ; or, free-born, youhave looked upon an avaricious Ahab inhis tyrannous meanness, and havewatched the confronting Elijah in allthe glorious fearlessness of a God-fearingman; or, sympathetic, you have joinedin jubilant youth's gleeful gladness, oryou have sat in silent sorrow beside thedesolate orphan's tear-drenched pillow ;or, patriot-souled, 3-011 have beheld the

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    6;down-trodden country rise in revolu-tionary wrath, and with her broken fet-ters smite her despot dead, or you havein mournfulness marked a once-noblenation drifting through the mists of liesand over the treacherous seas of luxuryto her eternal ruin ; and now there liveswithin you some part of God's greattruth, some fragment of God's greatreality. You meditate upon this truth ;it burns within you ; you must speak itout ; and speak it out you will, for youare now fitted to become preachers tomen.What now must ye preachers do ? Seek" out acceptable words," and, as ye seek

    them, turn to our English stores. Seek-ing to be rich in speech, 3^011 will findthat in the broad ocean of our Englishliterature there are pearls of great price,our potent English words words that

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    68are wizards more mighty than the oldScotch magician ; words that are picturesbright and moving with all the coloringand circumstance of life; words that godown the century like battle-cries ; wordsthat sob like litanies, sing like larks,sigh like zepl^rs, shout like seas. Seekamid our exhaustless stores, and 3-011will find words that flash like the starsof the frosty sky, or are melting andtender like Love's tear-filled eyes ;words that are fresh and crisp like themountain-breeze in autumn, or are mel-low and rich as an old painting ; wordsthat are sharp, unbending, and preciselike Alpine needle-points, or are heavyand rugged like great nuggets of gold ;words that are glittering and gay likeimperial gems, or are chaste and refinedlike the face of a Muse. Search, and yeshall find words that crush like the

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    69battle-axe of Richard or cut like thescimitar of Solyman ; words that stinglike a serpent's fang or soothe like amother's kiss ; words that can unveilthe nether depths of hell or point outthe heavenly heights of purity andpeace ; words that can recall a Judas,words that reveal the Christ.How shall we find these pearls of Eng-

    lish speech these words of potency thatare to truth what fairest body is to finestsoul ?Dig for them as for hidden treasures.

    The mines are near you, easily wrought,inexhaustible ; and these mines moreprecious to us than Ophir or Golcondawhere -you find the rarest jewels of

    truth set in the splendid forms of perfectwords, are the thought-packed treasures,the moving life, the chaste beauty, the

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    7

    masterly strength, the reverent dignity,of our unsurpassed English literature.What a teeming, varied field of richterms, of glorious forms, of glowingimages, ofmelodious and majestic speech,of living and palpitating expressions andofexquisitely perfect style, opens to us inthat realm where the philosophic voices ofBacon, Hooper, Howe, and Burke, wherethe laughing, satirical, cutting tones ofButler, Dryden, and Swift, where thecrackling wit of Goldsmith, Stern, andLamb, where the homely greetings ofold Father Chaucer, the sweet songs ofSpenser, the manly teachings ofBunyan,the terse Saxon of South, the polishedperiods of Pope and Addison, the alter-nating pathos and humor of Steele, thesolemn musings of Wordsworth, allharmoniously mingle, and where the

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    seraph-souled Milton and myriad-mindedShakespeare reign unchallenged as twinkings !

    Here, then, you have to stir, enrich,control, and cultivate your plastic mindsa literature that embodies in the mostperfect forms of Elizabethan \vords thepeerless gentleness of a Sydney, theunquailing bravery of a Glanville, thequiet majesty of a Cecil, the dashinghardihood of a Raleigh and the sublimedignity of a Howard. What a rich fieldof supply is here ! Here is a literaturethat is marked by terseness and clear-ness, by soberness and majesty, by sweet-ness and fullness of expression, neversurpassed, rarely equalled. Here youhave for your oriiidance and enrichmentJ Oas speakers a field of literature markedin one department by the pureness,thoroughness, and calmness of the sage

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    72who loves rich, deep, but strongly-ruledspeech, and shuns with holy scorn allstrain after the startling or striking ; aliterature marked in another depart-ment by the white glow of fiery zeal, therapid rush of the dauntless will, and bythe passionate, piercing cry of the deeply-stirred but despairing seer ; a literaturemarked in another department by short,sharp sentences, by pointed antitheses,striking outbursts, flashing images. Thisis the literature that presents to you thegathered wealth of the English tongue ;and yet this vast and noble library intowhich I would introduce you, far fromexhausting, only half reveals, the marvel-ous riches of that language whose inex-haustible stores and manifold resourcesscarcely one amid a thousand speakersever more than touches. Before usstands a grand instrument of countless

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    73strings, of myraid notes and keys, and\ve are content with some few hundreds,and these not the purest, richest, deep-est, sweetest. If you would be strongof speech, master more of these notes ;let your vocabulary be rich, varied, pure,and proportionate will be your power andattractiveness as speakers. I would haveyou deeply impressed by the force, full-uess, and flexibility of our noble tongue,where, if anywhere, the gigantic strengthof thought and truth is wedded to theseraphic beauty of perfect utterance. Iwould have you fling yourselves unhesi-tatingly out into this great fresh sea, likebold swimmers into the rolling waves ofocean : it will makeyou health}-, vigorous,supple, and equal to a hundred calls ofduty ; I would have you cherish sacredlythis goodly heritage, won by centuries ofEnglish thought and countless lives of

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    English toil ; I would have you jealous,like the apostle over the Church, overthese pure wells of English undefiled.Degrade not our sacred tongue by slang ;defile not its crystal streams with thefoul waters of careless speech ; honor itsstern old parentage ; obey its simple yetseveregrammar; watch its perfectrhythm,and never mix its blue blood the gift ofnoblest sires with the base puddle ofany mongrel race. Never speak halfthe language of Ashdod and half ofCanaan, but be }-e of a pure Englishlip.

    Ye who would be real prophets, jointhe exactest thought to the most exqui-site terms. See in the clearest light.Hold with firmest grip exactly what thatlight reveals, and then, like a Murillotrue to his Madonna-vision, and like anAngello true to his ideal Moses, seek

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    75the one exact impression that will be foryour hearers the exhaustive embodimentof that unveiled reality.

    All this word-hunting, word-choosing,style-marking and mending, means toil,hard and unwearying ; but ^ye havestarted with sacred truth as the sub-stance of speech, and truth beloved everspurs forward in the race after excel-lence in expression. As the image ofMinerva rising before the Greek, of Isisrising before the Egyptian, of Wisdombefore the Hebrew, made each earnest inthe portrayal, so Truth rising up withinyou will move to tireless labor that youmay find for her fitting forms ; and ifwords be indeed the vestments of Truth,we shall see that they are exquisitelyfitting and worthy of the goddess, forTruth is too dear and sacred to be shownin rags or soiled garments. Conscience

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    76in the seeking means conscience in thespeaking of the truth.Yes, it means conscience, further, inthe showing forth of the truth ; andhere we reach, thirdly, the action thatmakes the speech living and telling.

    III. THE ELOCUTION.The message is found, acceptable

    words have clothed it, style and form ofexpression have been carefully con-sidered : what remains ? The elocutionthat makes the message tell with allpossible power. You must now speakout your message with an utterance andan action perfectly befitting the truthand its artistic form, and then you willhave made it a resistless potency. Letthe man act out Jiis theme. These wordsof light thus spoken, will be conquerors.

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    77Potency links itself with personalitywith the living, moving, sympatheti-

    cally and harmoniously acting- man.And if the uttered truth, if the culturedspeech, shall have its fullest possiblepower and win its grandest victories, theman himself yes, the whole man, tb rob-bing with sympathy and palpitatingwith life must be an additional expres-sion, a veritable embodiment, of thetruth spoken. The whole man can bemade to speak ; eyes, face, hands, body,limbs yes, the very color and breathcan speak ; and they shall, and must, bemade to speak if there is to be potentspeech and perfect oratory. I havestudied eager men in a street wrangle ;I have watched playing children in theirdramatic imitations of their elders andsuperiors; I have closely observed forninety-five minutes a "passion preacher"

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    of the famous Dominicans ; and with thekeenest delight I have beheld what asympathetic, harmonious speech thepliant and graceful body can make.How expressive of various thought thiswondrous form can be ! Who does notknow the Frenchman's shrug, the mar-velous pliancy of the Italian's fingers,the humorous play of the Irishman'sface,

    the regal dignity of the Spaniard'sbow, the sturdy defiance of the Briton'sfolded arms, the impudent independenceof " Young America's " akimbo, and thecareless swing of " Jack ashore " ? Whatmeaning in the tottering and feeblesteps of an outcast Lear, in the stealthyfootfall of a jealous Othello, in the reso-lute stride of a defiant Macbeth, and inthe slow, hesitating motion of a broken-hearted Ophelia ! How easily andquickly the hands will reveal the sus-

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    79piciotis thoughts of Hamlet watching theconscience-stricken King, show the wilddespair of the blood-stained Lady Mac-beth, tell the pleading pathos of Milton'sEve, the tender clasp of a mother's loveor the imperious repulse of righteouswrath ! How quickly eyes and face willtell either the scathing flash of hate orpity's melting mood ! The whole mancan thus be made to speak with harmo-nious appropriateness and graceful force.But if so, this whole man must betaught, trained, exercised, till, his nativefaults removed, his native excellencesdeveloped, the orator is unconsciouslyartistic in his action and artistically un-conscious of his action. Diligent teach-ing and patient perseverance in studyand in practice are to this important endabsolutely indispensable.

    Joined to this expressive play of fea-

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    Soture and of form must be the ^.yell-developed, highly-exercised, carefully-educated power of a trained and well-ruled voice. Nothing to the speaker soimportant as a flexible, well-modulated,untiring, full-compassed voice ; andnothing more than the voice repays careand cultivation. No carelessness as toarticulation or accentuation should befor one moment tolerated by the honeststudent of this splendid art. In articu-lation strive to unite strength andbeauty the strength of consonantal dis-tinctness and accurate pronunciationwith the beauty of the vowel's round-ness, fullness, and sweetness. Strivethat your speech bewray 3^011 not, but becosmopolitan in your pronunciation andintonation. Seize the special strengthand the special beaut}'- of special lands

    the potent gutturals and well-trilled

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    Sir's of Germany and Scotland, the deepchest-voice and niaiily organ-notes ofburly England, the soft, wooing sweepof the Italian's vowels, the clear, ear-catching syllabification of the Spaniard,the crisp notes of the Frenchman, andthe Norseman's consonantal power. Aimat a cultured, varied speech which shallcombine and harmonize the billowy rollof the cultivated and traveled Irishman,the low cadences and lute-like softnessof the high-bred English girl, and theclear, exact, sharp rhythmic tones of ourown educated countrywomen, and youhave gained an utterance that will swayby its strength and woo and captivate byits sweetness. I plead earnestly for thecareful and sacred conservation of theold classic, round-toned speech of cul-tured Philadelphians, which, with thatof Stamford, Inverness, and Boston,

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    82has ever seemed to me the perfection ofspoken English.Would you know what is perfect inaction, study the finest statuary and thetruest painting ; and carefully mark howa Milton or a Shakespeare depicts hisvaried characters in varied moods.Would you know what is perfect in tone,study music ; train younown ear to thenice discriminations ; hear and criticallywatch the most finished speakers whohave made an honest study of this mostdifficult but most delightful art.

    All this excellence demands work con-tinuous and conscientious. And whynot give yourselves hard work ? Whosotakes up voluntarily the position of apublic teacher is summoned by the im-perial voice of Duty to give his bestthoughts in their best form to that pub-lic whom he asks to listen to him, and

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    33therefore he should toil to make hisspeech forceful through truth like theflooding sea, fresh and attractive in itsbeauty of form like the early dew.

    Make, then, ye ingenuous youth, yeardent students of this wondrous powerand high art of the eloquent oratormake, ye richly-blessed and deeply-responsible children of our grand re-public make truth your first aim bothas to matter and as to manner. Re-member that speech of truth and truthin speech is the very life-blood of repub-lics. Search the histories of thevanished democracies of classic ormediaeval da3^s, and a thousand factswill start up, large-bodied and clear-voiced, to testify that in the breezy hourswhen truth was dearly loved, boldly toldand treasured more than gleaming gems,Freedom's house, rock-bound, defied

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    84every storm ; and crowding proofs,shameful and sickening, declare thatriot, rottenness, and ruin came when thetruth was lost, and the lie, albeit fair-faced, smooth-tongued, glittering in garb,triumphed. Children of this grandCommonwealth, remember that speechwithout the salt of truth is a pestilentpoison, but that speech strong in reality,grand through truth, is a tree of lifewhose leaves are for the healing of thenation. And we of all folks must havesuch speech. Peoples there may be who,to use Shakespeare's words, are contentto wallow among the lily-beds of sweet-ness, but sons of Pym and Hampden,of Grattan and Flood, of Knox andMelville, of Luther and Zwingle, mustclimb the steep mountain-side, andstand in the clear mid-air, and bathein the pure white light, and rejoice in

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    5

    the full breeze yea, even stormy windof reality and truth.Workers for a splendid republic, which

    is ifever one on earth j ustified Hobbes'sdefinition of a republic an aristocracyof orators, ye are passing out from yourstudies to be leaders in this aristocracywhich has produced its kings likePatrick Henry and Clay and Webster.Remember, teachers of America's Anglo-Saxon youth, pleaders before America'sAnglo-Saxon bench, poets for America'sAnglo-Saxon hearts, preachers toAmerica's Anglo-Saxon congregations,leaders of America's Anglo-Saxon worldremember that truth, clothed in cul-

    tured, graceful, well-spoken speech, willalone master and mold, will alonesatisfy and charm, will alone uphold andadvance that splendid, willful, richly-gifted, keenly-sensitive folk with whom

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    86

    ye have to do. Be it yours, then, to re-solve, aim, labor, that with intellectaflame, heart aglow, will astir, yourwhole being alive and active, ye willspeak out sweetly, gracefully, strongly,that truth God shall lend to you ; andthen ye shall be burning and shininglights, symbols and servants of Himwho was the Light of the world andspake as never did man.

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    THE PLACE OF THE IMAGINATIONIN

    /TA T TTT' /\ "OT^ f~\~f^ IHV "V ~C3"K? tT1 'rxAN ORATION

    BY

    REV. A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D. D.DELIVERED BEFORE THE

    NATIONAL SCHOOL OF ELOCUTION AND ORATORY UPON THE OCCASIONOF ITS FOURTEENTH ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT, HELD AT THEAMERICAN ACADEMY OF Music, PHILADELPHIA, JUNE 7, 1887

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    THE PLACE OF THE IMAGINATIONIN

    THE ART OF EXPRESSIONIT has not been an easy matter for me

    to determine what niche the invitedspeaker of this anniversary gathering isexpected to fill. There is to be a gradu-ating class ; am I to give them words ofparting counsel, in the hope that if Iacquit myself creditably I may findmyself the fortunate recipient of adiploma? There is to be a prize contest;am I called here to grapple with theseathletes who have been under trainingfor months ? It occurs to me that youcan have a brilliant foreground only byhaving a dull and heavy background,and so you craftily ask us to come hereand pose as specimens of neglected

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    9otraining, that we may feel heartilyashamed of ourselves, while you glory inyour superior attainments.Now I must beg to decline in advanceentering the list of oratorical exhibition,or occupying a professional attitude. Ifyou need anything more in the line ofteaching, I beg to refer you to a littlevolume recently published, in one ofwhose brief chapters the whole questionof oratory is discussed with great fresh-ness and vigor. The book I speak of isEnglish as She is Taught ; and here aresome morsels of its wisdom : " Elocutionis opening the mouth wide open." " Weshould always breathe with the musclesof the diaphragm unless we have catarrhor a cold in the head." " Vowel soundsare made by keeping the mouth wideopen, and consonant sounds by keepingit shut." " Force is more loudness

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    sometimes than others." "Emphasis isputting more distress on one word thananother." " Breathing is very good forreading, for when }TOU are reading youcan't breathe at all, and so it is good tobreathe a good deal before." That willdo. I might as well try to paint a sun-beam as to improve upon these sugges-tions. Under existing circumstances Ihave deemed discretion the better part ofvalor, and I shall invite you to join mein a little side-excursion, where theprofessional lines will not cross ourpath.Language is not the only form inwhich man expresses his thoughts.

    Architecture, sculpture, painting, andinstrumental music must be added to thecatalogue. The tomb is a meditation.The Gothic cathedral is a prayer in stone.The glowing canvas is a sermon. The

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    92flute and harp and violin and organ moveus to tears and laughter. These areforms of expression which the imagina-tion creates and fills with meaning, andwhose message can be understood onlyby a responsive fancy. Is language anexception ? It has three forms thewritten, crystallizing in literature, inprose and poetry ; the spoken, illustratedin conversation, reading,

    andoratory ;and the acted, all that is included in

    gesture, the muscular movements of thehead, hands, and feet. Are any of thesedepartments independent of the imagina-tion, so that perfection can be attained inthem by attention purely to technique ?Rules alone, every one admits, will notmake the architect, the sculptor, thepainter, the musician ; though geniusnever ventures, in its boldest flights, toignore the sanctity of law. But this per-

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    93vasive dominion of law is only the en-compassing atmosphere within whichfancy spreads its wings and soars aloft.Its lines are the bauds and traces withinwhich genius does its work, not the secretand source of its energy. Hence we callarchitecture, sculpture, painting, musicfine arts, because the skill which ischiefly concerned in them is that of theimagination ; nor will any one doubt thatpoetr}^ belongs to the same class. Herethe imagination lays claim to one depart-ment of language, and it will be founddifficult to draw the line where its sov-ereignty ends. The simple truth is thatlanguage, whether written, spoken, oracted, is forcible and effective only whenit is the instrument of a living andfruitful fancy.But I must hasten to state what I

    mean by the Imagination, and to vindi-

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    94cate for it this high dignity. I under-stand by it that energy which the mindpossesses in creating, from the materialsof its knowledge, ideal forms of beautyand excellence. The primary form ofintellectual life is perceptive or cognitive,either by means of the senses or byintrospection. The soul and the world,with the basic reality underlying anduniting both, provide for us all the ma-terials of our knowledge. I have aknowledge of myself, and I have aknowledge of the world, and these arethe media through which the LivingGod reveals Himself to my inquiringspirit.

    I do not stop with fleeting impressions,chasing each other over the field of con-sciousness as do the shadows of cloudsover mountain and vale ; The mind ofman has a registering and retentive

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    95power, which we call memory, but whosephilosophy baffles us. Neither thephysiologist nor the psychologist hassucceeded in showing where or how theregistry is kept, or by what means it ispreserved. No less marked and marvel-ous is the power which the mind has ofavailing itself of the contents of thisvoluminous registry, making its treas-ures subservient to its requirements,recalling them at will or under the pres-sure of some great emergency.And this power of reproduction is itselfunder the guidance of a higher energy,which selects and combines, creating theideal types that dominate life no less thanart. The mind is something more thana photographic apparatus, realisticallyreproducing the ever-shifting panoramaof events. It is an artist, using thesecrude materials of perception in the crea-

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    96tion of ideal forms ; it is an architect,hewing the rough boulders into shapesof beauty, and building them up intomassive and graceful structures. Andthis artistic, architectoric power of themind, a faint reflex of the creative energyof the Divine Mind, flinging the radianceof an ideal world over the world of sense,is the philosophic or poetic imagination.Are there " tongues in trees, booksin the running brooks, sermons in stones,and good in every thing "? The cameraof vision does not disclose them. Theirmusic does not fall upon mortal ears.These are purely mental intuitions, apoetic drapery which the mind weavesupon its own looms. Is all this decep-tive and vain ? Do we play with natureand life, as children amuse themselveswith dolls, dressing up the naked, homelyfacts in the rags and scraps and gaudy

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    97tinsel of our own fancy ? So some tellus, and summon us to reduce all thoughtto the level of a crude realism ; to becontent in science, literature, art, andreligion with simple description. Theideal is a delusion ; the visible is the onlyreality. Beauty, truth, and goodness areonly names, convenient for classification,baseless in fact. All things are equallyfair ; there is nothing ugly. All thingsare equally true ; there is nothing false.All things are equally good ; there is nosin. The things that we see are the onlymeasure of existence ; the only standardof excellence.Now, I need not stop to show at length

    that such a view would rob civilizationof its choicest treasures, and reduce ourcalling to the dignity of making mud-pies. Poetry and fiction must become

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    98

    commonplace and grossly realistic. Zolamust supplant Milton and Walter Scottand even George Eliot, for the power ofGeorge Eliot is in her dominating, emo-tional idealism. Art must leap fromheaven to earth, and henceforth deal onlywith a faultless technique, an exact re-production on canvas and in marble ofwhat the eyes reveal. There must be noprudery, no intervention of false modesty;the greatest artist is simply the mostaccurate photographer. Conversationmust be content with the gossip of thestreet, and employ its powers in the faith-ful portraiture of domestic and socialscandal. Ethics and religion must berelegated to the limbo of outgrown super-stitions. The land of promise is certainlynot one that flows with milk and honey.The prospect is dreary enough, and many

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    99will hesitate to take up the line of marchinto this paradise, where all ideals areostracized and disinherited.

    But the mind will not consent to berobbed of its power and heritage. It willcontinue to survey and people its idealuniverse. Not as if the ideal is hostileto the real, or independent of it ; butbecause the real is fully understood onlyunder the light of the ideal. The seenand the unseen are not two spheres,removed from each other by an infinitedistance, or touching each other only ata single point; they are overlapping circleswith the same centre, whence the idealsweeps the wider and the universally in-clusive circumference. The ideals whichthe mind creates are not the product ofan empty fancy, but the emergent reve-lation of eternal verities. There is truthin Plato's notion that wrhat we see is only

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    100an imperfect copy of an eternal idea, pre-existent and immortal ; and in the doctrineof Malebranclie, that the mind sees allthings in God. Light streams down uponthe soul of man from above, as truly asit impinges upon the membrane of theretina. Sensation is not our only sourceof knowledge. Kant settled the greatdebate by showing that the notions ofspace and time and cause have their birthin the mind, and are not imported intoit from without. The mind has a trulycreative energy. It is not a white sheetof paper, receiving only passive im-pressions ; it sallies forth as an inter-preter under the laws of thought thatare inherent in its own constitution. Itreads the visible in the light of theinvisible ; it discerns the ideal behind theface of the real.The imagination alone has made pure

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    IOImathematics possible. Its lines andcurves are the ideal forms of emptyspace. Nature has neither perfect linesnor perfect angles nor perfect circles.These are purely mental products, idealexistences, to which nothing visible ex-actly corresponds ; and, what is more,man under the guidance of these ideal-ized things can produce more perfectspecimens of each and of all than anywhich nature exhibits.Nor can science do its work without

    the service of the imagination. It pro-ceeds from observation to classification,and in so doing at once introduces andmakes dominant a purely mental con-cept. The individual plant or animal isclassed under the type to which it be-longs ; and types are simply ideal forms.There is no typical rose, no typical tree,no typical horse. The type is a purely

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    IO2mental product, formed by analysis,comparison, and combination. It is thecreature of the imagination, by referenceto which the individual is measured andjudged.

    Science is no less imaginative thanart, poetry, and theology. It deals withideal forms. And therefore it is that themere copyist never satisfies the artisticdemand. The mind sees more than thephotograph, and therefore demands more.We do not want the unreal, but we wantthe real idealized. You never saw suchfaces as those of Raphael's Madonnas ;you never saw such forms as those whichPhidias and Michael Angelo carved intomarble ; you never saw such groups asthose of Correggio and Titian. Theseare the ideals of beauty and strength,and when art abandons the ideal itoffends and degrades the aesthetic taste.

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    103The cliarni and the power of literatureare in the ideals which it creates, as inMilton's Paradise Lost, in Dante's In-ferno, and in Bunyan's Pilgrim?s Pro-gress. The true poet is always a phil-osopher, who makes nature and life ra-diant with the glow and the glory of aninvisible world. You never heard menspeak, you never saw them act, as theydo in Shakespeare's dramas. There isreal life and movement ; but the realityis intensified, because idealized. Thefigures are only the drapery of thethought ; the good is shown at its best,and the bad at its worst. The power ofsuch a book as Letters from Hell is inthe keen, calm, incisive, exhaustive anal-ysis with which it probes the recesses ofa living and accusing conscience.Love lives in the imagination. Wesay it is blind because it sees " Helen's

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    104beauty ou the brow of Egypt." Butlove sees more than the receding brow ;its eyes are on the heart whose radiancefloods the dusky face. Every man'smother is, or ought to be, the most beau-tiful of all women to him, because noother woman can ever be to him whatshe was and is. All this is the work ofthe imagination, but it is not, therefore,imaginary. The ideal is there, discernedby the mind, and that gives to everyphysical defect a new and fair perspec-tive. So that we can understand the an-swer of the Irishman who was laughedat because he loved a cross eyed damsel,when he declared that Katie's eyes wereso beautiful that it was no wonder theywere " thrying to look into each other."Such being the imperial rank and

    scope of the imagination, the idealizingpower of the mind, it is entitled to care-

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    I05ful cultivation by all who would be mas-ters of the art of expression. Languageis the most subtile and plastic of all in-struments. Its mastery is the most dif-ficult of all achievements. A faultlesspronunciation and a perfect syntax mayserve only to expose the poverty thathides behind the purple. I do not un-dervalue the physiological and the rhe-torical training; but there must be some-thing to say, else the saying it well onlymakes the speaker ridiculous. And notonly must there be something to say,but there must be a proper perspectiveto which the sentences are adjusted.Language is only a means to an end ;and the aim of all expression is impres-sion. You wish to describe a scene ornarrate an event or tell a story; yourend is gained only when 3*011 can makeyour listener see what you have seen or

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    io6hear what you have heard. To do thatyou must be a mental artist. Thesalient features must be firmly graspedin your own thought, and the lines mustbe drawn with a steady, rapid hand.There must be no needless digression.You must know what to leave out, forprolixity and wandering will produce in-attention and restlessness. You all knowof people who act like wet blankets upona company when they begin to talk, foryou can never tell when they will stopnor what they are aiming at. Conver-sation is a high art, in which perfectionand grace can be attained only by thosewho are intent upon giving it an idealform.Do a faultless pronunciation, a studied

    inflection, and a measured emphasis in-sure good reading? The tone of thevoice is of far greater importance that

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    io7subtile, indescribable, irresistible qualitywhich is born of true and deep emotion,and which passes like an electric shockfrom the reader to the hearer. Thepoem, or the page of prose, must first bemastered by the reader, all its hiddenrecesses of suggestion explored, all itsdepths sounded, its literary environmentsreproduced in fancy ; and only when theauthor has been thus idealized can he besuccessfully interpreted.Need I add that for the orator or

    debater this imaging, or grouping powerof the mind, is of primary importance ?I do not mean that he must think inpictures and talk in similes, for some ofthe most effective speakers have beenmen of a simple and unadorned vocabu-lary. But you can point to no success-ful advocate or preacher or debater whohas not been clear in his analysis, sure

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    loSof his thought, definite in his aim,marching toward it along the most directlines.Of course, the imagination may be

    turned to dishonest and dishonorableuses. The tongue may be made to dropmanna, making " the worse appear thebetter reason." At 110 point is theregreater need for the guidance and checkof an enlightened and sensitive con-science. The higher the art, the morepowerful will be its ministry for good orfor evil. The imagination needs theethical restraints. Our mental picturesmust correspond to the truth of things,and in their interpretation to others wemust guard against the temptation tovanity. Speech is one of God's noblestgifts to man, and it should be kept firmlyto its divine intention to make plainand radiant the truth, the whole truth,

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    and nothing but tne truth. For if wemust

    partwith either beauty or truth,we will hold fast to truth even in a beg-

    gar's garb. But beauty and truth aretwin-born. He who made the worldstrong has also made it fair ; and we onlyfollow His example when we fit speechto thought, arranging with artistic skillour apples of gold in finely chasedbaskets of silver.

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    CorrespondenceSuggestions, Precepts, and Examples for the Construction

    of Letters

    By AGNES H. MORTON. B. O.Cloth Binding, SO Cents

    is the most intelligent and thoroughly literarywork on the subject ever offered to the publicIt is from the pen of a skilled writer, who for

    several years filled the chair of Literature and Criticismin one of the leading educational institutions of thecountry. The book exactly fulfills the promise of itsadmirably chosen title. Its Suggestions are pointedand practically helpful; its Precepts are correct, andare clearly and attractively stated ; its gracefully com-posed Examples are true to the character of the corre-spondence which they severally illustrate, and areaccompanied with terse explanatory remarks. Its ob-ject is to assist inexperienced writers to develop theirtalent for correct and graceful correspondence ; and thebook is well calculated to accomplish that gratifyingresult.Sold by all booksellers, or mailed upon receipt of

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    ORATORYBy HENRY WARD BEECHER

    Cloth Binding, 5O CentsHE attention of all persons interested in the Art of^ Expression is invited to thL new issue of HenryWard Beecher's unique and masterly exposition

    of the fundamental principles of true oratory."Training in this department," said Beecher, "isthe great want of our day ; for we are living in a landwhose genius, whose history, whose institutions, whose

    people, eminently demand oratory."It must be conceded that few men ever enjoyed awider experience or achieved a higher reputation in

    the realm of public oratory than Mr. Beecher. Whathe had to say on this subject was born of experience,and his own inimitable style was at once both state-ment and illustrative of his theme.From The School Journal, New York City:" Richly freighted with the golden fruit of observation,experience, sympathy, understanding, knowledge, andreason." THIS VOLUME CONTAINS ALSOThe White Sunlight of Potent WordsA scholarly and eloquent Oration on the Characteristics of effective Publicdelivery, by Rev. JOHN S. MACINTOSH, D. D.,of Philadelphia, together withThe Place of the Imagination in the Art of Oratorya most Interesting and Instructive Oration by Rev. J. F. BKHRENDS, D. D.,of Brooklyn.THE PEBJIS IMCI.ISHi:s; COMPANY1020 Arcti Street

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