THE EXCESS OF ORATORY.
SOME writer has been advocating in the Press the estab- lishment here of schools of oratory as they have them in America. John Bull, it is well known, is no great speaker, and it must be admitted that at international gatherings where speeches are the order of the day he does not shine. There are exceptions, however, to all rules, and the present writer once saw a Parisian audience electrified by the elo- quent speech of a delegate from England. But this delegate had something to say in which he profoundly believed; he spoke simply from his heart without trick or attitude, and he made therefore an impression which could never have been produced by the most elaborate rhetoric ever uttered. In point of finish, of form, of elegance, there was not a French- man, possibly not a single foreigner, present who was not his superior; but "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," and this man's heart was full of a native power not manufactured in the schools, but born of a glowing conviction.
What is the real end of oratory ? It is not, like poetry which inspires men centuries after it was born in the poet's teeming imagination. It is true that we read Demosthenes and Cicero now as we read Homer and Virgil, but we read them rather as essential elements in Greek and Latin litera- ture than as oratory pure and simple. The like is true of Burke, whose speeches emptied the House of Commons, but appeal with irresistible power to all who can appreciate Pre depth and magnificence of the English language. But turn to the finest speeches which at one time moved the House of Commons, and one yet remains cold. Macaulay has written of the rushing torrent of speech on the Oczakow Convention in which Charles James Fox almost foamed at the mouth, overcome by his ma exuberant language. Bat we read it now without the slightest emotion, whereas one simple line of Burns, composed at the same period, moves us to tears. Who would really compare the stately Ciceionian rhetoric with the more vital poetry of Virgil ? Or who would say that the whole of the oratory of Demosthenes took hold of him as did a single line of Sophocles or a single sentence of Plato ? No, oratory does not endure, it is not intended to endure. What it is intended to do is to produce an immediate and powerful impression which will persuade hearers to action. As has been said of Demosthenes, his object was not to make people say, "What a fine orator Demosthenes is !" but to make them exclaim, Let us march against Philip 1" And it may be said generally that if oratory does not produce that instant result of persuading to action, it is merely an artificial pro- duct and is a failure. True oratory has always in it some- thing of the unpremeditated. Cromwell said with truth that man never soared so high as when he knew not whither he was going ; and his own speeches as Carlyle has preserved them for us, broken, rugged ejaculations as they mostly are, have yet a higher pretension to rank as literature than the elegant but dead eloquence of a Halifax, a Pulteney, or a Bolingbroke. One would rather be condemned to read the very thinnest poetry and comedy of the Restoration than the great speeches on the Exclusion Bill. And it is not only the average man who feels so; his taste is shared by the highest intellects.
There is, perhaps, one exception to this rule, and it is when a man of genius speaks, not as an orator to a critical- assembly, but as a man to men. That great speech of Pericles reported by Thucydides, a speech dedicated to the glory and genius of Athens, moves us still. Luther's "Hier eche ich ; ich Kann nicht anders " is of a piece with Nature herself. So is that noble and impressive utterance of Lincoln's on the field of Gettysburg; and so, though on a somewhat lower level, are some of the powerful speeches of Danton. These will live in history because they are the outspoken feelings of the human heart, without tricks, without artifice. But in general, oratory is among the evanescent arts. We can no more reanimate the oratory of Mr. Gladstone than we can the singing of Jenny Lind. Each remains a great memory for those who were so fortunate as to hear it, but nothing more. So it must be in the nature of things,—the orator, like the singer, is essentially the man. Take away his personality, his magnetic charm, and oratory, like song, like great acting, becomes a more or less defunct tradition.
Here, then, is the reason why oratory can never be learned, and why, therefore, a school of oratory can never produce orators. A school of oratory, we say, not a school of elocution. The latter may be very useful as a means of training to the proper command of his voice and figure one who has already the oratorical gift. A school of elocution may be made as useful to the developing orator as a school of art to the develop- ing painter, but it can go no further. For, after all, the school of art can do nothing beyond lending a little temporary aid, -and perhaps suggesting an initial start. Was it Haydon who, when asked what he mixed his colours with, replied : "With my brains, Sir !" Yes, to mix one's art with one's brains is the secret of success. To communicate with the mere words one uses that fine but powerful essence which we call personality,— that is the secret of the orator, and that cannot be taught by any school or by any living being. Bathe art of public speaking, cannot that be taught ? And is it not desirable that it should be taught, so that our after-dinner speeches may be less portentously dull than they are, and that Englishmen could open their lips with more credit to themselves P Well, without sharing Carlyle's depreciation of Sir Jabesh Windbag and his kind, we think there is some truth in the Golden Gospel of Silence which may be taken to heart by this generation. It was said of the poet Gray that, while his mind was so well stored, he "did not speak out." It might be complained of too many of our fellow-creatures now that, with very ill-stored minds, they are only too ready to speak out. The two essential conditions of oratory are that the orator should have something to say, and next that he should be animated by a deep conviction. But so many of our speakers have little to say, and we live in an age of weak convictions. So many subjects have been worked over and over again that only a slender residuum of rinsings is left; so many metaphors and illustrations have been handled that we are obstinately deaf to the voice of the would-be charmer unless his personality moves us. Political speaking has manifestly fax less effect than it had. A short, businesslike statement is called for; the rest is listened to with impatience. No wonder, since the faculty of audible speech in a public assembly is growing at such an alarming rate. To quote Carlyle once more, how gladly would one see many worthy people dismount from their tubs and take refuge inside them, Diogenes-like, to meditate for awhile! Who, amid the distracting noises of the time, does not sigh for a brief space of silence P When (foethe was asked by a young author for his advice as to publishing a book, the sage replied: "Do not, unless you are absolutely compelled to it." So we might advise the budding speaker to hold his tongue for awhile unless the inner genius obliges him to speak out. Then he will be a true orator, and we shall all listen; but meanwhile we shall know that we hear nothing but sounding braes or a tinkling cymbal.
We cannot, therefore, favour the idea of the school of oratory, which, like so many American schools of oratory, would, we fear, end in empty declamation, We entertain a half-conviction, too, that a nation never succeeds in attempt- ing to run athwart the manifest current of its own genius. We have had great orators in England as we have had great painters and fair composers ; but England, as a whole, is no more a country of oratory than of high art. Nature designed the English as a people for practical action, not for elegant speaking, and we shall do better to stick to our particular task rather than eadeavour to shine where we are more likely doomed to failure. Let our faulty habits of speaking (due partly to shyness or to lack of mental nimbleness) be corrected, by all means But schools of oratory would mean increase of artificiality; as not a few of our restaurants give us a fourth- rate imitation of a French dinner instead of the less varied but substantial and original English fare.
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