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Public Speaking

I >> Irvah Lester Winter >> Public Speaking




You will readily understand from this that to the actor the well-worn
maxim that art is long and life is short has a constant significance.
The older we grow the more acutely alive we are to the difficulties of
our craft. I cannot give you a better illustration of this fact than a
story which is told of Macready. A friend of mine, once a dear friend
of his, was with him when he played Hamlet for the last time. The
curtain had fallen, and the great actor was sadly thinking that the
part he loved so much would never be his again. And as he took off his
velvet mantle and laid it aside, he muttered almost unconsciously the
words of Horatio, "Good-night, sweet Prince" then turning to his
friend, "Ah," said he, "I am just beginning to realise the sweetness,
the tenderness, the gentleness of this dear Hamlet!" Believe me, the
true artist never lingers fondly upon what he has done. He is ever
thinking of what remains undone: ever striving toward an ideal it may
never be his fortune to attain.

It is often supposed that great actors trust to the inspiration of the
moment. Nothing can be more erroneous. There will, of course, be such
moments, when an actor at a white heat illumines some passage with a
flash of imagination (and this mental condition, by the way, is
impossible to the student sitting in his armchair); but the great
actor's surprises are generally well weighed, studied, and balanced. We
know that Edmund Kean constantly practiced before a mirror effects
which startled his audience by their apparent spontaneity. It is the
accumulation of such effects which enables an actor, after many years,
to present many great characters with remarkable completeness.

I do not want to overstate the case, or to appeal to anything that is
not within common experience, so I can confidently ask you whether a
scene in a great play has not been at some time vividly impressed on
your minds by the delivery of a single line, or even of one forcible
word. Has not this made the passage far more real and human to you than
all the thought you have devoted to it? An accomplished critic has said
that Shakespeare himself might have been surprised had he heard the
"Fool, fool, fool!" of Edmund Kean. And though all actors are not
Keans, they have in varying degree this power of making a dramatic
character step out of the page, and come nearer to our hearts and our
understandings.

After all, the best and most convincing exposition of the whole art of
acting is given by Shakespeare himself: "To hold, as 'twere, the mirror
up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and
the very age and body of the time his form and pressure." Thus the poet
recognized the actor's art as a most potent ally in the representation
of human life. He believed that to hold the mirror up to nature was one
of the worthiest functions in the sphere of labor, and actors are
content to point to his definition of their work as the charter of
their privileges.


ADDRESS TO THE FRESHMAN CLASS AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY

From "The Harvard Graduates Magazine"

BY CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT

Just in the last few years we have had a striking illustration of
strong reaction against prevailing educational policies. There has come
upon us right here on these grounds and among Harvard's constituents,
and widespread over the country as well, a distrust of freedom for
students, of freedom for citizens, of freedom for backward races of
men. This is one of the striking phenomena of our day, a distrust of
freedom.

Now, there is no moment in life when there comes a greater sudden
access of freedom than this moment in which you find yourselves. When
young men come to an American college, I care not at all which
college--to any American college from the parents' home or from school,
they experience a tremendous access of freedom. Is it an injury? Is it a
danger? Are you afraid of it? Has society a right to be afraid of it?
What is freedom for? What does it do for us? Does it hurt us or help
us? Do we grow in it, or do we shrink in it? That is quite an important
question in the management of Harvard University. It is the important
question in modern government. It is pretty clear that when young men
or old men are free, they make mistakes, and they go wrong; having
freedom to do right or wrong, they often do right and they often do
wrong. When you came hither, you found yourselves in possession of a
new freedom. You can overeat yourselves, for example; you can
overdrink; you can take no care for sleep; you can take no exercise or
too much; you can do little work or too much; you can indulge in
harmful amusements: in short, you have a great new freedom here. Is it
a good thing for you or a bad thing? Clearly you can go astray, for the
road is not fenced. You can make mistakes; you can fall into sin. Have
you learned to control yourselves? Have you got the will-power in you
to regulate your own conduct? Can you be your own taskmaster? You have
been in the habit of looking to parents, perhaps, or to teachers, or to
the heads of your boarding schools or your day schools for control in
all these matters. Have you got it in yourselves to control yourselves?
That is the prime question which comes up with regard to every one of
you when you come to the University. Have you the sense and the
resolution to regulate your own conduct?

It is pretty clear that in other spheres freedom is dangerous. How is
it with free political institutions? Do they always yield the best
government? Look at the American cities and compare them with the
cities of Europe. Clearly, free institutions do not necessarily produce
the best government. Are then free institutions wrong or inexpedient?
What is freedom for? Why has God made men free, as he has not made the
plants and the animals? Is freedom dangerous? Yes! but it is necessary
to the growth of human character, and that is what we are all in the
world for, and that is what you and your like are in college for. That
is what the world was made for, for the occupation of men who in
freedom through trial win character. It is choice which makes the
dignity of human nature. It is habitual choosing after examination,
consideration, reflection, and advice, which makes the man of power. It
is through the internal motive power of the will that men imagine,
invent, and thrust thoughts out into the obscure beyond, into the
future. The will is the prime motive power; and you can only train your
wills, in freedom. That is what freedom is for, in school and college,
in society, industries, and governments. Fine human character is the
ultimate object, and freedom is the indispensable condition of its
development.

Now, there are some clear objects for choice here in college, for real
choice, for discreet choice. I will mention only two. In the first
place, choose those studies--there is a great range of them here--which
will, through your interest in them, develop your working power. You
know it is only through work that you can achieve anything, either in
college or in the world. Choose those studies on which you can work
intensely with pleasure, with real satisfaction and happiness. That is
the true guide to a wise choice. Choose that intellectual pursuit which
will develop within you the power to do enthusiastic work, an internal
motive power, not an external compulsion. Then choose an ennobling
companionship. You will find out in five minutes that this man stirs
you to good, that man to evil. Shun the latter; cling to the former.
Choose companionship rightly, choose your whole surroundings so that
they shall lift you up and not drag you down. Make these two choices
wisely, and be faithful in labor, and you will succeed in college and
in after life.


WITH TENNYSON AT FARRINGFORD

From "Alfred Lord Tennyson, A Memoir by His Son," with the permission
of The Macmillan Company, New York and London, publishers.

Before leaving for Aldworth we spent some delightful sunny days in the
Farringford gardens. In the afternoons my father sat in his summerhouse
and talked to us and his friends.

This spring he had enjoyed seeing the unusually splendid blossom of
apple and pear tree, of white lilacs, and of purple aubretia that
bordered the walks.

At intervals he strolled to the bottom of the kitchen garden to look at
the roses, or at the giant fig tree ("like a breaking wave," as he
said) bursting into leaf; or he marked the "branching grace" of the
stately line of elms, between the boles of which, from his summerhouse,
he caught a glimpse of far meadows beyond. He said that he did not
believe in Emerson's pretty lines:--

"Only to children children sing,
Only to youth the Spring is Spring."

"For age does feel the joy of spring, though age can only crawl over
the bridge while youth skips the brook." His talk was grave and gay
together. In the middle of anecdotes he would stop short and say
something of what he felt to be the sadness and mystery of life.

What impressed all his friends was his choice of language, the felicity
of his turns of expression, his imagery, the terseness of his unadorned
English, and his simple directness of manner, which none will ever be
able to reproduce, however many notes they may have taken. His dignity
and repose of manner, his low musical voice, and the power of his
magnetic dark eye kept the attention riveted. His argument was clear
and logical and never wandered from the point except by way of
illustration, and his illustrations were the most various I have ever
heard, and were taken from nature and science, from high and low life,
from the rich and from the poor, and his analysis of character was
always subtle and powerful.

While he talked of the mysteries of the universe, his face, full of the
strong lines of thought, was lighted up; and his words glowed as it
were with inspiration.

When conversing with my brother and myself or our college friends, he
was, I used to think, almost at his best, for he would quote us the
fine passages from ancient or modern literature and show us why they
are fine, or he would tell us about the great facts and discoveries in
astronomy, geology, botany, chemistry, and the great problems in
philosophy, helping us toward a higher conception of the laws which
govern the world and of "the law behind the law." He was so sympathetic
that the enthusiasm of youth seemed to kindle his own. He spoke out of
the fullness of his heart, and explained more eloquently than ever
where his own difficulties lay, and what he, as an old man, thought was
the true mainspring of human life and action; and

"How much of act at human hands
The sense of human will demands
By which we dare to live or die."

The truth is that real genius, unless made shallow by prejudice, is
seldom frozen by age, and that, until absolute physical decay sets in,
the powers of the mind may become stronger and stronger.

On one of these June mornings, Miss L--, who was a stranger to us, but
whose brother we had known for some time, called upon us. My father
took her over the bridge to the summerhouse looking on the Down. After
a little while he said: "Miss L--, my son says I am to read to you,"
and added, "I will read whatever you like." He read some of "Maud,"
"The Spinster's Sweet-Arts," and some "Enoch Arden."

His voice, as Miss L-- noticed, was melodious and full of change, and
quite unimpaired by age. There was a peculiar freshness and passion in
his reading of "Maud," giving the impression that he had just written
the poem, and that the emotion which created it was fresh in him. This
had an extraordinary influence on the listener, who felt that the
reader had been _present_ at the scenes he described, and that he
still felt their bliss or agony.

He thoroughly enjoyed reading his "The Spinster's Sweet-Arts," and when
he was reading "Enoch Arden" he told Miss L-- to listen to the sound of
the sea in the line,

"The league-long roller thundering on the reef,"

and to mark Miriam Lane's chatter in

"He ceased; and Miriam Lane
Made such a voluble answer promising all."


NOTES ON SPEECH-MAKING

From "Notes on Speech-Making," with the permission of Longmans, Green
and Company, New York and London, publishers.

BY BRANDER MATTHEWS

We are told that the five-minute speeches with which Judge Hoar year
after year delighted the Harvard chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa
contained but one original idea, clearly stated, and but one fresh
story, well told. This is indeed a model to be admired of all men; yet
how few of us will take the trouble of copying it!

The speaker who rambles and ambles along, saying nothing, and his
fellow, the speaker who links jest to jest, saying little more, are
both of them unabashed in the presence of an audience. They are devoid
of all shyness. They are well aware that they have "the gift of the
gab"; they rejoice in its possession; they lie in wait for occasions to
display it. They have helped to give foreigners the impression that
every American is an oratorical revolver, ready with a few remarks
whenever any chairman may choose to pull the trigger. And yet there are
Americans not a few to whom the making of an after-dinner speech is a
most painful ordeal. When the public dinner was given to Charles
Dickens in New York, on his first visit to America, Washington Irving
was obviously the predestined presiding officer. Curtis tells us that
Irving went about muttering: "I shall certainly break down; I know I
shall break down." When the dinner was eaten, and Irving arose to
propose the health of Dickens, he began pleasantly and smoothly in two
or three sentences; then hesitated, stammered, smiled, and stopped;
tried in vain to begin again; then gracefully gave it up, announced the
toast, "Charles Dickens, the guest of the nation," and sank into his
chair amid immense applause, whispering to his neighbor, "There! I told
you I should break down, and I've done it."

When Thackeray came, later, Irving "consented to preside at a dinner,
if speeches were absolutely forbidden; the condition was faithfully
observed" (so Curtis records), "but it was the most extraordinary
instance of American self-command on record." Thackeray himself had no
fondness for after-dinner speaking, nor any great skill in the art. He
used to complain humorously that he never could remember all the good
things he had thought of in the cab; and in "Philip" he went so far as
to express a hope that "a day will soon arrive (but I own, mind you,
that I do not carve well) when we shall have the speeches done by a
skilled waiter at a side table, as we now have the carving."

Hawthorne was as uncomfortable on his feet as were Thackeray and
Irving; but his resolute will steeled him for the trial. When he dined
with the Mayor of Liverpool, he was called upon for the toast of the
United States. "Being at bay, and with no alternative, I got upon my
legs and made a response," he wrote in his notebook, appending this
comment: "Anybody may make an after-dinner speech who will be content
to talk onward without saying anything. My speech was not more than two
or three inches long; ... but, being once started, I felt no
embarassment, and went through it as coolly as if I were going to be
hanged."

He also notes that his little speech was quite successful, "considering
that I did not know a soul there, except the Mayor himself, and that I
am wholly unpracticed in all sorts of oratory, and that I had nothing
to say." To each of these three considerations of Hawthorne's it would
be instructive to add a comment, for he spoke under a triple
disadvantage. A speech cannot really be successful when the speaker has
nothing to say. It is rarely successful unless he knows the tastes and
the temper of those he is addressing. It can be successful only
casually unless he has had some practice in the simpler sort of
oratory.


HUNTING THE GRIZZLY

From "Hunting the Grizzly" with the permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons,
New York and London, publishers.

BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

For half a mile I walked quickly and silently over the pine needles,
across a succession of slight ridges separated by narrow, shallow
valleys. The forest here was composed of lodge-pole pines, which on the
ridges grew close together, with tall slender trunks, while in the
valleys the growth was more open. Though the sun was behind the
mountains, there was yet plenty of light by which to shoot, but it
faded rapidly.

At last, as I was thinking of turning toward camp, I stole up to the
crest of one of the ridges, and looked over into the valley some sixty
yards off. Immediately I caught the loom of some large, dark object;
and another glance showed me a big grizzly walking slowly off with his
head down. He was quartering to me, and I fired into his flank, the
bullet, as I afterward found, ranging forward and piercing one lung. At
the shot he uttered a loud, moaning grunt and plunged forward at a
heavy gallop, while I raced obliquely down the hill to cut him off.
After going a few hundred feet, he reached a laurel thicket, some
thirty yards broad, and two or three times as long, which he did not
leave. I ran up to the edge and there halted, not liking to venture
into the mass of twisted, close-growing stems and glossy foliage.
Moreover, as I halted, I heard him utter a peculiar, savage kind of
whine from the heart of the brush. Accordingly, I began to skirt the
edge, standing on tiptoe and gazing earnestly to see if I could not
catch a glimpse of his hide. When I was at the narrowest part of the
thicket, he suddenly left it directly opposite, and then wheeled and
stood broadside to me on the hillside, a little above. He turned his
head stiffly toward me; scarlet strings of froth hung from his lips;
his eyes burned like embers in the gloom.

I held true, aiming at the shoulder, and my bullet shattered the point
or lower end of his heart, taking out a big nick. Instantly the great
bear turned with a harsh roar of fury and challenge, blowing the bloody
foam from his mouth, so that I saw the gleam of his white fangs; and
then he charged straight at me, crashing and bounding through the
laurel bushes, so that it was hard to aim. I waited till he came to a
fallen tree, raking him as he topped it with a ball, which entered his
chest and went through the cavity of his body, but he neither swerved
nor flinched, and at the moment I did not know that I had struck him.
He came steadily on, and in another second was almost upon me. I fired
for his forehead, but my bullet went low, entering his open mouth,
smashing his lower jaw and going into the neck. I leaped to one side
almost as I pulled the trigger; and through the hanging smoke the first
thing I saw was his paw as he made a vicious side blow at me. The rush
of his charge carried him past. As he struck he lurched forward,
leaving a pool of bright blood where his muzzle hit the ground; but he
recovered himself and made two or three jumps onward, while I hurriedly
jammed a couple of cartridges into the magazine, my rifle holding only
four, all of which I had fired. Then he tried to pull up, but as he did
so his muscles seemed suddenly to give way, his head dropped, and he
rolled over and over like a shot rabbit. Each of my first three bullets
had inflicted a mortal wound.

It was already twilight, and I merely opened the carcass, and then
trotted back to camp. Next morning I returned and with much labor took
off the skin. The fur was very fine, the animal being in excellent
trim, and unusually bright colored. Unfortunately, in packing it out I
lost the skull, and had to supply its place with one of plaster. The
beauty of the trophy, and the memory of the circumstances under which I
produced it, make me value it perhaps more highly than any other in my
house.




ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION

DEBATES AND CAMPAIGN SPEECHES


ON RETAINING THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

SPEECH OF GEORGE F. HOAR

A famous orator once imagined the nations of the world uniting to erect
a column to Jurisprudence in some stately capital. Each country was to
bring the name of its great jurist to be inscribed on the side of the
column, with a sentence stating what he and his country through him had
done toward establishing the reign of law and justice for the benefit
of mankind.

I have sometimes fancied that we might erect here in the capital of the
country a column to American Liberty which alone might rival in height
the beautiful and simple shaft which we have erected to the fame of the
Father of the Country. I can fancy each generation bringing its
inscription, which should recite its own contribution to the great
structure of which the column should be but the symbol.

The generation of the Puritan and the Pilgrim and the Huguenot claims
the place of honor at the base. "I brought the torch of freedom across
the sea. I cleared the forest. I subdued the savage and the wild beast.
I laid in Christian liberty and law the foundations of empire."

The next generation says: "What my fathers founded I builded. I left
the seashore to penetrate the wilderness. I planted schools and
colleges and churches."

Then comes the generation of the great colonial day: "I stood by the
side of England on many a hard-fought field. I helped humble the power
of France."

Then comes the generation of the revolutionary time: "I encountered the
power of England. I declared and won the independence of my country. I
placed that declaration on the eternal principles of justice and
righteousness which all mankind have read, and on which all mankind
will one day stand. I affirmed the dignity of human nature and the
right of the people to govern themselves."

The next generation says: "I encountered England again. I vindicated
the right of an American ship to sail the seas the wide world over
without molestation. I made the American sailor as safe at the ends of
the earth as my fathers had made the American farmer safe in his home."

Then comes the next generation: "I did the mighty deeds which in your
younger years you saw and which your fathers told. I saved the Union. I
freed the slave. I made of every slave a freeman, and of every freeman
a citizen, and of every citizen a voter."

Then comes another who did the great work in peace, in which so many of
you had an honorable share: "I kept the faith. I paid the debt. I
brought in conciliation and peace instead of war. I built up our vast
domestic commerce. I made my country the richest, freest, strongest,
happiest people on the face of the earth."

And now what have we to say? What have we to say? Are we to have a
place in that honorable company? Must we engrave on that column: "We
repealed the Declaration of Independence. We changed the Munroe
Doctrine from a doctrine of eternal righteousness and justice, resting
on the consent of the governed, to a doctrine of brutal selfishness,
looking only to our own advantage. We crushed the only republic in
Asia. We made war on the only Christian people in the East. We
converted a war of glory into a war of shame. We vulgarized the
American flag. We introduced perfidy into the practice of war. We
inflicted torture on unarmed men to extort confession. We put children
to death. We established reconcentrado camps. We devastated provinces.
We baffled the aspirations of a people for liberty"?

No, Mr. President. Never! Never! Other and better counsels will yet
prevail. The hours are long in the life of a great people. The
irrevocable step is not yet taken.

Let us at least have this to say: "We, too, have kept the faith of the
fathers. We took Cuba by the hand. We delivered her from her age-long
bondage. We welcomed her to the family of nations. We set mankind an
example never beheld before of moderation in victory. We led hesitating
and halting Europe to the deliverance of their beleaguered ambassadors
in China. We marched through a hostile country--a country cruel and
barbarous--without anger or revenge. We returned benefit for injury,
and pity for cruelty. We made the name of America beloved in the East
as in the West. We kept faith with the Philippine people. We kept faith
with our own history. We kept our national honor unsullied. The flag
which we received without a rent we handed down without a stain."


SPEECH OF WILLIAM MCKINLEY

I do not know why in the year 1899 this Republic has unexpectedly had
placed before it mighty problems which it must face and meet. They have
come and are here, and they could not be kept away. We have fought a
war with Spain.

The Philippines, like Cuba and Porto Rico, were intrusted to our hands
by the war, and to that great trust, under the Providence of God and in
the name of human progress and civilization, we are committed. It is a
trust we have not sought; it is a trust from which we will not flinch.
The American people will hold up the hands of their servants at home to
whom they commit its execution, while Dewey and Otis and the brave men
whom they command will have the support of the country in upholding our
flag where it now floats, the symbol and assurance of liberty and
justice.

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