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Public Speaking

I >> Irvah Lester Winter >> Public Speaking




The names of Washington and Lincoln are inseparably associated, and yet
as the popular historian would have us believe one spent his entire
life in chopping down acorn trees and the other splitting them up into
rails. Washington could not tell a story. Lincoln always could. And
Lincoln's stories always possessed the true geometrical requisites,
they were never too long, and never too broad.

But his heart was not always attuned to mirth; its chords were often
set to strains of sadness. Yet throughout all his trials he never lost
the courage of his convictions. When he was surrounded on all sides by
doubting Thomases, by unbelieving Saracens, by discontented Catilines,
his faith was strongest. As the Danes destroyed the hearing of their
war horses in order that they might not be affrighted by the din of
battle, so Lincoln turned a deaf ear to all that might have discouraged
him, and exhibited an unwavering faith in the justice of the cause and
the integrity of the Union.

It is said that for three hundred years after the battle of Thermopylæ
every child in the public schools of Greece was required to recite from
memory the names of the three hundred martyrs who fell in the defense
of that pass. It would be a crowning triumph in patriotic education if
every school child in America could contemplate each day the grand
character and utter the inspiring name of Abraham Lincoln, who has
handed down unto a grateful people the richest legacy which man can
leave to man--the memory of a good name, the inheritance of a great
example!


TO ATHLETIC VICTORS

From a speech at a dinner of graduates of Yale University, in New York,
1889. By the kindness of the author.

BY HENRY E. HOWLAND

On Boston Common, under the shadow of the State House, and within the
atmosphere of Harvard University, there is an inscription on a column,
in honor of those who, on land and sea, maintained the cause of their
country during four years of civil war. The visitor approaches it with
respect and reverently uncovers as he reads.

With similar high emotions we, as citizens of the world of letters, and
acknowledging particular allegiance to the province thereof founded by
Elihu Yale, are assembled to pour libations, to partake of a
sacrificial feast, and to crown with honors and with bays those who, on
land and sea, with unparalleled courage and devotion, have borne their
flag to victory in desperate encounters.

Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.

On large fields of strife, the record of success like that which we are
called upon to commemorate would give the victors a high place in
history and liken their country to ancient Thebes,--

"Which spread her conquest o'er a thousand states,
And poured her heroes through a hundred gates."

There are many reasons why Yale men win. One is that which was stated
by Lord Beaconsfield, "The Secret of success is constancy of purpose."
That alone sufficiently accounts for it.

We are here present in no vain spirit of boasting, though if our right
to exalt ourselves were questioned, we might reply in the words of the
American girl who was shown some cannon at Woolwich Arsenal, the
sergeant in charge remarking, "You know we took them from you at Bunker
Hill." "Yes," she replied, "I see you've got the cannon, but I guess
we've got the hill."

We come rather in a spirit of true modesty to recognize the plaudits of
an admiring world, to tell you how they were won. It was said in the
days of Athenian pride and glory that it was easier to find a god in
Athens than a man. We must be careful in these days of admiration of
athletic effort that no such imputation is laid upon us, and that the
deification of the human form divine is not carried to extremes.

It is a curious coincidence that a love of the classics and proficiency
in intellectual pursuits should coexist with admiration for physical
perfection and with athletic superiority during all the centuries of
which the history is written. The youth who lisped in Attic numbers and
was brought up on the language we now so painfully and imperfectly
acquire, who was lulled to sleep by songs of Æschylus and Sophocles,
who discussed philosophy in the porches of Plato, Aristotle, and
Epicurus, was a more accomplished classical scholar than the most
learned pundit of modern times, and was a model of manly beauty, yet he
would have died to win the wreath of parsley at the Olympian games,
which all esteemed an immortal prize. While, in our time, to be the
winning crew on the Isis, the Cam, the English or American Thames, is
equal in honor and influence to the position of senior wrangler,
valedictorian, or Deforest prize man.

The man who wins the world's honors to-day must not be overtrained
mentally or physically; not, as John Randolph said of the soil of
Virginia,--"poor by nature and ruined by cultivation," hollow-chested,
convex in back, imperfect in sight, shuffling in gait, and flabby in
muscle. The work of such a man will be musty like his closet, narrow as
the groove he moves in, tinctured with the peculiarities that border on
insanity, and out of tune with nature.

No man can work in the world unless he knows it, struggles with it, and
becomes a part of it, and the statement of the English statesman that
the undergraduate of Oxford or Cambridge who had the best stomach, the
hardest muscles, and the greatest ambition would be the future Lord
Chancellor of England, had a solid basis of truth.

Gentlemen of the bat, the oar, the racquet, the cinder path, and the
leathern sphere, never were conquerors more welcome guests, in palace
or in hall, at the tables of their friends than you are here.

You come with your laurels fresh from the fields you have won, to
receive the praise which is your due and which we so gladly bestow.
Your self-denial, devotion, skill, and courage have brought honor to
your University, and for it we honor you.


THE BABIES

At a banquet in honor of General Grant, Chicago, 1877

BY SAMUEL L. CLEMENS (Mark Twain)

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN,--"The Babies." Now, that's something like.
We haven't all had the good fortune to be ladies; we have not all been
generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the
babies, we stand on common ground--for we've all been babies. It is a
shame that for a thousand years the world's banquets have utterly
ignored the baby, as if he didn't amount to anything! If you,
gentlemen, will stop and think a minute--if you will try to go back
fifty or a hundred years, to your early married life, and recontemplate
your first baby--you will remember that he amounted to a good deal--and
even something over.

You soldiers all know that when that little fellow arrived at family
headquarters, you had to hand in your resignation. He took entire
command. You had to execute his order whether it was possible or not.
And there was only one form of marching in his manual of tactics, and
that was the double-quick. When he called for soothing syrup, did you
venture to throw out any remarks about certain services unbecoming to
an officer and a gentleman? No; you got up and got it! If he ordered
his pap bottle, and it wasn't warm, did you talk back? Not you; you
went to work and warmed it. You even descended so far in your menial
office as to take a suck at that warm, insipid stuff yourself, to see
if it was right!--three parts water to one of milk, a touch of sugar to
modify the colic, and a drop of peppermint to kill those immortal
hiccoughs. I can taste that stuff yet.

And how many things you learned as you went along! Sentimental young
folks still take stock in that beautiful old saying, that when a baby
smiles in his sleep it is because the angels are whispering to him.
Very pretty, but "too thin"--simply wind on the stomach, my friends. I
like the idea that a baby doesn't amount to anything! Why, one baby is
just a house and a front yard full by itself; one baby can furnish more
business than you and your whole interior department can attend to; he
is enterprising, irrepressible, brimful of lawless activities. Do what
you please you can't make him stay on the reservation. Sufficient unto
the day is one baby. As long as you are in your right mind don't ever
pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot; and there ain't any
real difference between triplets and insurrections.

Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land there
are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if
we could know which ones they are. For in one of these cradles the
unconscious Farragut of the future is at this moment teething; in
another the future great historian is lying, and doubtless he will
continue to lie until his earthly mission is ended. And in still one
more cradle, somewhere under the flag, the future illustrious
commander-in-chief of the American armies is so little burdened with
his approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving his
whole strategic mind at this moment, to trying to find out some way to
get his own big toe into his mouth, an achievement to which (meaning no
disrespect) the illustrious guest of this evening also turned his
attention some fifty-six years ago! And if the child is but the
prophecy of the man, there are mighty few will doubt that he succeeded.




THE OCCASIONAL POEM


CHARLES DICKENS

Read by Mr. Watson in New York, at the celebration of the Dickens
Centenary, 1912. Reprinted from the public press.

BY WILLIAM WATSON

When Nature first designed
In her all-procreant mind
The man whom here tonight we are met to honor--
When first the idea of Dickens flashed upon her--
"Where, where" she said, "upon my populous earth
Shall this prodigious child be brought to birth?
Where shall we have his earliest wondering look
Into my magic book?
Shall he be born where life runs like a brook,
Pleasant and placid as of old it ran,
Far from the sound and shock of mighty deeds,
Among soft English meads?
Or shall he first my pictured volume scan
Where London lifts its hot and fevered brow
For cooling night to fan?"
"Nay, nay," she said, "I have a happier plan
For where at Portsmouth, on the embattled tides
The ships of war step out with thundering prow
And shake their stormy sides--
In yonder place of arms, whose gaunt sea wall
Flings to the clouds the far-heard bugle call--
He shall be born amid the drums and guns,
He shall be born among my fighting sons,
Perhaps the greatest warrior of them all."

II

So there, where from the forts and battle gear
And all the proud sea babbles Nelson's name,
Into the world this later hero came--
He, too, a man that knew all moods but fear--
He, too, a fighter. Yet not his the strife
That leaves dark scars on the fair face of life.
He did not fight to rend the world apart;
He fought to make it one in mind and heart,
Building a broad and noble bridge to span
The icy chasm that sunders man from man.
Wherever wrong had fixed its bastions deep,
There did his fierce yet gay assault surprise
Some fortress girt with lucre or with lies;
There his light battery stormed some ponderous keep;
There charged he up the steep,
A knight on whom no palsying torpor fell,
Keen to the last to break a lance with Hell.
And still undimmed his conquering weapons shine;
On his bright sword no spot of rust appears,
And still across the years
His soul goes forth to battle, and in the face
Of whatso'er is false, or cruel, or base,
He hurls his gage and leaps among the spears,
Being armed with pity and love and scorn divine,
Immortal laughter and immortal tears.


THE MARINERS OF ENGLAND

BY THOMAS CAMPBELL

Ye Mariners of England
That guard our native seas!
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe:
And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long
And the stormy winds do blow.

The spirit of your fathers
Shall start from every wave,
For the deck it is our field of fame,
And Ocean was their grave:
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell
Your manly heart shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long
And the stormy winds do blow.

Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.
With thunders from her native oak
She quells the floods below,
As they roar on the shore,
When the stormy winds do blow;
When the battle rages loud and long
And the stormy winds do blow.

The meteor-flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn;
Till danger's troubled night depart
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,
When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow.


CLASS POEM

Read in Sanders Theater at the Harvard Class Day Exercises, 1903.
Reprinted with permission.

BY LANGDON WARNER

Not unto every one of us shall come
The bugle call that sounds for famous deeds;
Not far lands, but the pleasant paths of home,
Not broad seas to traffic, but the meads
Of fruitful midland ways, where daily life
Down trellised vistas, heavy in the Fall,
Seems but the decent way apart from strife;
And love, and work, and laughter there seem all.

War, and the Orient Sun uprising,
The East, the West, and Man's shrill clamorous strife,
Travail, disaster, flood, and far emprising,
Man may not reach, yet take fast hold on life.
Let us now praise men who are not famous,
Striving for good name rather than for great;
Hear we the quiet voice calling to claim us,
Heed it no less than the trumpet-call of fate!

Profit we to-day by the men who've gone before us,
Men who dared, and lived, and died, to speed us on our way.
Fair is their fame, who make that mighty chorus,
And gentle is the heritance that comes to us to-day.

They pulled with the strength that was in them,
But 'twas not for the pewter cup,
And not for the fame 'twould win them
When the length of the race was up.
For the college stood by the river,
And they heard, with cheeks that glowed,
The voice of the coxswain calling
At the end of the course--"Well rowed!"

We have pulled at the sweep and run at the games,
We have striven to stand to our boyhood aims,
And we know the worth of our fathers' names;
Shall we have less care for our own?
The praise of men they dared despise,
They set the game above the prize,
Must we fear to look in our fathers' eyes,
Nor reap where they have sown?

Do we lose the zest we've known before?
The joy of running?--The kick of the oar
When the ash sweeps buckle and bend?
Is the goal too far?--Too hard to gain?
We know that the candle is not the play,
We know the reward is not to-day,
And may not come at the end.

But we hear the voice of each bygone class
From the river's bank when our own crews pass,
And the backs of the men are bowed,
With a steady lift and a squandering strength,
For the heave that shall drive us a nation's length,
Till the coxswain calls--"Well rowed."

Now all to the tasks that may find us--
To the saddle, the home, or the sea,
Still hearing the voices behind us
The voices that set us free;
Free to be bound by our honor,
Free to our birthright of toil,
The masters, and slaves, of the nation,
The Serfs, and the Lords, of the soil!

Proudly we lift the burdens
That humbled the ages past,
And pray to the God that gave them
We may bear them on to the last;

That our sons and our younger brothers,
When our gaps in the front they fill,
May know that the class has faltered not,
And the line is even still.

Then out to the wind and weather!
Down the course our fathers showed,
And finish well together,
As the coxswain calls--"Well rowed!"


A TROOP OF THE GUARD

Harvard Class Poem, 1907, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, publishers,
Reprinted with permission.

BY HERMANN HAGEDORN, JR.

There's a trampling of hoofs in the busy street,
There's a clanking of sabers on floor and stair,
There's a sound of restless, hurrying feet,
Of voices that whisper, of lips that entreat,--
Will they live, will they die, will they strive, will they dare?--
The houses are garlanded, flags flutter gay,
For a troop of the Guard rides forth to-day.

Oh, the troopers will ride and their hearts will leap,
When it's shoulder to shoulder and friend to friend--
But it's some to the pinnacle, some to the deep,
And some in the glow of their strength to sleep,
And for all it's a fight to the tale's far end,
And it's each to his goal, nor turn nor sway,
When the troop of the Guard rides forth to-day.

The dawn is upon us, the pale light speeds
To the zenith with glamour and golden dart.
On, up! Boot and saddle! Give spurs to your steeds!
There's a city beleaguered that cries for men's deeds,
With the pain of the world in its cavernous heart.

Ours be the triumph! Humanity calls!
Life's not a dream in the clover!
On to the walls, on to the walls,
On to the walls, and over!

The wine is spent, the tale is spun,
The revelry of youth is done.
The horses prance, the bridles clink,
While maidens fair in bright array
With us the last sweet goblet drink,
Then bid us, "Mount and away!"
Into the dawn, we ride, we ride,
Fellow and fellow, side by side;
Galloping over the field and hill,
Over the marshland, stalwart still,
Into the forest's shadowy hush,
Where specters walk in sunless day,
And in dark pool and branch and bush
The treacherous will-o'-the-wisp lights play.
Out of the wood 'neath the risen sun,
Weary we gallop, one and one,
To a richer hope and a stronger foe
And a hotter fight in the fields below--
Each man his own slave, each his lord,
For the golden spurs and the victor's sword!

An anxious generation sends us forth
On the far conquest of the thrones of might.
From west to east, from south to north,
Earth's children, weary-eyed from too much light,
Cry from their dream-forsaken vales of pain,
"Give us our gods, give us our gods again!"
A lofty and relentless century,
Gazing with Argus eyes,
Has pierced the very inmost halls of faith;
And left no shelter whither man may flee
From the cold storms of night and lovelessness and death.

Old gods have fallen and the new must rise!
Out of the dust of doubt and broken creeds,
The sons of those who cast men's idols low
Must build up for a hungry people's needs
New gods, new hopes, new strength to toil and grow;
Knowing that nought that ever lived can die,--
No act, no dream but spreads its sails, sublime,
Sweeping across the visible seas of time
Into the treasure-haven of eternity.
The portals are open, the white road leads
Through thicket and garden, o'er stone and sod.
On, up! Boot and saddle! Give spurs to your steeds!
There's a city beleaguered that cries for men's deeds,
For the faith that is strength and the love that is God!
On, through the dawning! Humanity calls!
Life's not a dream in the clover!
On to the walls, on to the walls,
On to the walls, and over!


THE BOYS

At a class reunion. By permission of, and by special arrangement with,
Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of this author's works.

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy, young jackanapes!--show him the door!
'Gray temples at twenty?'--Yes! _white_ if we please;
Where the snowflakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!
Look close,--you will see not a sign of a flake!
We want some new garlands for those we have shed,--
And these are white roses in place of the red.

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,
Of talking (in public) as if we were old:--
That boy we call 'Doctor,' and this we call 'Judge';
It's a neat little fiction,--of course it's all fudge.

That fellow's the 'Speaker,'--the one on the right:
'Mr. Mayor,' my young one, how are you to-night?
That's our 'Member of Congress,' we say when we chaff;
There's the 'Reverend' What's his name?--don't make me laugh.

That boy with the grave mathematical look
Made believe he had written a wonderful book,
And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was _true_!
So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too!

There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain,
That could harness a team with a logical chain;
When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire,
We called him 'The Justice,' but now he's 'The Squire.'

And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,--
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,--
Just read on his medal, 'My country,' 'of thee!'

You hear that boy laughing?--You think he's all fun;
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all!

Yes, we're boys,--always playing with tongue or with pen,--
And I sometimes have asked,--Shall we ever be men?
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay,
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away?

Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray!
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May!
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of thy children, the BOYS!




THE ANECDOTE


THE MOB CONQUERED

From "The Orations and Addresses of George William Curtis," Vol. 1
Copyright 1893, by Harper and Brothers. Reprinted with permission.

BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

It is especially necessary for us to perceive the vital relation of
individual courage and character to the common welfare, because ours is
a government of public opinion, and public opinion is but the aggregate
of individual thought. We have the awful responsibility as a community
of doing what we choose; and it is of the last importance that we
choose to do what is wise and right. In the early days of the
antislavery agitation a meeting was called at Faneuil Hall, in Boston,
which a good-natured mob of sailors was hired to suppress. They took
possession of the floor and danced breakdowns and shouted choruses and
refused to hear any of the orators upon the platform. The most eloquent
pleaded with them in vain. They were urged by the memories of the
Cradle of Liberty, for the honor of Massachusetts, for their own honor
as Boston boys, to respect liberty of speech. But they still laughed
and sang and danced, and were proof against every appeal. At last a man
suddenly arose from among themselves, and began to speak. Struck by his
tone and quaint appearance, and with the thought that he might be one
of themselves, the mob became suddenly still, "Well, fellow-citizens,"
he said, "I wouldn't be quiet if I didn't want to." The words were
greeted with a roar of delight from the mob, which supposed it had
found its champion, and the applause was unceasing for five minutes,
during which the strange orator tranquilly awaited his chance to
continue. The wish to hear more hushed the tumult, and when the hall
was still he resumed: "No, I certainly wouldn't stop if I hadn't a mind
to; but then, if I were you, I _would_ have a mind to!" The oddity
of the remark and the earnestness of the tone, held the crowd silent,
and the speaker continued, "not because this is Faneuil Hall, nor for
the honor of Massachusetts, nor because you are Boston boys, but
because you are men, and because honorable and generous men always love
fair play." The mob was conquered. Free speech and fair play were
secured. Public opinion can do what it has a mind to in this country.
If it be debased and demoralized, it is the most odious of tyrants. It
is Nero and Caligula multiplied by millions. Can there then be a more
stringent public duty for every man--and the greater the intelligence
the greater the duty--than to take care, by all the influence he can
command, that the country, the majority, public opinion, shall have a
mind to do only what is just and pure and humane?


AN EXAMPLE OF FAITH

From "The New South." Reprinted with permission

BY HENRY W. GRADY

Permitted, through your kindness, to catch my second wind, let me say
that I appreciate the significance of being the first Southerner to
speak at this board, which bears the substance, if it surpasses the
semblance, of original New England hospitality--and honors the
sentiment that in turn honors you, but in which my personality is lost,
and the compliment to my people made plain.

I bespeak the utmost stretch of your courtesy to-night. I am not
troubled about those from whom I come. You remember the man whose wife
sent him to a neighbor with a pitcher of milk, and who, tripping on the
top step, fell with such casual interruptions as the landings afforded
into the basement, and, while picking himself up, had the pleasure of
hearing his wife call out: "John, did you break the pitcher?"

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