THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING. J. BERG ESENWEIN DALE CARNAGEY

annals

      of history has been the triumph of enthusiasm." It is as contagious as

      measles. Eloquence is half inspiration. Sweep your audience with you in

      a pulsation of enthusiasm. Let yourself go. "A man," said Oliver

      Cromwell, "never rises so high as when he knows not whither he is

      going."

      _How are We to Acquire and Develop Enthusiasm?_

      It is not to be slipped on like a smoking jacket. A book cannot furnish

      you with it. It is a growth--an effect. But an effect of what? Let us

      see.

      Emerson wrote: "A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without

      in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines

      of his form merely,--but, by watching for a time his motion and plays,

      the painter enters his nature, and then can draw him at will in every

      attitude. So Roos 'entered into the inmost nature of his sheep.' I knew

      a draughtsman employed in a public survey, who found that he could not

      sketch the rocks until their geological structure was first explained to

      him."

      When Sarah Bernhardt plays a difficult role she frequently will speak to

      no one from four o'clock in the afternoon until after the performance.

      From the hour of four she lives her character. Booth, it is reported,

      would not permit anyone to speak to him between the acts of his

      Shakesperean rôles, for he was Macbeth then--not Booth. Dante, exiled

      from his beloved Florence, condemned to death, lived in caves, half

      starved; then Dante wrote out his heart in "The Divine Comedy." Bunyan

      entered into the spirit of his "Pilgrim's Progress" so thoroughly that

      he fell down on the floor of Bedford jail and wept for joy. Turner, who

      lived in a garret, arose before daybreak and walked over the hills nine

      miles to see the sun rise on the ocean, that he might catch the spirit

      of its wonderful beauty. Wendell Phillips' sentences were full of

      "silent lightning" because he bore in his heart the sorrow of five

      million slaves.

      There is only one way to get feeling into your speaking--and whatever

      else you forget, forget not this: _You must actually ENTER INTO_ the

      character you impersonate, the cause you advocate, the case you

      argue--enter into it so deeply that it clothes you, enthralls you,

      possesses you wholly. Then you are, in the true meaning of the word, in

      _sympathy_ with your subject, for its feeling is your feeling, you "feel

      with" it, and therefore your enthusiasm is both genuine and contagious.

      The Carpenter who spoke as "never man spake" uttered words born out of a

      passion of love for humanity--he had entered into humanity, and thus

      became Man.

      But we must not look upon the foregoing words as a facile prescription

      for decocting a feeling which may then be ladled out to a complacent

      audience in quantities to suit the need of the moment. Genuine feeling

      in a speech is bone and blood of the speech itself and not something

      that may be added to it or substracted at will. In the ideal address

      theme, speaker and audience become one, fused by the emotion and thought

      of the hour.

      _The Need of Sympathy for Humanity_

      It is impossible to lay too much stress on the necessity for the

      speaker's having a broad and deep tenderness for human nature. One of

      Victor Hugo's biographers attributes his power as an orator and writer

      to his wide sympathies and profound religious feelings. Recently we

      heard the editor of _Collier's Weekly_ speak on short-story writing, and

      he so often emphasized the necessity for this broad love for humanity,

      this truly religious feeling, that he apologized twice for delivering a

      sermon. Few if any of the immortal speeches were ever delivered for a

      selfish or a narrow cause--they were born out of a passionate desire to

      help humanity; instances, Paul's address to the Athenians on Mars Hill,

      Lincoln's Gettysburg speech, The Sermon on the Mount, Henry's address

      before the Virginia Convention of Delegates.

      The seal and sign of greatness is a desire to serve others.

      Self-preservation is the first law of life, but self-abnegation is the

      first law of greatness--and of art. Selfishness is the fundamental cause

      of all sin, it is the thing that all great religions, all worthy

      philosophies, have struck at. Out of a heart of real sympathy and love

      come the speeches that move humanity.

      Former United States Senator Albert J. Beveridge in an introduction to

      one of the volumes of "Modern Eloquence," says: "The profoundest feeling

      among the masses, the most influential element in their character, is

      the religious element. It is as instinctive and elemental as the law of

      self-preservation. It informs the whole intellect and personality of the

      people. And he who would greatly influence the people by uttering their

      unformed thoughts must have this great and unanalyzable bond of sympathy

      with them."

      When the men of Ulster armed themselves to oppose the passage of the

      Home Rule Act, one of the present writers assigned to a hundred men

      "Home Rule" as the topic for an address to be prepared by each. Among

      this group were some brilliant speakers, several of them experienced

      lawyers and political campaigners. Some of their addresses showed a

      remarkable knowledge and grasp of the subject; others were clothed in

      the most attractive phrases. But a clerk, without a great deal of

      education and experience, arose and told how he spent his boyhood days

      in Ulster, how his mother while holding him on her lap had pictured to

      him Ulster's deeds of valor. He spoke of a picture in his uncle's home

      that showed the men of Ulster conquering a tyrant and marching on to

      victory. His voice quivered, and with a hand pointing upward he declared

      that if the men of Ulster went to war they would not go alone--a great

      God would go with them.

      The speech thrilled and electrified