INTRODUCTORY LETTER.
Dear Sir,—I thank you for calling my attention to your forthcoming work on Extemporaneous Speaking. Unwritten speech is, in my judgment, the more efficient method of public speaking, because it is the natural method. The written essay, says an eminent critic of antiquity, “is not a speech, unless you choose to call epistles speeches.” A cultivated man, fully possessed of all the facts which relate to the subject of which he would speak, who cannot clearly express himself without first memorizing word for word his written preparation, can scarcely be called a public speaker, whatever may be his capacity as a writer or reader. The speaker who clothes his thoughts at the moment of utterance, and in the presence of his hearers, will illustrate by his speech the admirable saying of Seneca: “Fit words better than fine ones.”
It is not my purpose to enter upon any inquiry touching the gifts, culture and practice necessary to make a powerful and successful speaker. It is conceded that in the art of public speaking, as in all other arts, there is no excellence without great labor. Neither is it the intent of the writer to suggest the possibility of speaking efficiently without the careful culture of voice and manner, of intellect and heart, an exact knowledge of the subject, and a careful arrangement, with or without writing, of all the facts and statements involved in the discussion. Lord Brougham has said that a speech written before delivery is regarded as something almost ridiculous; may we not add, that a speech made without previous reflection or an accurate knowledge of the subject, would be regarded as a mere tinkling cymbal. I intend no depreciation of the elaborate written essay read for the instruction or amusement of an assembly; but claim that the essay, read, or recited from memory, is not speech, nor can it supply the place of natural effective speech. The essay delivered is but the echo of the dead past, the speech is the utterance of the living present. The delivery of the essay is the formal act of memory, the delivery of the unwritten speech the living act of intellect and heart. The difference between the two is known and felt of all men. To all this it may be answered that the ancient speakers, whose fame still survives, carefully elaborated their speeches before delivery. The fact is admitted with the furtherstatement, that many of the speeches of the ancient orators never were delivered at all. Five of the seven orations of Cicero against Verres were never spoken, neither was the second Philippic against Mark Antony, nor the reported defence of Milo. We admit that the ancient speakers wrote much and practised much, and we would commend their example, in all, save a formal recital of written preparations. There is nothing in all that has come to us concerning ancient oratory, which by any means proves that to be effective in speech, what is to be said should be first written and memorized; there is much that shows, that to enable one to express his own thoughts clearly and forcibly, reflection, culture and practice are essential.
Lord Brougham, remarking on the habit of writing speeches, says: “That a speech written before delivery is something anomalous, and a speech intended to have been spoken is a kind of byword for something laughable in itself, as describing an incongruous existence.” This distinguished man, in his careful consideration of this subject, says: “We can hardly assign any limits to the effects of great practise in giving a power of extempore composition,” and notices that it is recorded of Demosthenes, that when, upon some rare occasions, he trusted to the feeling of the hour, and spoke off-hand, “his eloquence was more spirited and bold, and he seemed sometimes to speak from a supernatural impulse.” If this be true of the great Athenian who notoriously would not, if he could avoid it, trust to the inspiration of the moment, and who for want of a prepared speech, we are told by Æschines, failed before Philip,—might it not be inferred that one practised in speaking, would utter his thoughts with more spirit and power when not restrained by a written preparation and fettered by its formal recital?
Did not Fox often, in the Parliament, achieve the highest results of speech without previous written preparation; and is it not a fact never to be questioned, that the wonderful speech of Webster, in reply to Hayne, was unwritten?
In his admirable lecture on Eloquence, Mr. Emerson says: “Eloquence that so astonishes, is only the exaggeration of a talent that is universal. All men are competitors in this art. * * A man of this talent finds himself cold in private company, and proves himself a heavy companion; but give him a commanding occasion, and the inspiration of a great multitude, and he surprises us by new and unlooked for powers.” * *
Indeed, there is in this lecture of Mr. Emerson, in few words,much to sustain your theory. He says, “the word eloquence strictly means out-speaking; the main power, sentiment—the essential fact is heat, the heat which comes of sincerity. Speak what you know and believe, and are personally answerable for. This goes by weight and measure, like everything else in the universe. A man to be eloquent must have faith in his subject, and must have accurate knowledge of that subject. * * The author of power—he is the great man who always makes a divine impression, a sentiment more powerful in the heart than love of country, and gives perceptions and feelings far beyond the limits of thought. Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into a language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak. Such a practical conversion of truth, written in God’s language, is one of the most beautiful weapons forged in the shop of the Divine Artificer. God and Nature are altogether sincere, and art should be as sincere.” How can sincerity be fully attained in the great art of public speech, if every word to be uttered must be previously written down in the closet, and memorized and recited? Was not Lord Brougham right in saying a speech written before delivery is inconsistent with the inspiration of the moment, and the feelings under which the orator is always supposed to speak? What feelings? The felt-conviction of the truth of what he has to say. What inspiration? The inspiration which, at the moment, clothes and expresses the honest thought in appropriate words.
Surely the living voice, rightly cultivated, and rightly employed, is a power in the world, and to condemn you for calling attention to what you believe to the most efficient method of human speech, would be one of those decisions of ignorant arrogance which it costs no labor and needs no intellect to pronounce.
Is not the man who well and truthfully speaks his own thoughts, as Shakspeare and Bacon wrote, in some sense their peer? Is not the mere reciter of their words, but their shadow?
It is said of Plato, that he poured forth the flood of his eloquence as by inspiration, and that, had the Father of the gods spoken in Greek, he would have used none other language than Plato’s; and yet this master of language takes pains, in reporting the apology of Socrates on trial for his life, to represent him as saying that it would not become him to speak “studied terms and expressions, but only the truth expressed in the plainest language.” I quote the words of Socrates as given by Plato:
“Among the false statements which my accusers made, therewas one at which I especially marveled, namely when they warned you to take care not to be led astray by me, inasmuch as I was a powerful speaker. It did appear to me supremely audacious in them to make such an assertion, Which must immediately afterwards be disproved by the fact; for you will see that I have no skill in speaking, unless they call a man a powerful speaker because he says what is true. If they mean this, I certainly must allow that I am a speaker of a very different kind from them; for they, as I have said, have not spoken a word of truth; from me you shall hear the whole truth; and that not clothed in ornate sentences with studied terms and expressions; you will have from me plain facts expressed in the plainest language. Indeed, Athenians, it would ill become me at my age to come before you with a studied discourse like a boy. And there is one thing, O Athenians, which I must beg and entreat of you: if I use, in my defense, the same terms which I have been accustomed to use in the market-place and in the shops where most of you have heard me talking, do not wonder at that, nor take offence. For this is the fact, I now enter a court of justice for the first time, though I am more than seventy years old; I am, therefore, altogether strange to the kind of language used here; and therefore excuse me, as if I really were a stranger, if I speak to you in that tone and in that manner in which I have been brought up. I ask you a thing which is, I think, reasonable, that you take no account of the manner of my address to you—it might be better, it might be worse, perhaps—but to consider this, to attend to this, whether I say what is right or not, for that is the virtue of the judge, as to speak truly is the virtue of the advocate.”
No matter if the speech be not clothed in ornate sentences with studied terms, it is the virtue of the judge to consider whether the speech is right, as to speak truly is the virtue of the advocate.
It is only, it seems to me, when men speak wisely, truly and naturally, that the full significance of Quintillian’s words can be realized: “May I perish, if the all-powerful Creator of nature and the Architect of this world has impressed man with any character which so eminently distinguishes him as the faculty of speech.” Let him who would use this faculty effectively, and attain to that great power which rules the minds of men, and moves the passions and affections of the soul, see to it, that he speaks what he knows and believes, plainly and directly from the heart to the heart.
Very truly your friend,JOHN A. BINGHAM.
Very truly your friend,JOHN A. BINGHAM.
Very truly your friend,JOHN A. BINGHAM.
Very truly your friend,
JOHN A. BINGHAM.