that it is the right thing to do, but because it feels right. No one
but a dyspeptic chooses his diet from a chart. Our feelings dictate what
we shall eat and generally how we shall act. Man is a feeling animal,
hence the public speaker's ability to arouse men to action depends
almost wholly on his ability to touch their emotions.
Negro mothers on the auction-block seeing their children sold away from
them into slavery have flamed out some of America's most stirring
speeches. True, the mother did not have any knowledge of the technique
of speaking, but she had something greater than all technique, more
effective than reason: feeling. The great speeches of the world have
not been delivered on tariff reductions or post-office appropriations.
The speeches that will live have been charged with emotional force.
Prosperity and peace are poor developers of eloquence. When great wrongs
are to be righted, when the public heart is flaming with passion, that
is the occasion for memorable speaking. Patrick Henry made an immortal
address, for in an epochal crisis he pleaded for liberty. He had roused
himself to the point where he could honestly and passionately exclaim,
"Give me liberty or give me death." His fame would have been different
had he lived to-day and argued for the recall of judges.
_The Power of Enthusiasm_
Political parties hire bands, and pay for applause--they argue that, for
vote-getting, to stir up enthusiasm is more effective than reasoning.
How far they are right depends on the hearers, but there can be no doubt
about the contagious nature of enthusiasm. A watch manufacturer in New
York tried out two series of watch advertisements; one argued the
superior construction, workmanship, durability, and guarantee offered
with the watch; the other was headed, "A Watch to be Proud of," and
dwelt upon the pleasure and pride of ownership. The latter series sold
twice as many as the former. A salesman for a locomotive works informed
the writer that in selling railroad engines emotional appeal was
stronger than an argument based on mechanical excellence.
Illustrations without number might be cited to show that in all our
actions we are emotional beings. The speaker who would speak efficiently
must develop the power to arouse feeling.
Webster, great debater that he was, knew that the real secret of a
speaker's power was an emotional one. He eloquently says of eloquence:
"Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation,
all may aspire after it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it
come at all, like the outbreak of a fountain from the earth, or
the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous,
original, native force.
"The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and
studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when
their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children,
and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then words
have lost their power, rhetoric is in vain, and all elaborate
oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and
subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism
is eloquent, then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear
conception outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose,
the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue,
beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the
whole man onward, right onward to his subject--this, this is
eloquence; or rather, it is something greater and higher than
all eloquence; it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action."
When traveling through the Northwest some time ago, one of the present
writers strolled up a village street after dinner and noticed a crowd
listening to a "faker" speaking on a corner from a goods-box.
Remembering Emerson's advice about learning something from every man we
meet, the observer stopped to listen to this speaker's appeal. He was
selling a hair tonic, which he claimed to have discovered in Arizona. He
removed his hat to show what this remedy had done for him, washed his
face in it to demonstrate that it was as harmless as water, and enlarged
on its merits in such an enthusiastic manner that the half-dollars
poured in on him in a silver flood. When he had supplied the audience
with hair tonic, he asked why a greater proportion of men than women
were bald. No one knew. He explained that it was because women wore
thinner-soled shoes, and so made a good electrical connection with
mother earth, while men wore thick, dry-soled shoes that did not
transmit the earth's electricity to the body. Men's hair, not having a
proper amount of electrical food, died and fell out. Of course he had a
remedy--a little copper plate that should be nailed on the bottom of the
shoe. He pictured in enthusiastic and vivid terms the desirability of
escaping baldness--and paid tributes to his copper plates. Strange as it
may seem when the story is told in cold print, the speaker's enthusiasm
had swept his audience with him, and they crushed around his stand with
outstretched "quarters" in their anxiety to be the possessors of these
magical plates!
Emerson's suggestion had been well taken--the observer had seen again
the wonderful, persuasive power of enthusiasm!
Enthusiasm sent millions crusading into the Holy Land to redeem it from
the Saracens. Enthusiasm plunged Europe into a thirty years' war over
religion. Enthusiasm sent three small ships plying the unknown sea to
the shores of a new world. When Napoleon's army were worn out and
discouraged in their ascent of the Alps, the Little Corporal stopped
them and ordered the bands to play the Marseillaise. Under its
soul-stirring strains there were no Alps.
Listen! Emerson said: "Nothing great was ever achieved without
enthusiasm." Carlyle declared that "Every great movement in