A CHAPTER XIV INBORN GIFTS TTENTION has already been called to the fact that the orator is both "born and made." No man can become an orator of a high type unless he is born with certain qualities, that cannot be learned, although they may be developed and directed to efficient use. 1. For one thing, the orator must be gifted with a keen 1 and logical mind. Mere words, high-sounding phrases do not and cannot constitute eloquence. Oratory implies insight into truth, a power of reason, ability to follow a course of thought to a chosen end. 2. The real orator has, also, by virtue of birth a quick and responsive imagination. He observes and thinks in the concrete. He has the power of vision and of expressing his visions in speech. He "realizes" ideas. Without this quality, to become an orator of the highest type is beyond human experience, and so far as we know, beyond human possibility. Imagination may, to be sure, be cultivated, may be chastened, may be stirred by circumstances; but fundamentally it must be in the man's soul. It cannot be created. It cannot be manufactured. This quality underlies the fine fancies, the telling metaphors, the illuminating similes,- all those forms of speech that serve to uplift the mind above the sordid and commonplace thoughts of everyday, matter-of-fact experiences. It is this, partly, that allies the orator to the poet; it is this that makes him, also, move about "in worlds not realized." 3. Another quality essential to eloquence is that of feeling. In this matter as well as in moral and spiritual experiences, it is fundamentally true that "out of the heart are the issues of life." Only as he has a sensitive emotional system, feelings that kindle into a flame at the slightest contact with the torch of reason, can he speak with power. It has been well said that "the man who can't put fire into his speeches should put his speeches into the fire." Feeling in speech is something that cannot be a matter of artifice. No man can speak with the deadly earnestness that carries conviction and action with it, who does not himself feel to the bottom of his soul the truth, the importance, the overwhelming necessity of the "object" he is urging. How can he hope to move others, unless he, himself, is moved? He needs to be stirred to the depths of his being with the feeling that his subject is not only for him but for his hearers the most important, the most vital subject that can engage their attention. He must be so filled with his subject that he has no room for anything else until he has delivered himself of that subject. It must "possess " him, bubbling in his heart, taking possession of his mind, controlling his tongue, inspiring his whole speech. When he so feels, he will - speak with such earnestness, with such "unction "as the old preachers called it that he will arouse similar feelings in the hearts of his hearers. Horace's advice to poets is equally applicable to orators: "If you wish me to weep, you yourself must first be filled with grief." Now this does not mean that the speaker must give way to the unrestrained expression of his feelings. It means rather that he must have genuineness of feeling, before he can speak with that sincerity, that earnestness, that deep conviction which alone lays hold of the hearts and moves the wills of men. But such feeling must be under the mastering control of him that speaks. Hamlet spoke very good advice to the players, when he said, "In the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness." He knew that the expression of passion would be more effective if it conveyed the impression that it was held in leash by the will. But let no one who would be an effective orator venture to speak before he has brooded over his theme until it becomes to him the most important matter and occupies the largest angle of his mental and spiritual vision. Then he can speak earnestly, sincerely, from the heart to the heart. Then he will speak with power. |