Public Speaking Part 11

The Peroration. A peroration is a conclusion which--whatever may be its material and treatment--has an appeal to the feelings, to the emotions. It strives to move the audience to act, to arouse them to an expression of their wills, to stir them to deeds. It usually comes at the end of a speech of persuasion. It appeals to sentiments of right, justice, humanity, religion. It seldom merely concludes a speech; it looks forward to some such definite action as casting a vote, joining an organization or movement, contributing money, going out on strike, returning to work, pledging support, signing a pet.i.tion.

These purposes suggest its material. It is usually a direct appeal, personal and collective, to all the hearers. Intense in feeling, tinged with emotion, it justifies itself by its sincerity and honesty alone. Its apparent success is not the measure of its merit. Too frequently an appeal to low prejudices, cla.s.s sentiment and prejudice, base motives, mob instincts will carry a group of people in a certain direction with as little sense and reason as a flock of sheep display.

Every student can cite a dozen instances of such unwarranted and unworthy responses to skilful perverted perorations. Answering to its emotional tone the style of a peroration is likely to rise above the usual, to become less simple, less direct. In this temptation for the speaker lies a second danger quite as grave as the one just indicated.

In an attempt to wax eloquent he is likely to become grandiloquent, bombastic, ridiculous. Many an experienced speaker makes an unworthy exhibition of himself under such circ.u.mstances. One specimen of such nonsense will serve as a warning.

When the terms for the use of the Panama Ca.n.a.l were drawn up there arose a discussion as to certain kinds of ships which might pa.s.s through the ca.n.a.l free of tolls. A treaty with Great Britain prevented tolls-exemption for privately owned vessels. In a speech in Congress upon this topic one member delivered the following inflated and inconsequential peroration. Can any one with any sanity see any connection of the Revolutionary War, Jefferson, Valley Forge, with a plain understanding of such a business matter as charging tolls for the use of a waterway? To get the full effect of this piece of "stupendous folly"--to quote the speaker's own words--the student should declaim it aloud with as much attempt at oratorical effect as its author expended upon it.

Now, may the G.o.d of our fathers, who nerved 3,000,000 backwoods Americans to fling their gage of battle into the face of the mightiest monarch in the world, who guided the hand of Jefferson in writing the charter of liberty, who sustained Washington and his ragged and starving army amid the awful horrors of Valley Forge, and who gave them complete victory on the blood-stained heights of Yorktown, may He lead members to vote so as to prevent this stupendous folly--this unspeakable humiliation of the American republic.

When the circ.u.mstances are grave enough to justify impa.s.sioned language a good speaker need not fear its effect. If it be suitable, honest, and sincere, a peroration may be as emotional as human feelings dictate. So-called "flowery language" seldom is the medium of deep feeling. The strongest emotions may be expressed in the simplest terms. Notice how, in the three extracts here quoted, the feeling is more intense in each succeeding one. a.n.a.lyze the style. Consider the words, the phrases, the sentences in length and structure. Explain the close relation of the circ.u.mstances and the speaker with the material and the style. What was the purpose of each?

Sir, let it be to the honor of Congress that in these days of political strife and controversy, we have laid aside for once the sin that most easily besets us, and, with unanimity of counsel, and with singleness of heart and of purpose, have accomplished for our country one measure of unquestionable good.

DANIEL WEBSTER: _Uniform System of Bankruptcy_, 1840

Lord Chatham addressed the House of Lords in protest against the inhumanities of some of the early British efforts to suppress the American Revolution.

I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, and pious pastors of our Church--I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their G.o.d. I appeal to the wisdom and law of this learned bench, to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the Bishops to interpose the unsullied sanct.i.ty of their lawn; upon the learned Judges, to interpose their purity upon the honor of your Lordships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the Const.i.tution.

From the tapestry that adorns these walls the immortal ancestor of this n.o.ble Lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country....

I again call upon your Lordships, and the united powers of the state, to examine it thoroughly and decisively, and to stamp upon it an indelible stigma of the public abhorrence.

And I again implore those holy prelates of our religion to do away with these iniquities from among us! Let them perform a l.u.s.tration; let them purify this House, and this country, from this sin.

My Lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles.

At about the same time the same circ.u.mstances evoked several famous speeches, one of which ended with this well-known peroration.

It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty G.o.d! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

PATRICK HENRY in the Virginia Convention, 1775

Preparing and Delivering Conclusions. Students cannot very well be asked to prepare and deliver conclusions to speeches which do not yet exist, so there is no way of devising conclusions until later. But students should report upon conclusions to speeches they have recently listened to, and explain to the cla.s.s their opinions concerning their material, methods, treatment, delivery, effect. The following questions will help in judging and criticizing:

Was the conclusion too long?

Was it so short as to seem abrupt?

Did it impress the audience?

How could it have been improved?

Was it recapitulation, summary, peroration?

Was it retrospective, antic.i.p.atory, or both?

What was its relation to the main part of the speech?

Did it refer to the entire speech or only a portion?

What was its relation to the introduction?

Did the speech end where it began?

Did it end as it began?

Was the conclusion in bad taste?

What was its style?

What merits had it?

What defects?

What suggestions could you offer for its improvement?

With reference to the earlier parts of the speech, how was it delivered?

The following conclusions should be studied from all the angles suggested in this chapter and previous ones. An air of reality will be secured if they are memorized and spoken before the cla.s.s.

EXERCISES

1. There are many qualities which we need alike in private citizen and in public man, but three above all--three for the lack of which no brilliancy and no genius can atone--and those three are courage, honesty, and common sense.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT at Antietam, 1903

2. Poor Sprat has perished despite his splendid tomb in the Abbey. Johnson has only a cracked stone and a worn-out inscription (for the Hercules in St. Paul's is unrecognizable) but he dwells where he would wish to dwell--in the loving memory of men.

AUGUSTINE BIRRELL: _Transmission of Dr. Johnson's Personality_, 1884

3. So, my fellow citizens, the reason I came away from Washington is that I sometimes get lonely down there. There are so many people in Washington who know things that are not so, and there are so few people who know anything about what the people of the United States are thinking about. I have to come away and get reminded of the rest of the country. I have to come away and talk to men who are up against the real thing and say to them, "I am with you if you are with me."

And the only test of being with me is not to think about me personally at all, but merely to think of me as the expression for the time being of the power and dignity and hope of the United States.

WOODROW WILSON: _Speech to the American Federation of Labor_, 1917

4. But if, Sir Henry, in grat.i.tude for this beautiful tribute which I have just paid you, you should feel tempted to reciprocate by taking my horses from my carriage and dragging me in triumph through the streets, I beg that you will restrain yourself for two reasons. The first reason is--I have no horses; the second is--I have no carriage.

SIMEON FORD: _Me and Sir Henry_ (Irving), 1899

5. Literature has its permanent marks. It is a connected growth and its life history is unbroken. Masterpieces have never been produced by men who have had no masters. Reverence for good work is the foundation of literary character. The refusal to praise bad work or to imitate it is an author's professional chast.i.ty.

Good work is the most honorable and lasting thing in the world. Four elements enter into good work in literature:--

An original impulse--not necessarily a new idea, but a new sense of the value of an idea.

A first-hand study of the subject and material.

A patient, joyful, unsparing labor for the perfection of form.

A human aim--to cheer, console, purify, or enn.o.ble the life of the people. Without this aim literature has never sent an arrow close to the mark.

It is only by good work that men of letters can justify their right to a place in the world. The father of Thomas Carlyle was a stone-mason, whose walls stood true and needed no rebuilding. Carlyle's prayer was: "Let me write my books as he built his houses."

HENRY VAN d.y.k.e: _Books, Literature and the People_, 1900

6. All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us--a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material; and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are unfit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned have no substantial existence, are in truth everything and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom: and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our station, and glow with zeal to fill our places as becomes our situation and ourselves, we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on America with the old warning of the church, _Sursum corda!_ We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire; and have made the most extensive, and the only honorable conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have got an American empire.

English privileges have made it all that it is; English privileges alone will make it all it can be.

In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now (_quod felix faustumque sit!_) lay the first stone of the Temple of Peace; and I move you;--

That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in North America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, and containing two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any knights and burgesses, or others, to represent them in the high court of Parliament.

EDMUND BURKE: _Conciliation with America_, 1775