Public Speaking: Principles and Practice Part 6

Somewhere have I read, but where I forget, he could dictate Seven letters at once, at the same time writing his memoirs."

"Truly," continued the Captain, not heeding or hearing the other, "Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius Caesar!

Better be first, he said, in a little Iberian village, Than be second in Rome, and I think he was right when he said it.

Twice was he married before he was twenty, and many times after; Battles five hundred he fought, and a thousand cities he conquered; He, too, fought in Flanders, as he himself has recorded; Finally he was stabbed by his friend, the orator Brutus!

Now, do you know what he did on a certain occasion in Flanders, When the rear-guard of his army retreated, the front giving way too, And the immortal Twelfth Legion was crowded so closely together There was no room for their swords? Why, he seized a shield from a soldier, Put himself straight at the head of his troops, and commanded the captains, Calling on each by his name, to order forward the ensigns; Then to widen the ranks, and give more room for their weapons; So he won the day, the battle of something-or-other.

That's what I always say; if you wish a thing to be well done, You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!"

OFFICIAL DUTY

BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

I want to talk to you of the att.i.tude that should properly be observed by legislators, by executive officers, toward wealth, and the att.i.tude that should be observed in return by men of means, and especially by corporations, toward the body politic and toward their fellow citizens.

I utterly distrust the man of whom it is continually said: "Oh, he's a good fellow, but, of course, in politics, he plays politics" It is about as bad for a man to profess, and for those that listen to him by their plaudits to insist upon his professing something which they know he cannot live up to, as it is for him to go below what he ought to do, because if he gets into the habit of lying to himself and to his audience as to what he intends to do, it is certain to eat away his moral fiber.

He won't be able then to stand up to what he knows ought to be done.

The temptation of the average politician is to promise everything to the reformers and then to do everything for the organization. I think I can say that, whatever I have promised on the stump or off the stump, either expressly or impliedly, to either organization or reformers, I have kept my promise; and I should keep it just as much if the reformers disapproved.

A public man is bound to represent his const.i.tuents, but he is no less bound to cease to represent them when, on a great moral question, he feels that they are taking the wrong side. Let him go out of politics rather than stay in at the cost of doing what his own conscience forbids him to do.

LOOK WELL TO YOUR SPEECH

From "Self-Cultivation in English," with the permission of the author, and of Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, publishers

BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER

First, then, "Look well to your speech." It is commonly supposed that when a man seeks literary power he goes to his room and plans an article for the press. But this is to begin literary culture at the wrong end. We speak a hundred times for every once we write. The busiest writer produces little more than a volume a year, not so much as his talk would amount to in a week. Consequently through speech it is usually decided whether a man is to have command of his language or not. If he is slovenly in his ninety-nine cases of talking, he can seldom pull himself up to strength and exact.i.tude in the hundredth case of writing. A person is made in one piece, and the same being runs through a mult.i.tude of performances. Whether words are uttered on paper or to the air, the effect on the utterer is the same. Vigor or feebleness results according as energy or slackness has been in command. I know that certain adaptations to a new field are often necessary. A good speaker may find awkwardnesses in himself when he comes to write, a good writer when he speaks. And certainly cases occur where a man exhibits distinct strength in one of the two, speaking or writing, and not in the other. But such cases are rare. As a rule, language once within our control can be employed for oral or for written purposes. And since the opportunities for oral practice enormously outbalance those for written, it is the oral which are chiefly significant in the development of literary power. We rightly say of the accomplished writer that he shows a mastery of his own tongue.

Fortunate it is, then, that self-cultivation in the use of English must chiefly come through speech; because we are always speaking, whatever else we do. In opportunities for acquiring a mastery of language, the poorest and busiest are at no large disadvantage as compared with the leisured rich. It is true the strong impulse which comes from the suggestion and approval of society may in some cases be absent; but this can be compensated by the st.u.r.dy purpose of the learner. A recognition of the beauty of well-ordered words, a strong desire, patience under discouragements, and promptness in counting every occasion as of consequence,--these are the simple agencies which sweep one on to power. Watch your speech, then.

HAMLET TO THE PLAYERS

From "Hamlet"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

_Hamlet_. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I p.r.o.nounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of pa.s.sion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a pa.s.sion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb- shows and noise. I could have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

_I Player_. I warrant your honor.

_Hamlet_. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theater of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

BELLARIO'S LETTER

From "The Merchant of Venice"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

_Duke_. This letter from Bellario doth commend A young and learned doctor to our court. Where is he?

_Nerissa_. He attendeth here hard by, To know your answer, whether you'll admit him.

_Duke_. With all my heart. Some three or four of you Go give him courteous conduct to this place. Meantime the court shall hear Bellario's letter.

_Clerk_ (reads). "Your grace shall understand that at the receipt of your letter I am very sick; but in the instant that your messenger came, in loving visitation was with me a young doctor of Rome; his name is Balthasar. I acquainted him with the cause in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant: we turned o'er many books together: he is furnished with my opinion; which, bettered with his own learning, the greatness whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him, at my importunity, to fill up your grace's request in my stead. I beseech you, let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation; for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his commendation."

CASCA, SPEAKING OF CaeSAR

From "Julius Caesar"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

_Casca_. You pull'd me by the cloak; would you speak with me?

_Brutus_. Ay, Casca; tell us what hath chanc'd to-day, That Caesar looks so sad.

_Casca_. Why, you were with him, were you not?

_Brutus_. I should not, then, ask Casca what had chanc'd.

_Casca_. Why, there was a crown offered him; and being offered him, he put it by with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell a-shouting.

_Brutus_. What was the second noise for?

_Casca_. Why, for that too.

_Ca.s.sius_. They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for?

_Casca_. Why, for that too.

_Brutus_. Was the crown offered him thrice?

_Casca_. Ay, marry, was't, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than other; and at every putting-by mine honest neighbors shouted.

_Ca.s.sius_. Who offered him the crown?

_Casca_. Why, Antony.

_Brutus_. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.

_Casca_. I can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it: it was mere foolery; I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown;--yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of these coronets;-- and, as I told you, he put it by once: but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very loth to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by: and still as he refused it, the rabblement shouted, and clapped their chopped hands, and threw up their sweaty nightcaps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown, that it had almost choked Caesar; for he swooned, and fell down at it: and for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips, and receiving the bad air.

SQUANDERING OF THE VOICE