Part 43 (1/2)

It would be difficult to estireat part which practical drill in oratory may play in one's life

Great occasions, when nations have been in peril, have developed and brought out soreatest orators of the world Cicero, Mirabeau, Patrick Henry, Webster, and John Bright ht all be called to witness to this fact

The occasion had reatest speech delivered in the United States Senate--Webster's reply to Hayne Webster had no tiht all the reserves in this giant, and he towered so far above his opponent that Hayne looked like a pygenius, but the process is slower and less effective than the great occasion that discovers the orator

Every crisis calls out ability, previously undeveloped, and perhaps unexpected

No orator living was ever great enough to give out the sanetisive to an audience capable of being fired by his theme

In the presence of the audience lies a fascination, an indefinable netism that stimulates all the mental faculties, and acts as a tonic and vitalizer An orator can say before an audience what he could not possibly say before he went on the platform, just as we can often say to a friend in anis which we could not possibly say when alone As when two chemicals are united, a new substance is formed from the coing through his brain the combined force of his audience, which he calls inspiration, a hty pohich did not exist in his own personality

Actors tell us that there is an indescribable inspiration which cohts, the audience, which it is impossible to feel at a cold reat sea of expectant faces which awakens the ambition and arouses the reserve of pohich can never be felt except before an audience The poas there just the same before, but it was not aroused

In the presence of the orator, the audience is absolutely in his power to do as he will They laugh or cry as he pleases, or rise and fall at his bidding, until he releases theic spell

What is oratory but to stir the blood of all hearers, to so arouse their eer without taking the action to which they are impelled?

”His words are laws” may be well said of the statesreater than that of changing the minds of men?

Wendell Phillips so played upon the eed the convictions of Southerners who hated him, but ere curious to listen to his oratory, that, for the ti I have seen him when it seemed to me that he was almost Godlike in his power With the ease of a master he swayed his audience Some who hated him in the slavery days were there, and they could not resist cheering himent and for the time took away their prejudice

When James Russell Loas a student, said Wetmore Story, he and Story went to Faneuil Hall to hear Webster Theyin Tyler's cabinet It would be easy, they reasoned, to get the three thousand people to join thereat eyes, they thought, were fixed on theed their scorn to adave us a glimpse into the Holy of Holies,” said another student, in relating his experience in listening to a great preacher

Is not oratory a fine art? The well-spring of eloquence, when up-gushi+ng as the very water of life, quenches the thirst of myriads ofthe life of desert wanderers

CHAPTER xxxIV

THE TRIUMPHS OF THE COMMON VIRTUES

The talent of success is nothinghatever you do, without a thought of fame--LONGFELLOW

It is not a question of what a man knows but what use he can make of what he knows--J G HOLLAND

Seest thou a s--SOLOMON

Thetruth that can be impressed upon the mind of youth is this: ”What reat achievements are not to be set on pedestals and reverenced as exceptions to the average of hureata standard of success for the e youth Their example shohat can be accoence, patience, thrift, self-denial, determination, industry, and persistence

We can best appreciate the uplifting power of these si soreat success which has been achieved by patient plodding toward a definite goal No more illustrious example of success won by the exercise of common virtues can be offered than Abraham Lincoln, rail-splitter and president

Probably Lincoln has been the hero of enerations than any other A people look upon hi, raised up for a divine purpose; and yet, if we analyze his character, we find it made up of the humblest virtues, the coirls, who look upon hi thing about Lincoln was his ht honesty You could depend upon him He was ambitious to , to be somebody, to lift his head up from his humble environment and be of some account in the world He simply wanted to better his condition

It is true that he had a divine hunger for growth, a passion for a larger and completer life than that of those about hienius, anyafter effect