does not break down altogether. Suspicion here, as elsewhere, tends to beget the very evil that is deprecated. The mind is apt to avenge any distrust of its faithfulness. Time, practice, and patience only can give the perfect ease, coolness, and self-possession which are essential to perfect success,- that profound faith in one's abilities which acts as a charm upon all the powers of the mind, as time only can bestow that practical instinct of skill which gives the intuitive law of success, and shows the only way to reach it. And here we may speak of a phenomenon noted by some speakers which is full of encouragement to tyros in oratory who are appalled by the Herculean labors and the difficulties which "cast their shadows before" them, as they toil up the steeps of excellence. We allude to that law of the mind by which its muscles, like those of the body, becomes autonomic, a law unto themselves; by which, as an eloquent pulpit orator has said, "the intuition with which it works is a safer and surer guide than precepts, and better and surer success is reached than the most laborious planning could have gained." Everybody who has read the physiological works of the day, is more or less familiar with what is called unconscious cerebration," a state in which the brain works unconsciously,-solving problems or answering questions at night, while the man is sleeping, which baffled all his powers in the daytime. Phenomena like this occur in the experience of accomplished and trained speakers.

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A writer in "Harper's Magazine" speaks of a preacher unsurpassed by any living one in extempore power, alike of language, thought, and tone, who affirms that, sometimes, in his best hours, he loses all conscious hold upon

his mind and speech, and while perfectly sure that all is going on well in his attic, it seems to him that somebody else is talking up there; and he catches himself wondering who under the sun that fellow is who is driving on at such a rate. Examples of this unconscious action of the mind are seen in every calling. It is this instinct of skill, the result of years of practice, self-discipline, and observation, which enables the funambulist to travel without fear on a wire suspended over the dizzy chasm of Niagara; which enables the marksman to raise his rifle, and, apparently without aim, to bring down a pigeon on the wing; which enables the painter to give the most delicate touches to his picture while engaged in conversation; which gives to the pianist his almost miraculous. touch, so that, as his fingers run swiftly over the keys, they seem to be instinct with thought and feeling oozing from their tips. This automatic action, it is evident, must be a great help to the orator, relieving him, as it does, of much care, anxiety, and toil, and carrying him oftentimes triumphantly through his work without solicitude or conscious effort. Like all other advantages, however, it has its compensations; and if a speaker be naturally indolent, there is danger lest, instead of laboriously preparing himself, he should rely upon this faculty altogether. The result of so doing will be, as seen in the melancholy case of those persons who are distinguished for the "gift of the gab," that he will speedily lose all true inspiration and force, and sink into a mere machine, like a barrelorgan, that plays over and over ad nauseam the same wornout tones.

CHAPTER VII.

IT

THE TESTS OF ELOQUENCE.

T has been justly said that for the triumphs of eloquence, for the loftiest displays of the art, there must be something more than an eloquent man; there must be a reinforcing of man from events, so as to give the double force of reason and destiny. For the explosions and eruptions, "there must be some crisis in affairs; there must be accumulations of heat somewhere, beds of ignited anthracite at the centre. And in cases where profound conviction has been wrought, the eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a certain belief. It agitates and tears him, and perhaps almost bereaves him of the power of articulation. Then it rushes from him in short, abrupt screams, in torrents of meaning." Hence Goethe has somewhere said that to write is an abuse of words; that the impression of a solitary reading replaces but sadly the vivid energy of spoken language; that it is by his personality that man acts upon man, while such impressions are at once the strongest and the purest. The immeasurable superiority of oratory spoken over oratory read, is known to all. When the contending forces are drawn out face to face, there is the excitement of a battle, and every blow which tells against the enemy is welcomed with the same huzzas that soldiers raise when a well-aimed shot

makes a chasm in the ranks of the enemy, or demolishes his defenses. The effect, under such circumstances, of an overwhelming attack or of a scathing retort arises as much from the mental condition of the hearers as from the vigor of the blows. "It is because the powder lights upon a heated. surface that an explosion is produced." Again, the electric sympathy of numbers deepens the impression, even when no exciting question is up, and no party feeling is kindled. An audience is not a mere aggregate of the individuals that compose it. Their common sympathy intensifies the feeling which the speaker produces, as a jar in a battery is charged with the whole electricity of the battery. The speech which would be listened to calmly by ten or a dozen persons, will thrill and electrify a multitude, as a jest will set the tables in a roar, which, heard by one man, will scarcely provoke a smile. Another secret of the superiority of spoken oratory, is the delight which is felt in impromptu eloquence as a mere feat. The difficulty of pouring forth extempore beautiful or striking thought in apt and vivid language, especially for an hour or hours, is so great that only few can overcome it, and the multitude, who see something divine in such mysterious manifestations of power, are ready to exclaim, as in the days of Herod, "It is the voice of a god!" The readers of a debate are under no such spell. The words do not come to them burning from the lips of the speaker, but impress them. precisely as would the same quantity of printed matter. coolly written for the press. They read passages which are reported to have drawn forth "thunders of applause" without emotion, and sarcasms which provoked "loud laughter" without being cheated into a single smile. Besides this, the figure, the voice, the magnetism of the speaker, do much

to deepen the force and significance of his words. It is said that Erskine's looks spoke before his lips, and that his tones charmed even those who were too remote to catch his words. Demosthenes relied so much on action that he called it the first, second, and third requisite of an orator. Cicero declared that without it the greatest gifts are unavailing, while with it mediocrity can surpass genius itself. The power of the orator lies less in what he says than in how he says it. A provincial actor will deliver the "farewell" speech of Othello word by word with literal correctness, and you will be as unmoved as himself; the great actor speaks it, and you "read Shakspeare as by a flash of lightning." It is said that Macready never produced a greater effect than by the words, "Who said that?" Garrick used to say that he would give a hundred guineas if he could say Oh!" as Whitefield did. When Mirabeau's friend complained that the Assembly would not listen to him, that fiery leader asked for his speech, and the next day roused the Assembly by uttering as his own the words they had refused to hear from another. "The words were the same: the fire that made them thrilling and electric were not his friend's, but his own."

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There is another cause of the different impression which a speech produces when read from what it produced when heard; it lies in the very nature of the oratorical style. It has been justly said that that is good rhetoric for the hustings which is bad for a book. Fox, when told that a speech read well, said: "Then it must have been a bad speech." It is not to secure the "all hail, hereafter" that the orator aims, but at instant effect. The more exquisite his skill,-the more perfect his adaptation to his theme, his audience, and the occasion, the more com