Extemporaneous speech

“ Let the mind, intent on its subject, take full possession of the whole body, as a medium of expression, and every action 61will correspond with tone and word, and the soul of the hearer be reached alike through eye and ear.
We have already spoken of boldness as an indispensable requisite for an extempore speaker. But more is needed than the courage that leads us to encounter the perils of speech. Some speakers master their fears sufficiently to begin, yet continue to experience a nervous dread which prevents the free use of their faculties. ”

“ Language is the dress of ideas—the means by which they are communicated to others. The thoughts that arise in our minds resolve themselves into words as naturally as the clouds do into falling showers. We use words to some degree in our most secret meditations, 22and whenever the latter become clear and well defined they fall into language without conscious effort. To cause them to do this with precision and certainty is one of the problems of extempore speech. The thought is prepared in advance, but is to be coined into words at the moment. ”

“ It is a peculiarity of some schools of eloquence that they embody and utter, not merely the individual genius and character of the speaker, but a national consciousness—a national era, a mood, a hope, a dread, a despair—in which you listen to the spoken history of the time. There is an eloquence of an expiring nation, such as seems to sadden the glorious speech of Demosthenes ”

“ That something which each man was created to say and do, he only or he best can tell you, and has a right to supreme attention so far. The power of their speech is, that it is perfectly understood by all; and I believe it to be true, that when any orator at the bar or in the Senate rises in [Pg 111] his thought, he descends in his language,—that is, when he rises to any height of thought or of passion he comes down to a language level with the ear of all his audience. ”

“ If all our statesmen were eloquent orators and were affected by the mania of speech-making, as sensibly as most of our public speakers are at the present day, we should be constantly, as we are now frequently, overwhelmed with talk and have but little work finished. ”

“ Nay, how are whole communities often kept in a state of constant and feverish excitement by those whose tongues should blister with their utterances! And how soon would the fever be allayed, and the excitement die, and the strife cease, if those 'who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words,' would learn to use aright the power of speech! ”

“ Much is changed in it; much probably added; for the old garment of speech, which once served all needs, has grown too narrow, and serves them now no more. “Change in language is not, as in many natural products, continuous; it is not equable, but eminently by fits and starts”; and when the foundations of the national mind are heaving under the power of some new truth, greater and more important changes will find place in fifty years than in two centuries of calmer or more stagnant existence. ”

“ However numerous and varied may be the classes of those who contemplate extempore speech, they are all confronted by one common difficulty. Whether a boy makes his maiden effort, or a man of wide thought and ripe culture attempts for the first time to dispense with the manuscript in which he has trusted through years of successful public speech, the fear of failing looms up before each of them in a manner equally formidable. ”

“ Formed for society, the necessity of communication with his fellows developed the power of speech. Speech developed written characters and alphabets. Common communication developed concert of action, and from concert of action sprung the arts of society. ”

“ Great, noble and stirring as these older masters were in their lofty and impassioned eloquence, we are sometimes oppressed when we read their sounding periods for any great length of time—even allowing for all that we lose by missing the speaker's presence, voice, and fire. So let us model our platform narration, as our other forms of speech, upon the effective addresses of the moderns, without lessening our admiration for the older school. ”

“ You will do something very different from it, I think!—He who well considers, will find this same "art of speech," as we moderns have it, to be a truly astonishing product of the Ages; and the longer he considers it, the more astonishing and alarming. ”

“ But in philosophy we must put aside the reputation of the speaker and examine the speech in and by itself. In lecturing, as in war, there is much that is mere show. The speaker’s grey hairs, his vocal |C| affectations, his supercilious airs, his self-glorification; above all, the shouting, applauding, and dancing of the audience overwhelm the young and inexperienced student and sweep him along with the current. There is deception in the language also, when it streams upon the question in a delightful flood, and when it contains a measure of studied art and the grandiose. ”

“ Language, rather than matter, would thus become the object of emulation—speeches would swell into orations—and, in this contention and conflict of genius, men of cleverness, ready wit, brilliant imagination, retentive memory, caustic reply, and last, though not least, soundness of constitution, would rise to the surface, far above those who, with much deeper reflection, much heavier sense, more sterling knowledge, and more powerful judgment, were yet found to be wanting in activity in their parts of speech. ”

“ There is one at least: The proper and exalted use of this great and splendid instrument, our common language. In a sophisticated world speech is action, words are deeds; we cannot watch our winged words too closely. ”

“ Not more, but better speech—an increase of quality, rather than quantity—would result from cultivation, and improved methods. And it may also be argued that if a great part of the work of life is found in convincing, instructing, and persuading our fellows, an abundance of speech is absolutely required. ”

“ And if the elements were—as men of old believed them—gifted with the power of speech, there is no doubt that on their next meeting at the inner portal of the Golden Gate the hill wind and the fog would have echoed that sentiment. ”

“ There exists, as well, the easy, fluent usage of conversation, and there is also the strong, simple, homely speech of the common people, rooted in plain Saxon, smacking of the soil, and having a sturdy power about it that is unsurpassable for downright force and blunt directness. ”

“ There lies the unspoken thing, present, omnipresent. Every time we converse, we seek to translate it into speech, but whether we hit, or whether we miss, we have the fact. Every discourse is an approximate answer: but it is of small consequence, that we do not get it into verbs and nouns, whilst it abides for contemplation forever. ”

“ They live in a democracy, and fluency of speech leads the populace. Perched on the edge of the chimney, his bronze-tinted wings flapping against his side to give greater emphasis—as a preacher moves his hands—the starling pours forth a flood of eloquence, now rising to screaming-pitch, now modulating his tones to soft persuasion, now descending to deep, low, complaining, regretful sounds—a speech without words—addressed to a dozen birds gravely listening on the ash-tree yonder. He is begging them to come with him to a meadow where food is abundant. ”

“ Just now he is arranging my speeches—fitting them to the local requirements of the several audiences I shall be called upon to address. He knows mankind like a book. I shall never give the wrong speech to the wrong people while he is with me. ”

“ But we must not look upon the foregoing words as a facile prescription for decocting a feeling which may then be ladled out to a complacent audience in quantities to suit the need of the moment. Genuine feeling in a speech is bone and blood of the speech itself and not something that may be added to it or substracted at will. In the ideal address theme, speaker and audience become one, fused by the emotion and thought of the hour. ”

“ In reading great orations one not only learns something of the mental methods and style of the orator, but obtains an epitome of the history of the times. As each important speech is virtually a product of the entire life of the speaker, so the speeches delivered at great crises in national history have been products of the conditions that called them forth. Nowhere is so much information crowded into the same number of words as in a memorable speech. ”

“ To gain control over public speech, to learn to express himself well on his feet, the speaker must both be constantly watchful over his every-day conversation and exercise himself much in writing. Only so can he make his tongue obey his will.-Genung. ”

“ Continuously to overawe by declaring, ‘Not I as an individual say or desire this, but the Idea which speaks and acts through me,’ is certainly a fine mode of speech, in which I willingly recognise true and honest zeal. ”

“ In the case of the expression of tenderness or pathos, there is a lingering tone, with the quality and inflection of plaintiveness, qualified, in public speech, by such dignity and strength as is fitting. In all cases the quality of voice is of course the main thing, and this, not being technical or mechanical, must depend on the speaker's entering into the spirit of the piece and giving color, warmth, and depth to his tones. The spirit of gladness or triumph has usually the higher, brighter, ringing tone ”

“ Language, it is now known, exhibits perpetual change and growth; the agencies of that change and growth are the only competent lawgivers. Of these agencies literature is the least original; its success and vitality are due to the invasion of new ideas, and new forms of speech, from the life of a complex society. ”

“ Thus I entertain the hope that others will take up the method of this book, the method of natural, intimate, heart-to-heart dialogue carried on in a suitable setting, and with attendant action as briefly indicated; for the discovery awaits each one that speech, independent of the tradition of the stage, has the power of rendering old themes new and vital, as well as suggesting new themes and situations. ”

“ Through speech after speech, strings of hollow abstractions are endlessly renewed as in a meeting of students in rhetoric for the purpose of practice, or in a society of old bookworms for their own amusement. ”

“ The psalmists and prophets are but types of the orator, and the actor of today is the outcome of the player of old who was more a speaker than he was an actor.
Every citizen, at one time, was his own lawyer, spoke in his own defense, and advocated his own cause. Then came the era of the speech writers, who prepared the matter for the citizen to deliver; and finally, the professional advocate of today who appears in behalf of his client and acts and speaks for him. ”

“ Our very speech is curiously historical. Most men, you may observe, speak only to narrate; not in imparting what they have thought, which indeed were often a very small matter, but in exhibiting what they have undergone or seen, which is a quite unlimited one, do talkers dilate. Cut us off from Narrative, how would the stream of conversation, even among the wisest, languish into detached handfuls, and among the foolish utterly evaporate! Thus, as we do nothing but enact History, we say little but recite it.—Thomas Carlyle, On History. ”

“ In each of these we shall have to deal with that remarkable art of words which, because it is the dialect of life, comes home so easily and powerfully to the minds of men; and since that is so, we contribute, in each of these branches, to build up the sum of sentiments and appreciations which goes by the name of Public Opinion or Public Feeling. The total of a nation's reading, in these days of daily papers, greatly modifies the total of the nation's speech ”

“ Since the language of the platform follows closely the diction of everyday speech, many useful words may be acquired in conversation with cultivated men, and when such discussion takes the form of disputation as to the meanings and usages of words, it will prove doubly valuable. The development of word-power marches with the growth of individuality. ”

“ In the moment of speech details may safely be left to the impulse of nature. Supply the capability by previous discipline, and then allow passion to clothe itself in the most natural forms. There is such a vital connection between emotion and the tones of voice, that emphasis and inflection will be as spontaneous, on the part of the disciplined speaker, as breathing. Rules remembered in the act of speaking tend to destroy all life and freshness of utterance. ”

“ I also should think it right to impose a limit on the speech of rightly regulated persons, who are impelled to speak to one who maintains a conversation with them. “For silence is the excellence of women, and the safe prize of the young; but good speech is characteristic of experienced, mature age. Speak, old man, at a banquet, for it is becoming to you. But speak without embarrassment, and with accuracy of knowledge. Youth, Wisdom also commands thee. Speak, if you must, with hesitation, on being twice asked; sum up your discourse in a few words.” ”

“ Spirited oratory, with the commanding presence, the sweeping action, and an overmastering force of utterance, may at times be called forth, but these are given to a man out of his subject and by the occasion; they are not to be assumed by him merely because he is before an audience, or as necessary features of speech-making. Let the student speak, first and always, as a self-respecting, thinking man, earnest and strong, but self-controlled and sensible. ”

“ Then for the first time the means of communication becomes something to be handed down, rather than made anew by each individual, it takes on that traditional character which is the essential character of all human institutions, which appears not less in the forms of social organization, the details of religious ceremonial, the methods of art and the arts. than in language. That all existing speech, and all known recorded speech, is purely traditional, cannot at all be questioned. ”