Chapter 2. Wit. Humor, Pathos, Climaxes and Methods of Great Orators and Lecturers

The following account of successful speakers should be carefully studied. Every speech, however short, should contain, beside the introductory, a short story illustrating the subject, the climax or summing up, and the close.

It has been well said that an anecdote, if well told, will prove more interesting and potential than the most eloquent utterance or the most elaborate argument. Large audiences have frequently been convulsed with laughter or bowed down with grief by its mighty influence. They are also rich treasures to the man of the world who knows how to introduce them in fit places in conversation. No speech is complete either at a public gathering, at the banquet table, social session, or even small home gathering, without an appropriate story.

Henry Ward Beecher, though dead, still lives in the heart of humanity. He was a mighty power in the land, and his work was a living work, and its results can never be known until the books of heaven are balanced. While he never cared to be called a humorist, his wit and humor were as keen as his logic. When a humorous idea presented itself, he seized upon it at once to illustrate his thoughts and frequently changed the tears of his audience instantly to laughter.

" 'Where are you going?' asked the Atheist, laughing at Christian. '"To the Celestial City,' replied Christian, his face all aglow with the heavenly light. "'You fool!' said Atheist, laughing, as he trudged on into the darkness. 'I've been hunting for that place for twenty years and have seen nothing of it yet. Plainly it does not exist.' "Heaven was behind him," said Beecher, seriously.

He never betrayed fear or grew angry even when his audience jeered and hurled all kinds of epithets at him, and when, at times, it looked as if he were going to be stoned or trampled to death. He quietly remarked: "I do not blame them, for they know not what they do."

Before an audience, inimical and prepared to hiss, Mr. Beecher won one of the greatest triumphs of his life. He pulled off his overcoat, and, without even a look of anger, threw it aside. Throwing back his long, snow-white locks, revealing a high forehead and a frank, determined face, he walked upon the platform. The chairman coldly said: "Mr. Beecher, ladies and gentlemen." The orator stepped to the front of the platform and began his speech in a clear, ringing voice that instantly hushed the suppressed murmur and jeers. From that time until he closed the great audience was with him. Such flights of oratory, bursts of eloquence and keen, irresistible humor I never heard from his lips before. Tears, laughter and round after round of applause greeted him, and when he ceased the audience remained, as if it could not depart. The peroration that the great orator delivered brought the people to their feet. He walked behind the scene and picked up his overcoat. The audience would not go, but lingered to catch a glimpse of him. Throwing down his overcoat, he stepped into the auditorium. Women and men shook him by the hand; some wanted to touch his garments, if nothing else, and for an hour he talked to them socially, and they reluctantly parted from him.

Upon one occasion Andrew Carnegie introduced Miss Ingersoll, daughter of the great orator and Atheist, to Mr. Beecher, saying: "This is the daughter of Colonel Ingersoll; she has just heard you speak. This is the first sermon she has ever heard, and the first church she has ever attended."

Mr. Beecher's arms were outstretched at once, and grasping hers, he said, as he looked into her fair face: "Well, you are the most beautiful heathen I ever saw. How is your father? He and I have spoken from the same platform for a good cause, and wasn't it lucky for me I was on the same side with him? Remember me to him."

The youthful speaker must not be afraid of grammatical errors. A stenographer once proposed to Henry Ward Beecher that he be allowed extra pay for reporting Mr. Beecher's sermons in consideration of correcting the grammatical errors. "And how many errors did you find in this discourse of mine?" asked the great preacher. "Just two hundred and sixteen." "Young man," said Mr. Beecher solemnly, "when the English language gets in my way it doesn't stand a chance." It is a fact that Mr. Beecher in impassioned speech uttered many unparsable expressions, and this is the case with nearly every great orator who speaks in any way extemporaneously. So the amateur orator need not despair.

Of Ingersoll a writer says: "Ingersoll was the John the Baptist of Agnosticism - an eloquent voice crying in the wilderness. In writing about the eloquence and humor of the century, you could no more leave out Ingersoll than the scientists could leave out Huxley, Darwin and Herbert Spencer. Even Gladstone, who stood on the pinnacle of England's intelligence, had to come out and measure swords with the witty Agnostic. We may all differ from Inger-soll's theology, but we must love him for being the Apostle of Freedom-'freedom for man, woman and child.'

"Ingersoll was one of the most charming conversers of his age, and his house was constantly riled with the brainiest people of the city. There he sat evening after evening, in the bosom of his family, charming with his wit and wisdom his delighted guests.

"The comparisons of the great orator were so mirth-provoking that you broke into laughter while you were being convinced.

"One night, when Ingersoll was telling what the Republican party had done-how it had freed eight million slaves and saved the republic-he was interrupted by Daniel Voorhees, who said: 'Oh, bury the past, Colonel; talk about to-day. We Democrats are not always boasting of the past.'

" 'I will tell you,' said Ingersoll, 'why the Democratic party wants us to bury the past. Now why should we do so? If the Democratic party had a glorious past, it would not wish to forget it. If it were not for the Republican party there would be no United States now on the map of the world. The Democratic party wishes to make a bargain with us to say nothing about the past and nothing about character. It reminds me of the contract that the rooster proposed to make with the horse: Let us agree not to step on each other's feet.'"

Ingersoll paid this tribute to Henry Ward Beecher: "As in the leafless woods some tree, aflame with life, stands like a rapt poet in the heedless crowd, so stood this man among his fellow men. All there is of leaf and bud, of flower and fruit, of painted insect life, and all the winged and happy children of the air that Summer holds beneath her dome of blue, were known and loved by him. He loved the yellow Autumn fields, the golden stacks, the happy homes of men, the orchard's bending bows, the sumach's flags of flame, the maples with transfigured leaves, the tender yellow of the beech, the wondrous harmonies of brown and gold-the vines where hang the clustered spheres of wit and mirth. He loved the winter days, the whirl and drift of snow-all forms of frost-the rage and fury of the storm, when in the forest, desolate and stript, the brave old pine towers green and grand-a prophecy of Spring."

In another part of this book will be found several of Ingersoll's famous addresses.

Chauncey Depew, in his prime, was one of the best after dinner and extemporaneous speakers of his age. The following, "On the Blarney Stone," is taken from one of his most popular lectures:

"Ladies and Gentlemen: We started in the morning to drive to Blarney Castle and kiss its famous stone. We passed a stone cottage about thirty feet long and one story high, with a thatched roof. The floor was of earth, and the single room divided so that the cow and pig could be sheltered in the other half. The Irishman's pig is a sacred thing. I said to it's rosy-faced owner: 'I say, Pat, don't you think it is unhealthful to have your pig in the house with your children?'

" 'An' why should oi not, sor? Sure the pig has never been sick a day in his life.' "

The late Mark Twain had a world-wide reputation not only as a lecturer but humorist as well. His quaint humor was apparent at all times. On one occasion there was a long religious discussion on eternal life and future punishment for the wicked. Mark Twain, who was present, took no part in the discussion. A lady finally asked him his opinion. "What do you think, Mr. Twain, about the existence of a heaven or hell?" "I do not want to express an opinion," said Mark, gravely. "It is policy for me to remain silent. I have friends in both places."

A writer has described his appearance during the delivery of one of his quaint after-dinner speeches:

"He arose slowly and stood, half stooping over the table. Both hands were on the table, palms to the front. There was a look of intense earnestness about his eyes. It seemed that the weight of an empire was upon his shoulders. His sharp eyes looked out from under his shaggy eyebrows, moving from one guest to another, as a lawyer scans his jury in a death trial. Then he commenced, very slowly:

"'Our children-yours-and-mine. They seem like little things to talk about-our children-but little things often make up the sum of human life-that's a good sentence. I repeat it, little things often produce great things. Now, to illustrate, take Sir Isaac Newton-I presume some of you have heard of Mr. Newton. Well, once when Sir Isaac Newton-a mere lad- got over into the man's apple orchard-I don't know what he was doing there-[laughter]-I didn't come all the way from Hartford to q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n Mr. Newton's honesty-but when he was there-in the man's orchard-he saw an apple fall and he was a-t-t-racted towards it [laughter] and that led to the discovery-not of Mr. Newton-[laughter]-but of the great law of attraction and gravitation.' "

Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, is not only a writer of national fame, but also a well-known orator. He declined a Senatorial toga in 1883, saying: "I will stay where I am. Office is not for me. Beginning in slavery to end in poverty. It is odious to my sense of freedom."

Watterson opposed the war for secession at first, but when Tennessee voted for disunion he went back to her and entered the Confederate service.

At the close of the war a Union officer met the brilliant young Kentuckian. They were both radicals. Each had fire in his eye. The Yankee general eyed Watterson a moment, and then hissed out: "How do you Rebels feel now, since you've been whipped by the Yankees?" "Feel a good deal like Lazarus licked by the dogs!" replied the fiery Watterson.
Mr. Watterson's love for Lincoln was natural. Lincoln was born in Kentucky and Nancy Hanks' old cabin still stands in the hills south of Louisville. The old rail fence, the rails split by Lincoln, are still on the old farm covered by clematis and morning-glories. Lincoln was a rugged politician and Watterson is a polished journalist, but the great journalist loved the homely Lincoln. He can not stay his polished pen when it writes about his great Kentuckian, and he can not hold his silver tongue when it praises the great American.

"Speaking of Lincoln's wit," said Watterson one day; "the argument he used with Douglas at Knoxville College in 1860 was superb. It was wit and wisdom boiled down."

"I can see Lincoln now," continued Watterson. "He looked Douglas in the eye, saying: 'This tariff, Judge Douglas, should be logical-just tariff enough- just tariff enough, so that we can make these things at home without lowering our wages. In fact, Mr. Douglas,' continued Lincoln, 'this tariff should be a good deal like a man's legs-just long enough!'

"Douglas had little short legs reaching Lincoln's coat-tail, and, turning to Lincoln, he said: 'Now, Mr. Lincoln, you are a little indefinite. How long should a man's legs be?'

" 'A man's legs, Mr. Douglas,' said Lincoln, with mock gravity, 'should be just long enough to reach-from-his-body-to-the - ground no surplus, no D-E-F-I-C-I-T !' "

Mr. Watterson has a rugged face and a rugged voice. Although he is generally anecdotal and analytical, he has climaxes of eloquent oratory. He clings to the belief, expressed years ago, that Lincoln was a man inspired of God.

A well known orator, who was intimately acquainted with Mr. Lincoln before the war, was asked how he acquired such a remarkable control of language. He replied: "When I was a boy over in Indiana, all the local politicians used to come to our cabin to discuss politics with my father. I used to sit by and listen to them. After they were gone I would go up to my room in my attic and walk up and down till I made out just what they meant, and then I would lie awake for hours putting their ideas into words so that the boys around our way could understand."

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas

A writer has said: "I heard Abraham Lincoln A and Stephen A. Douglas. The one six feet and four inches in height, the other hardly five feet four. The one awkward to the verge of grotesqueness, the other as dignified as Daniel Webster; Lincoln with a high pitched voice, Douglas with a basso profundo; Lincoln abounding in transitions, weirdly fascinating by his strange figure, postures and gestures, Douglas rarely departing from a dignified oratorical manner. Yet it was the declaration of arguments. He used no ornaments, was not verbose, was easily understood, possessed immense power of assertion, perfect coherence in argument, and wore the aspect of deep seriousness and sense of responsibility. He appeared to advantage in private life and was always ready to converse upon his principles and plans.

Douglas' skill and power were attained by a careful study of great orations of the early days of the republic and British Parliament. When a judge of the Supreme Court he familiarized himself with decisions important for clearness of statement and strength of argument, and when he first took his seat in Congress he listened critically to the orators. He had the habit of invariably reflecting upon his own speeches after delivery, to ascertain by what means he succeeded, or to note why he failed or might have made a deeper impression.

Abraham Lincoln, with limited opportunities, disciplined and informed his mind while his body was strengthening and elongating, until intellectually and physically he was head and shoulders above his companions. His powers were developed by private arguments and off-hand speeches. Not, however, until he canvassed the State as a candidate for the Senate of the United States, with Stephen A. Douglas as his opponent, did his fame spread throughout the land. It was in his speech accepting his nomination that he spoke the following words, perhaps the most comprehensive, the most conservative, yet the most agitating ever uttered in the United States:

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall; but, I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all the one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South."

Roosevelt the Orator

"Think of a sledge-hammer, a steam-roller, a slow-moving, stone-walling batsman;" then, "think of a combination of all three," and you have some idea of Mr. Roosevelt's oratory, says "One Who Has Heard Him," in the London Daily Mail. An orator must first of all make himself heard. Nobody ever found fault with Mr. Roosevelt on this score, we are told.

He speaks slowly and very clearly. Every word, every syllable even, is sep-ar-ate and dis-tinct. His one gesture is tremendous. He raises his right arm. He holds it threateningly above his head. It trembles with emphasis. It grips the hearers tight. They watch it as one watches a thunder-cloud ready to burst or a great tree about to fall. Then with a piston-like movement he brings it down. The clenched right fist thuds into the left palm. His point is rammed home. The tension is relaxed.

Then, for a change-oratory must be well varied- Mr. Roosevelt will turn to humor. His features, which have been almost convulsed with strenuousness, relax and grow mild. His teeth are no longer terrible. A smile-almost a grin-broadens out his cheeks and jaws. His eyes gleam with enjoyment. Up goes his voice- up, up, into a falsetto. The audience lean forward not to miss the joke. The point comes on the high G. In the perfect stillness even a whisper could be heard. It is almost in a whisper that he ends. Then, as a roar of laughter checks him, he stands triumphant, smiling benevolently, watching the effect that he has made.

His humor, which is always announced by the falsetto, is large and hearty, never ill-natured, never very subtle. It consists largely of dressing up familiar maxims in some quaint and arresting form of words.

Those who only read Mr. Roosevelt's speeches can not understand their spell. "He says nothing which is not familiar," they complain. "What is the secret which compels audiences to listen to him and to come away loud in his praise.?" The secret is personality, which really means vitality, abounding, overflowing life and vigor, setting in motion a current of energy which it is impossible to resist. Mr. Roosevelt is a hypnotist. He "puts the 'fluence" on every one who comes into touch with him. He makes an ordinary remark with such force of emphasis that you are carried away. "What a profound thought!" you murmur. "Why has that never occurred to me before?" Yet upon reflection you cannot for the life of you explain where the profundity came in.

The following is the introduction to his address delivered at Lincoln's birth-place on Feb. 12, 1909:

"We have met here to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the birth of one of the two greatest Americans; of one of the two or three greatest men of the nineteenth century; of one of the greatest men in the world's history. This rail-splitter, this boy who passed his ungainly youth in the dire poverty of the poorest of the frontier folk, whose rise was by weary and painful labor, lived to lead his people through the burning flames of a struggle from which the nation emerged, purified as by fire, born anew to a loftier life."

The speaker then traced the likeness in the character of the two greatest of our public men-Washington and Lincoln-stating that though they differed widely in externals, the Virginia landed gentleman and the Kentucky backwoodsman, they were alike in essentials, in the great qualities which made each able to do service to his nation and to all mankind such as no other man of his generation could or did render.

The following is the summing-up and ending of the address:
"He lived in days that were great and terrible, when brother fought against brother for what each sincerely deemed to be the right. In a contest so grim the strong men who alone can carry it through are rarely able to do justice to the deep convictions of those with whom they grapple in mortal strife. At such times men see through a glass darkly; to only the rarest and loftiest spirits is vouchsafed that clear vision which gradually comes to all, even to the lesser, as the struggle fades into distance, and wounds are forgotten, and peace creeps back to the hearts that were hurt. But to Lincoln was given this supreme vision. He did not hate the man from whom he differed. Weakness was as foreign as wickedness to his strong, gentle nature; but his courage was of a quality so high that it needed no bolstering of dark passion. He saw clearly that the same high qualities, the same courage, and willingness for self-sacrifice, and devotion to the right as it was given them to see the right, belonged both to the men of the North and to the men of the South. As the years roll by, and as all of us, wherever we dwell, grow to feel an equal pride in the valor and self-devotion, alike of the men who wore the blue and the men who wore the gray, so this whole nation will grow to feel a peculiar sense of pride in the mightiest of the mighty men who mastered the mighty days; the lover of his country and of all mankind; the man whose blood was shed for the union of his people and for the freedom of a race, Abraham Lincoln."

Wendell Phillips was known in his day as the silver-tongued orator and was a master of invective. At Fan-euil Hall, Boston, the people began to shout "Phillips! Phillips!" Very soon he was addressing the audience and endeavored to conciliate and pacify his hearers.

"In all cases where great peril existed to citizens." he said, "it was the duty of the government to protect them." No sooner had he finished the sentence than a number of men began to hiss.

The great orator paused a moment, and then an inspired wrath took hold of him, his great eyes gleamed, and in a blast of irony he exclaimed :
"Truth thrown into the cauldron of hell would make a noise like that."

Wendell Phillips referred to Sergeant S. Prentiss, of Mississippi, as the most eloquent of all the southern orators. Prentiss possessed a memory of boundless capacity. His achievements were all the more extraordinary when it is remembered that he is pitifully lame and his gait peculiarly ungraceful. His own judgment was that he owed more to the practice of debate than to any other form of discipline, and in a letter to his brother he said: "Let me particularly recommend you to cultivate the faculty of debating; of expressing your own ideas in the best and most effective manner. There are thousands of men in the United States who exceed Henry Clay in information on all subjects, but his superiority consists in the power and adroitness with which he brings his information to bear. This faculty of expression can be attained best in debating societies."

Gladstone was the people's orator; he stood for the people and could never fawn upon royalty. His voice has been described as round, rolling and rich, monotonous indeed, but so dignified that it is forgotten in the intellectual action that the voice revealed. It rises gradually and you are not aware that the thunder is going to roar until you find yourself in the center of the storm. He was the great advocate of Home Rule and stood above when all others deserted him. In one of his speeches he said:

"If the leaders withdraw, then the people will lead the way. That is an American idea. No aristocracy can really understand the people. I don't blame the aristocrats, they were born so. They are reared to believe that the land is theirs, whereas it is given to all mankind."

In reply to his opponents he used the following anecdote :
"The Liberal Unionists are a curious kind of inexpressible middle quantity. Are they repenting ? I will answer by an anecdote. An American lady, in retrenching expenses in the household, conceived the notion of beginning the operation by making that part of her little boy's garments which is known in some parts of America by the euphonious and pleasant name of pants. She made them alike before and behind, and some relative of the lady asked how she succeeded. The lady said: Very nicely; but they are so made that at a short distance off I can't tell whether Johnnie is coming home or going away.' Some relative of the lady must have made the political pants of the Liberal Unionists."

Patrick Henry, one of the world's greatest orators, never wrote a line of his speeches. His early education was most limited. At sixteen he left school and prepared himself for a lawyer by reading and studying human nature while conversing with those who frequented the store where he was clerking. After practicing law for a few years with some success he leaped into fame by a single speech in which his eloquence was magical.
His speech in the first Continental Congress won for him the position of the foremost orator in the western world. In that Congress he overthrew a plan of recon-cilation between the mother country and the colonies which would have left them in the relation to each other that later was established between England and Canada. He was the only man who in debate opposed the scheme advocated by many of the foremost members. His eloquence was felt equally by the learned and unlearned. According to Thomas Jefferson he possessed practical fame, sublime imagination and an overwhelming diction. He was also declared a Shakespeare and Garrick combined. His personal appearance was unfavorable. He never had a lesson in oratory, and yet stands before the world as a speaker who wrought as overwhelming effects as were attributed to Demosthenes. He owed his success to practice in conversation and public speaking and courage to meet a crisis, and his influence was greatly enhanced by his high Christian character and spotless reputation.

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