Atlantic Monthly | Page 6

without
resource. "Whoso can speak well," said Luther, "is a man." It was men
of this stamp that the Grecian States used to ask of Sparta for generals.
They did not send to Lacedaemon for troops, but they said, "Send us a
commander"; and Pausanias, or Gylippus, or Brasidas, or Agis, was
despatched by the Ephors.
It is easy to illustrate this overpowering personality by these examples
of soldiers and kings; but there are men of the most peaceful way of life,

and peaceful principle, who are felt, wherever they go, as sensibly as a
July sun or a December frost,--men who, if they speak, are heard,
though they speak in a whisper,--who, when they act, act effectually,
and what they do is imitated: and these examples may be found on very
humble platforms, as well as on high ones.
In old countries, a high money-value is set on the services of men who
have achieved a personal distinction. He who has points to carry must
hire, not a skilful attorney, but a commanding person. A barrister in
England is reputed to have made twenty or thirty thousand pounds per
annum in representing the claims of railroad companies before
committees of the House of Commons. His clients pay not so much for
legal as for manly accomplishments,--for courage, conduct, and a
commanding social position, which enable him to make their claims
heard and respected.
I know very well, that, among our cool and calculating people, where
every man mounts guard over himself, where heats and panics and
abandonments are quite out of the system, there is a good deal of
skepticism as to extraordinary influence. To talk of an overpowering
mind rouses the same jealousy and defiance which one may observe
round a table where anybody is recounting the marvellous anecdotes of
mesmerism. Each auditor puts a final stroke to the discourse by
exclaiming, "Can he mesmerize _me_?" So each man inquires if any
orator can change his convictions.
But does any one suppose himself to be quite impregnable? Does he
think that not possibly a man may come to him who shall persuade him
out of his most settled determination?--for example, good sedate citizen
as he is, to make a fanatic of him? or, if he is penurious, to squander
money for some purpose he now least thinks of? or, if he is a prudent,
industrious person, to forsake his work, and give days and weeks to a
new interest? No, he defies any one, every one. Ah! he is thinking of
resistance, and of a different turn from his own. But what if one should
come of the same turn of mind as his own, and who sees much farther
on his own way than he? A man who has tastes like mine, but in greater
power, will rule me any day, and make me love my ruler.
Thus it is not powers of speech that we primarily consider under this
word Eloquence, but the power that, being present, gives them their
perfection, and, being absent, leaves them a merely superficial value.

Eloquence is the appropriate organ of the highest personal energy.
Personal ascendency may exist with or without adequate talent for its
expression. It is as surely felt as a mountain or a planet; but when it is
weaponed with a power of speech, it seems first to become truly human,
works actively in all directions, and supplies the imagination with fine
materials.
This circumstance enters into every consideration of the power of
orators, and is the key to all their effects. In the assembly, you shall
find the orator and the audience in perpetual balance, and the
predominance of either is indicated by the choice of topic. If the talents
for speaking exist, but not the strong personality, then there are good
speakers who perfectly receive and express the will of the audience,
and the commonest populace is flattered by hearing its low mind
returned to it with every ornament which happy talent can add. But if
there be personality in the orator, the face of things changes. The
audience is thrown into the attitude of pupil, follows like a child its
preceptor, and hears what he has to say. It is as if, amidst the king's
council at Madrid, Ximenes urged that an advantage might be gained of
France, and Mendoza that Flanders might be kept down, and Columbus,
being introduced, was interrogated whether his geographical
knowledge could aid the cabinet, and he can say nothing to one party or
to the other, but he can show how all Europe can be diminished and
reduced under the king by annexing to Spain a continent as large as six
or seven Europes.
This balance between the orator and the audience is expressed in what
is called the pertinence