Atlantic Monthly | Page 7

of the speaker. There is always a rivalry
between the orator and the occasion, between the demands of the hour
and the prepossession of the individual. The emergency which has
convened the meeting is usually of more importance than anything the
debaters have in their minds, and therefore becomes imperative to them.
But if one of them, have anything of commanding necessity in his heart,
how speedily he will find vent for it, and with the applause of the
assembly! This balance is observed in the privatest intercourse. Poor
Tom never knew the time when the present occurrence was so trivial
that he could tell what was passing in his mind without being checked
for unseasonable speech; but let Bacon speak, and wise men would
rather listen, though the revolution of kingdoms was on foot. I have

heard it reported of an eloquent preacher, whose voice is not yet
forgotten in this city, that, on occasions of death or tragic disaster,
which overspread the congregation with gloom, he ascended the pulpit
with more than his usual alacrity, and, turning to his favorite lessons of
devout and jubilant thankfulness, "Let us praise the Lord," carried
audience, mourners, and mourning along with him, and swept away all
the impertinence of private sorrow with his hosannas and songs of
praise. Pepys says of Lord Clarendon, with whom "he is mad in love,"
on his return from a conference, "I did never observe how much easier
a man do speak when he knows all the company to be below him, than
in him; for, though he spoke indeed excellent well, yet his manner and
freedom of doing it, as if he played with it, and was informing only all
the rest of the company, was mighty pretty."[_Diary_, I. 469.]
This rivalry between the orator and the occasion is inevitable, and the
occasion always yields to the eminence of the speaker; for a great man
is the greatest of occasions. Of course, the interest of the audience and
of the orator conspire. It is well with them only when his influence is
complete; then only they are well pleased. Especially, he consults his
power by making instead of taking his theme. If he should attempt to
instruct the people in that which they already know, he would fail; but,
by making them wise in that which he knows, he has the advantage of
the assembly every moment. Napoleon's tactics of marching on the
angle of an army, and always presenting a superiority of numbers, is
the orator's secret also.
The several talents which the orator employs, the splendid weapons
which went to the equipment of Demosthenes, of AEchines, of
Demades, the natural orator, of Fox, of Pitt, of Patrick Henry, of
Adams, of Mirabeau, deserve a special enumeration. We must not quite
omit to name the principal pieces.
The orator, as we have seen, must be a substantial personality. Then,
first, he must have power of statement,--must have the fact, and know
how to tell it. In any knot of men conversing on any subject, the person
who knows most about it will have the ear of the company, if he wishes
it, and lead the conversation,--no matter what genius or distinction
other men there present may have; and in any public assembly, him
who has the facts, and can and will state them, people will listen to,
though he is otherwise ignorant, though he is hoarse and ungraceful,

though he stutters and screams.
In a court of justice, the audience are impartial; they really wish to sift
the statements, and know what the truth is. And, in the examination of
witnesses, there usually leap out, quite unexpectedly, three or four
stubborn words or phrases which are the pith and fate of the business,
which sink into the ear of all parties, and stick there, and determine the
cause. All the rest is repetition and qualifying; and the court and the
county have really come together to arrive at these three or four
memorable expressions, which betrayed the mind and meaning of
somebody.
In every company, the man with the fact is like the guide you hire to
lead your party up a mountain or through a difficult country. He may
not compare with any of the party in mind, or breeding, or courage, or
possessions, but he is much more important to the present need than
any of them. That is what we go to the court-house for,--the statement
of the fact, and the elimination of a general fact, the real relation of all
the parties; and it is the certainty with which, indifferently in any affair
that is well handled, the truth stares us in the face, through all the
disguises that are put upon it,--a piece of the well-known human
life,--that makes the interest