surely as by the excessive use of alcoholic stimulants they may deaden the sensibility of the palate. "Naturally the strongest word ought to be used to give expression to the strongest feeling. But strong words have been so blunted through frequent use that they have lost their sharp edge, and pass over our thick skin without even pricking our sensibility; while, at moments when we expect a heavy blow, the light tickling of the socially polite feather may far more vividly stimulate our sensibility." It is a law of oratory, and indeed of all discourse, whether oral or written, that it is the subdued expression of conviction and feeling, when the speaker or writer, instead of giving vent to his emotions, veils them in part, and suffers only glimpses of them to be seen, that is the most powerful. It is the man who is all but mastered by his excitement, but who, at the very point of being mastered, masters himself,- apparently cool when he is at a white heat, whose eloquence is most conquering. When the speaker, using a gentler mode of expression than the case might warrant, appears to stifle his feelings and studiously to keep them within bounds, a reaction is produced in the hearer's mind, and, rushing into the opposite extreme, he is moved more deeply than by the most vehement and passionate declamation. The jets of flame that escape now and then, the suppressed bursts of feeling, the partial eruptions of passion,-are regarded as but hints or faint intimations of the volcano within. 'Balzac, in one of his tales, tells of an artist, who, by a few touches of his pencil, could give to a most commonplace scene an air of overpowering horror, and throw over the most ordinary and prosaic objects a spectral air of crime and blood. Through a half-opened door you see a bed with the clothes confusedly heaped, as in some deathstruggle, over an undefined object which fancy whispers must be a bleeding corpse; on the floor you see a slipper, an upset candlestick, and a knife perhaps; and these hints tell the story of blood more significantly and more powerfully than the most elaborate detail, because the imagination of man is more powerful than art itself. So with Hood's description of the Haunted House: "Over all there hung a cloud of fear; A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 66 Thoreau, describing an interview he had at Concord with John Brown, notices as one of the latter's marked peculiarities, that he did not overstate anything, but spoke within bounds. He referred to what his family had suffered in Kansas, without ever giving the least vent to his pent-up fire. It was a volcano with an ordinary chimney-flue." In one of the published letters of the late Rev. F. W. Robertson, there are some admirable comments on a letter, full of strongly expressed religious sentiments, pious resolutions, etc., which he had received from a fashionable lady. The letter, he says, "is in earnest so far as it goes; only that fatal facility of strong words expresses feeling which will seek for itself no other expression. She believes or means what she says, but the very vehemence of the expression injures her, for really it expresses the penitence of a St. Peter, and would not be below the mark if it were meant to describe the bitter tears with which he bewailed his crime; but when such language is used for trifles, there remains nothing stronger for the awful crises of human life. It is like Draco's code,-death for larceny; and there remains for parricide or treason only death." Let us then be as chary of our superlatives as of our Sunday suit. Hardly a greater mistake can be made in regard to expression, than to suppose that a uniform intensity of style is a proof of mental power. So far is this from being true, that it may safely be said that such intensity not only implies a want of truthfulness and simplicity, but even of earnestness and real force. Intensity is not a characteristic of nature, in spirit or in matter. The surface of the earth is not made up of mountains and valleys, but, for the most part, of gentle undulations. The ocean is not always in a rage, but, if not calm, its waves rise and fall with gentle fluctuation. Hurricanes and tempests are the extraordinary, not the usual, conditions of our atmosphere. Not only the strongest thinkers, but the most powerful orators, have been distinguished rather for moderation than for exaggeration in expression. The great secret of Daniel Webster's strength as a speaker lay in the fact that he made it a practice to understate rather than to overstate his confidence in the force of his own arguments, and in the logical necessity of his conclusions. The sober and solid tramp of his style reflected the movements of an intellect that palpably respected the relations and dimensions of things, and to which exaggeration would have been an immorality. Holding that violence of language is evidence of feebleness of thought and lack of reasoning power, he kept his auditor constantly in advance of him, by suggestion rather than by strong asseveration, and by calmly stating the facts that ought to move the hearer, instead of by making passionate appeals, the man being always felt to be greater than the man's feelings. Such has been the method of all great rhetoricians of ancient and modern times. The most effective speakers are not those who tell all they think or feel, but those who, by maintaining an austere conscientiousness of phrase, leave on their hearers the impression of reserved power. Great bastions of military strength must lie at rest in times of peace, that they may be able to execute their destructive agencies in times of war; and so let it be with the superlatives of our tongue. Never call on the "tenth legion," or "the old guard," except on occasions corresponding to the dignity and weight of those tremendous forces. Say plain things in a plain way, and then, when you have occasion to send a sharp arrow at your enemy, you will not find your quiver empty of shafts which you wasted before they were wanted. "You should not speak to think, nor think to speak; To give them birth. Better be dumb a week Lie fallow-minded, than a brain compel To wasting plenty that hath yielded well, Or strive to crop a soil too thin and bleak. One true thought, from the deepest heart upspringing, May from within a whole life fertilize; One true word, like the lightning sudden gleaming, May rend the night of a whole world of lies. Much speech, much thought, may often be but seeming, But in one truth might boundless ever lies." CHAPTER VII. SAXON WORDS, OR ROMANIC? I cannot admire the constant use of French or Latin words, instead of your own vernacular. My Anglo-Saxon feelings are wounded to the quick . . . by such words as chagrin instead of "grief," malediction instead of “ curse," etc.-COUNT DE MontalEMBERT, in letter to Mrs. Oliphant. The devil does not care for your dialectics and eclectic homiletics, or Germanic objectives and subjectives; but pelt him with Anglo-Saxon in the name of God, and he will shift his quarters.-REV. C. H. SPURGEON. Words have their proper places, just like men; We listen to, not venture to reprove, Large language swelling under gilded domes, T is a question of deep interest to all public speakers IT and writers, and one which has provoked not a little discussion of late years, whether the Saxon or the Romanic part of our language should be preferred by those who would employ "the Queen's English" with potency and effect. Of late it has been the fashion to cry up the native element at the expense of the foreign; and among the champions of the former we may name Dr. Whewell, of Cambridge, and a modern rector of the University of Glasgow, whom De Quincey censures for an erroneous direction to the students to that effect. We may also add Lord Stanley,- one of the most brilliant and polished speakers in the British Parliament,—who, in an address some years ago to the students of the same university, after expressing his surprise that so few persons, comparatively, in Great Britain, have acquainted themselves with the origin, the history, and the gradual 194 |