Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography
[37] The British troops entered Cairo on the 14th of September, 1882.
[38] Better known as "Billy Johnson," the famous Eton Tutor.
[39] The Right Hon. J. W. Lowther.
[40] Afterwards the Right Hon. John Burns, M.P., President of the Local
Government Board.
[41] Afterwards Lord St. Aldwyn.
XII
ORATORY
[Greek: esti d' ouch ho logos tou rhetoros, Aischine, timion, oud'
ho tonos tes phones, alla to tauta proaireisthai tois pollois, kai
to tous autous misein kai philein, housper an he patris.]
DEMOSTHENES. _De Corona_.
The important thing in public speaking is neither the diction nor
the voice. What is important is that the speaker should have the
same predilections as the majority, and that his country's friends
and foes should be also his own.
I hope that I shall not be reproached with either Pedantry or Vanity
(though I deserve both) if, having begun so classically, I here
introduce some verses which, when I was a boy at Harrow, my kind Head
Master addressed to my Father. The occasion of these verses was that the
recipient of them, who was then Sergeant-at-Arms in the House of Commons
and was much exhausted by the long Session which passed the first Irish
Land Act, had said in his haste that he wished all mankind were dumb.
This petulant ejaculation drew from Dr. Butler the following
remonstrance:
Semper ego auditor? Requies data nulla loquelae
Quae miseras aures his et ubique premit?
Tot mala non tulit ipse Jobas, cui constat amicos
Septenos saltem conticuisse dies.
"Si mihi non dabitur talem sperare quietem,
Sit, precor, humanum sit sine voce genus!"
Mucius[42] haec secum, sortem indignatus iniquam,
(Tum primum proavis creditus esse minor)
Seque malis negat esse parem: cui Musa querenti,
"Tu genus humanum voce carere cupis?
Tene adeo fatis diffidere! Non tibi Natus
Quem jam signavit Diva Loquela suum?
En! ego quae vindex 'mutis quoque piscibus' adsum,
Donatura cycni, si ferat hora, sonos,
Ipsa loquor vates: Patriae decus addere linguae
Hic sciet, ut titulis laus eat aucta tuis.
Hunc sua fata vocant; hunc, nostro numine fretum,
Apta jubent aptis ponere verba locis.
Hunc olim domus ipsa canet, silvaeque paternae,
Curiaque, et felix vatibus Herga parens.
Nec lingua caruisse voles, quo vindice vestrae
Gentis in aeternum fama superstes erit."
H. M. B.,
Aug., 1870.
The prophecy has scarcely been fulfilled; but it is true that from my
earliest days I have had an inborn love of oratory. The witchery of
words, powerful enough on the printed page, is to me ten times more
powerful when it is reinforced by voice and glance and gesture. Fine
rhetoric and lofty declamation have always stirred my blood; and yet I
suppose that Demosthenes was right, and that, though rhetoric and
declamation are good, still the most valuable asset for a public speaker
is a complete identification with the majority of his countrymen, in
their prejudices, their likings, and their hatreds.
If Oratory signifies the power of speaking without premeditation,
Gladstone stands in a class by himself, far above all the public
speakers whom I have ever heard. The records of his speaking at Eton and
Oxford, and the reports of his earliest performances in Parliament,
alike give proof that he had, as Coleridge said of Pitt, "a premature
and unnatural dexterity in the combination of words"; and this developed
into "a power of pouring forth, with endless facility, perfectly
modulated sentences of perfectly chosen language, which as far surpassed
the reach of a normal intellect as the feats of an acrobat exceed the
capacities of a normal body."
His voice was flexible and melodious (in singing it was a baritone);
though his utterance was perceptibly marked by a Lancastrian "burr"; his
gestures were free and graceful, though never violent; every muscle of
his face seemed to play its part in his nervous declamation; and the
flash of his deep-set eyes revealed the fiery spirit that was at work
within. It may be remarked in passing that he considered a moustache
incompatible with effective speaking--"Why should a man hide one of the
most expressive features of his face?" With regard to the still more
expressive eyes, Lecky ruefully remarked that Gladstone's glance was
that of a bird of prey swooping on its victim.
Lord Chief Justice Coleridge told me that he had once asked Gladstone if
he ever felt nervous in public speaking. "In opening a subject," said
Gladstone, "often; in reply never," and certainly his most triumphant
speeches were those in which, when winding up a debate, he recapitulated
and demolished the hostile arguments that had gone before. One writes
glibly of his "most triumphant" speeches; and yet, when he was among us,
he always delivered each Session at least one speech, of which we all
used to say, with breathless enthusiasm, "That's the finest speech he
ever made." On the platform he was incomparable. His fame as an orator
was made within the walls of Parliament; but, when he ceased to
represent the University of Oxford, and was forced by the conditions of
modern electioneering to face huge masses of electors in halls and
theatres and in the open air, he adapted himself with the utmost ease to
his new environment, and captivated the constituencies as he had
captivated the House. His activities increased as his life advanced. He
diffused himself over England and Wales and Scotland. In every
considerable centre, men had the opportunity of seeing and hearing this
supreme actor of the political stage; but Midlothian was the scene of
his most astonishing efforts. When, on the 2nd of September, 1884, he
spoke on the Franchise Bill in the Waverley Market at Edinburgh, it was
estimated that he addressed thirty thousand people.
"Beneath his feet the human ocean lay,
And wave on wave flowed into space away,
Methought no clarion could have sent its sound
Even to the centre of the hosts around;
And, as I thought, rose the sonorous swell,
As from some church-tower swings the silvery bell.
Aloft and clear, from airy tide to tide,
It glided, easy as a bird may glide;
To the last verge of that vast audience sent,
It played with each wild passion as it went;
Now stirred the uproar, now the murmur stilled:
And sobs or laughter answered as it willed:"[43]
It is painful to descend too abruptly from such a height as that: but
one would be giving a false notion of Gladstone's speaking if one
suggested that it was always equally effective. Masterly in his appeal
to a popular audience, supernaturally dexterous in explaining a
complicated subject to the House of Commons, supremely solemn and
pathetic in a Memorial Oration, he was heard to least advantage on a
social or festive occasion. He would use a Club-dinner or a
wedding-breakfast, a flower-show or an Exhibition, for the utterance of
grave thoughts which had perhaps been long fermenting in his mind; and
then his intensity, his absorption in his theme, and his terrible
gravity, disconcerted hearers who had expected a lighter touch. An
illustration of this piquant maladroitness recurs to my memory as I
write. In 1882 I was concerned with a few Radical friends in founding
the National Liberal Club.[44] We certainly never foresaw the palatial
pile of terra-cotta and glazed tiles which now bears that name.[45] Our
modest object was to provide a central meeting-place for Metropolitan
and provincial Liberals, where all the comforts of life should be
attainable at what are called "popular prices." Two years later,
Gladstone laid the foundation-stone of the present Club-house, and, in
one of his most austere orations, drew a sharp contrast between our poor
handiwork and those "Temples of Luxury and Ease" which gaze in haughty
grandeur on Pall Mall. We had hoped to provide what might seem like
"luxury" to the unsophisticated citizen of Little Pedlington; and, at
the least, we meant our Club to be a place of "ease" to the Radical
toiler. But Gladstone insisted that it was to be a workshop dedicated to
strenuous labour; and all the fair promises of our Prospectus were
trodden under foot.[46]
I have often heard Gladstone say that, in the nature of things, a speech
cannot be adequately reported. You may get the words with literal
precision, but the loss of gesture, voice, and intonation, will
inevitably obscure the meaning and impede the effect. Of no one's
speaking is this more true than of his own. Here and there, in the
enormous mass of his reported eloquence, you will come upon a fine
peroration, a poetic image, a verse aptly cited, or a phrase which can
be remembered. But they are few and far between--_oases_ in a wilderness
of what reads like verbiage. Quite certainly, his speeches, in the mass,
are not literature, as those found to their cost who endeavoured to
publish them in ten volumes.
For speeches which are literature we must go to John Bright; but then
Bright's speaking was not spontaneous, and therefore, according to the
definition suggested above, could not be reckoned as Oratory. Yet, when
delivered in that penetrating voice, with its varied emphasis of scorn
and sympathy and passion; enforced by the dignity of that noble head,
and punctuated by the aptest gesture, they sounded uncommonly like
oratory. The fact is that Bright's consummate art concealed the
elaborate preparation which went to make the performance. When he was
going to make a speech, he was encompassed by safeguards against
disturbance and distraction, which suggested the rites of Lucina. He was
invisible and inaccessible. No bell might ring, no door might bang, no
foot tread too heavily. There was a crisis, and everyone in the house
knew it; and when at length the speech had been safely uttered, there
was the joy of a great reaction.
My Father, unlike most of the Whigs, had a warm admiration for Bright;
and Bright showed his appreciation of this feeling by being extremely
kind to me. Early in my Parliamentary career, he gave me some hints on
the art of speech-making, which are interesting because they describe
his own practice. "You cannot," he said, "over-prepare the substance of
a speech. The more completely you have mastered it, the better your
speech will be. But it is very easy to over-prepare your words. Arrange
your subject, according to its natural divisions, under three or four
heads--not more. Supply each division with an 'island'; by which I mean
a carefully-prepared sentence to clinch and enforce it. You must trust
yourself to swim from one 'island' to another, without artificial aids.
Keep your best 'island'--your most effective passage--for your
peroration; and, when once you have uttered it, sit down at once. Let no
power induce you to go on."
Anyone who studies Bright's speeches will see that he exactly followed
his own rule. The order and symmetry are perfect. The English is simple
and unadorned. Each department of the speech has its notable phrase; and
the peroration is a masterpiece of solemn rhetoric. And yet after all
what Demosthenes said is true of these two great men--the Twin Stars of
Victorian Oratory. Each had all the graces of voice and language, and
yet each failed conspicuously in practical effect whenever he ran
counter to the predilections and passions of his countrymen. Gladstone
succeeded when he attacked the Irish Church, and denounced the
abominations of Turkish misrule: he failed when he tried to palliate his
blunders in Egypt, and to force Home Rule down the throat of the