The Art of Public Speaking
just once--never delivered it again. I put too much work on it. But this
had no work on it--thrown together perfectly at random, spoken offhand
without any special preparation, and it succeeds when the thing we
study, work over, adjust to a plan, is an entire failure.
The "Acres of Diamonds" which I have mentioned through so many years are
to be found in Philadelphia, and you are to find them. Many have found
them. And what man has done, man can do. I could not find anything
better to illustrate my thought than a story I have told over and over
again, and which is now found in books in nearly every library.
In 1870 we went down the Tigris River. We hired a guide at Bagdad to
show us Persepolis, Nineveh and Babylon, and the ancient countries of
Assyria as far as the Arabian Gulf. He was well acquainted with the
land, but he was one of those guides who love to entertain their
patrons; he was like a barber that tells you many stories in order to
keep your mind off the scratching and the scraping. He told me so many
stories that I grew tired of his telling them and I refused to
listen--looked away whenever he commenced; that made the guide quite
angry. I remember that toward evening he took his Turkish cap off his
head and swung it around in the air. The gesture I did not understand
and I did not dare look at him for fear I should become the victim of
another story. But, although I am not a woman, I did look, and the
instant I turned my eyes upon that worthy guide he was off again. Said
he, "I will tell you a story now which reserve for my particular
friends!" So then, counting myself a particular friend, I listened, and
I have always been glad I did.
He said there once lived not far from the River Indus an ancient Persian
by the name of Al Hafed. He said that Al Hafed owned a very large farm
with orchards, grain fields and gardens. He was a contented and wealthy
man--contented because he was wealthy, and wealthy because he was
contented. One day there visited this old farmer one of those ancient
Buddhist priests, and he sat down by Al Hafed's fire and told that old
farmer how this world of ours was made. He said that this world was once
a mere bank of fog, which is scientifically true, and he said that the
Almighty thrust his finger into the bank of fog and then began slowly to
move his finger around and gradually to increase the speed of his finger
until at last he whirled that bank of fog into a solid ball of fire, and
it went rolling through the universe, burning its way through other
cosmic banks of fog, until it condensed the moisture without, and fell
in floods of rain upon the heated surface and cooled the outward crust.
Then the internal flames burst through the cooling crust and threw up
the mountains and made the hills of the valley of this wonderful world
of ours. If this internal melted mass burst out and copied very quickly
it became granite; that which cooled less quickly became silver; and
less quickly, gold; and after gold diamonds were made. Said the old
priest, "A diamond is a congealed drop of sunlight."
This is a scientific truth also. You all know that a diamond is pure
carbon, actually deposited sunlight--and he said another thing I would
not forget: he declared that a diamond is the last and highest of God's
mineral creations, as a woman is the last and highest of God's animal
creations. I suppose that is the reason why the two have such a liking
for each other. And the old priest told Al Hafed that if he had a
handful of diamonds he could purchase a whole country, and with a mine
of diamonds he could place his children upon thrones through the
influence of their great wealth. Al Hafed heard all about diamonds and
how much they were worth, and went to his bed that night a poor man--not
that he had lost anything, but poor because he was discontented and
discontented because he thought he was poor. He said: "I want a mine of
diamonds!" So he lay awake all night, and early in the morning sought
out the priest. Now I know from experience that a priest when awakened
early in the morning is cross. He awoke that priest out of his dreams
and said to him, "Will you tell me where I can find diamonds?" The
priest said, "Diamonds? What do you want with diamonds?" "I want to be
immensely rich," said Al Hafed, "but I don't know where to go." "Well,"
said the priest, "if you will find a river that runs over white sand
between high mountains, in those sands you will always see diamonds."
"Do you really believe that there is such a river?" "Plenty of them,
plenty of them; all you have to do is just go and find them, then you
have them." Al Hafed said, "I will go." So he sold his farm, collected
his money at interest, left his family in charge of a neighbor, and away
he went in search of diamonds. He began very properly, to my mind, at
the Mountains of the Moon. Afterwards he went around into Palestine,
then wandered on into Europe, and at last when his money was all spent,
and he was in rags, wretchedness and poverty, he stood on the shore of
that bay in Barcelona, Spain, when a tidal wave came rolling through the
Pillars of Hercules and the poor afflicted, suffering man could not
resist the awful temptation to cast himself into that incoming tide, and
he sank beneath its foaming crest, never to rise in this life again.
When that old guide had told me that very sad story, he stopped the
camel I was riding and went back to fix the baggage on one of the other
camels, and I remember thinking to myself, "Why did he reserve that for
his _particular friends_?" There seemed to be no beginning, middle or
end--nothing to it. That was the first story I ever heard told or read
in which the hero was killed in the first chapter. I had but one chapter
of that story and the hero was dead. When the guide came back and took
up the halter of my camel again, he went right on with the same story.
He said that Al Hafed's successor led his camel out into the garden to
drink, and as that camel put its nose down into the clear water of the
garden brook Al Hafed's successor noticed a curious flash of light from
the sands of the shallow stream, and reaching in he pulled out a black
stone having an eye of light that reflected all the colors of the
rainbow, and he took that curious pebble into the house and left it on
the mantel, then went on his way and forgot all about it. A few days
after that, this same old priest who told Al Hafed how diamonds were
made, came in to visit his successor, when he saw that flash of light
from the mantel. He rushed up and said, "Here is a diamond--here is a
diamond! Has Al Hafed returned?" "No, no; Al Hafed has not returned and
that is not a diamond; that is nothing but a stone; we found it right
out here in our garden." "But I know a diamond when I see it," said he;
"that is a diamond!"
Then together they rushed to the garden and stirred up the white sands
with their fingers and found others more beautiful, more valuable
diamonds than the first, and thus, said the guide to me, were discovered
the diamond mines of Golconda, the most magnificent diamond mines in all
the history of mankind, exceeding the Kimberley in its value. The great
Kohinoor diamond in England's crown jewels and the largest crown diamond
on earth in Russia's crown jewels, which I had often hoped she would
have to sell before they had peace with Japan, came from that mine, and
when the old guide had called my attention to that wonderful discovery
he took his Turkish cap off his head again and swung it around in the
air to call my attention to the moral. Those Arab guides have a moral to
each story, though the stories are not always moral. He said, had Al
Hafed remained at home and dug in his own cellar or in his own garden,
instead of wretchedness, starvation, poverty and death in a strange
land, he would have had "acres of diamonds"--for every acre, yes, every
shovelful of that old farm afterwards revealed the gems which since have
decorated the crowns of monarchs. When he had given the moral to his
story, I saw why he had reserved this story for his "particular
friends." I didn't tell him I could see it; I was not going to tell that
old Arab that I could see it. For it was that mean old Arab's way of
going around a thing, like a lawyer, and saying indirectly what he did
not dare say directly, that there was a certain young man that day
traveling down the Tigris River that might better be at home in America.
I didn't tell him I could see it.
I told him his story reminded me of one, and I told it to him quick. I
told him about that man out in California, who, in 1847, owned a ranch
out there. He read that gold had been discovered in Southern California,
and he sold his ranch to Colonel Sutter and started off to hunt for
gold. Colonel Sutter put a mill on the little stream in that farm and
one day his little girl brought some wet sand from the raceway of the
mill into the house and placed it before the fire to dry, and as that
sand was falling through the little girl's fingers a visitor saw the
first shining scales of real gold that were ever discovered in
California; and the man who wanted the gold had sold this ranch and gone
away, never to return. I delivered this lecture two years ago in
California, in the city that stands near that farm, and they told me
that the mine is not exhausted yet, and that a one-third owner of that
farm has been getting during these recent years twenty dollars of gold
every fifteen minutes of his life, sleeping or waking. Why, you and I
would enjoy an income like that!
But the best illustration that I have now of this thought was found here
in Pennsylvania. There was a man living in Pennsylvania who owned a farm
here and he did what I should do if I had a farm in Pennsylvania--he
sold it. But before he sold it he concluded to secure employment
collecting coal oil for his cousin in Canada. They first discovered coal
oil there. So this farmer in Pennsylvania decided that he would apply
for a position with his cousin in Canada. Now, you see, this farmer was
not altogether a foolish man. He did not leave his farm until he had
something else to do. Of all the simpletons the stars shine on there is
none more foolish than a man who leaves one job before he has obtained
another. And that has especial reference to gentlemen of my profession,
and has no reference to a man seeking a divorce. So I say this old
farmer did not leave one job until he had obtained another. He wrote to
Canada, but his cousin replied that he could not engage him because he
did not know anything about the oil business. "Well, then," said he, "I
will understand it." So he set himself at the study of the whole
subject. He began at the second day of the creation, he studied the
subject from the primitive vegetation to the coal oil stage, until he
knew all about it. Then he wrote to his cousin and said, "Now I
understand the oil business." And his cousin replied to him, "All right,
then, come on."
That man, by the record of the county, sold his farm for eight hundred
and thirty-three dollars--even money, "no cents." He had scarcely gone
from that farm before the man who purchased it went out to arrange for
the watering the cattle and he found that the previous owner had
arranged the matter very nicely. There is a stream running down the
hillside there, and the previous owner had gone out and put a plank
across that stream at an angle, extending across the brook and down
edgewise a few inches under the surface of the water. The purpose of the
plank across that brook was to throw over to the other bank a
dreadful-looking scum through which the cattle would not put their noses
to drink above the plank, although they would drink the water on one
side below it. Thus that man who had gone to Canada had been himself