Eloquence

Eloquence By Nephi Jensen

This is not a set of rules on public speaking. It is not an attempt at denning eloquence. Nor yet is it a setting forth of things that should be in a good discourse. It is rather a brief statement of what should be in the speaker if he would really be effective. Two orators of great note spoke the same evening, from the same platform, in Salt Lake City, during the recent political campaign. They were both men of deep thought and extensive learning. Both were splendid elocutionists. Both had command of superb diction. And yet the one commanded admiration and the other convinced. What was the difference in these two speakers? The one was simply an orator, and the other was a great man. "Eloquence is," as Emerson says, "the best speech of the best soul." The greatness that is shown by a deep, genuine, passionate devotion to the best cause one knows is the most important qualification for effective speaking. No combination of talents can take the place of the absolute sincerity and earnestness which are characteristics of heroic souls. Rhetoric, elocution and wit are as nothing compared with a great heart's undivided devotion to truth. Every speech that has lived the gen- (ration after it was spoken has been the joint product of a brain struggling to solve some gigantic problem of human welfare and a heart burdened with the woes, wants and sufferings of the race. All the really famous orations have been delivered by men who have had the greatness that puts a noble cause above all petty personal considerations. Patrick Henry's thunderbolts, hurled in the teeth of King George's servile defenders, came from a heart aflame with the love of liberty. James Otis' earnest denunciations of the unjust laws passed by the English Parliament came from a heart that loved justice and right more than the fawning of the King's powerful agents. Webster's reply to Hayne was not spoken to the galleries. It was a passionate appeal of a <rreat patriot who could imagine no misfortune more direful than the severing of the Union. Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg speech is the joint product of an almost perfectly balanced brain and a heart of infinite tenderness. Art is the servant of beauty; eloquence is the servant of

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truth. Only that speech is really eloquent that makes truth teem true. Any discourse, no matter how polished in form, that attracts attention to itself or the manner of its delivery is a failure. Conversely, any speech no matter how elegant in form, is effective if the thoughts speak louder than the words. There is nothing so fatal to genuine eloquence as the vanity, that seeks

its own glory rather than the winning of human hearts to truth.

"The surest sign that a man is not great is that he strives to look great." Some one has said that a "woman should not sing unless her heart is broken." It is equally good advice to say that one should not preach unless his soul is so mellow that the "streams of truth will roll through his soul in song." The Book of Job, one of the world's best pieces of literature, came from a heart of this kind. So have all the truly great songs, sermons, poems, and stories of the race. Small souls are more concerned about form than substance. It is a mark of the great that they put substance first and form second. Form is something, substance is everything. "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." It is for this reason that often some great soul, passionately devoted to some noble cause, will step onto a platform and commence to speak right from his heart the truest things his heart knows, and captivate the hearts of his hearers. About two years ago a signal circumstance of this kind occurred in Memphis, Tennessee. The speaker wa^ President Joseph F. Smith. His subject was "The Gospel of Christ." Of his manner of speaking and the effect produced, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the next morning said:

"President Smith is positive in speech. He is a speaker of great force. Nothing he said last night could be construed as out of the ordinary at all. But as he voiced the plea it was not quite usual. He did not seem to be trying for an effect, but he did secure one. Several of the women who were present held their handkerchiefs to their eyes; several men almost seemed worried. There were plenty of unbelievers in the crowd, but all — listened to him with great attention even smiles were lacking."

It was not fine phrases that mellowed these fastidious women into sympathetic rapport with a speaker who pleaded the cause of religion that has no pomp nor splendor to commend it to the worldly-minded. It was not pretty sentiments spoken with the graces of formal elocution that made these men "seem almost worried." What was the real secret of this unique triumph of speech making? Character and conviction. His words were the simple words of truth coming warm from a heart aglow with the knowledge and love of the truth. That is the only effective speech. That also is genuine eloquence.

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Eloquence is deeper and truer than art. It is more than sentimentalism that speaks in fine phrases. It is the genuine, earnest outpouring of a heart of undivided devotion to a great cause. The deep conviction, born of a genuine, unselfish concern about the big problems of life and human welfare, is the very heart of effective speech. Eloquence, like truth, loves the depths. Shallow minds cannot compass it. Empty hearts may strive for it but they will strive in vain. Only he who has a soul deep enough to be earnest, true enough to be honest, and great enough to put his cause above every personal ambition, really speaks eloquently. There is nothing so fatal to effective speech as a striving for effect. Nothing sets an audience of earnest people against a speaker, like the impression that he is trying to "make a speech" rather than tell what is really in his heart. ''A fine speech," said O'Connel, "is an elegant thing, but the sentence that is worth while is the sentence that wins the heart to truth." In speaking, as in every other art, the result obtained is the real test of the performance. Fine phrases gracefully ?poken may win from our lips the tribute, "it is fine;" but real eloquence wins from our hearts the tribute, "it is true." Socrates said, "any one can speak eloquently on a subject he knows." This is only another way of saying that borrowed light is only twilight. A poem is not composed of thoughts others have thought. It is the actual expression of the truth and beauty a great soul has experienced and lived. So is eloquence. It is for this reason that when a man of the pure earnestness of a Smith, a Grant or a Penrose speaks right from his heart, the deep truth about God and human responsibility to God, which he has felt and lived, that our souls are stirred to their very depths, and we feel as if the fine words of a mere reciter of phrases would be a mockery. "Eloquence," says Webster, "must exist in the man." It is not a patch work of borrowed literary trappings. It is the actual expression of an intense soul's certainty of the majesty of truth. It is more. It is the warm pulsating spirit of truth carried on the wings of words to hearts yearning for the harmony that is found only close to the things that are eternally true. For one void of faith, hope and charity to preach were like the singing of some one whose heart is a stranger to melody. The saying "one cannot give what he has not" is truer of conviction than of thought. One might on occasion borrow a thought, but he cannot borrow a great soul's certainty of the final triumph of right. "If you want to be eloquent," says Goethe, "be honest; or, in other words, if you want to be eloquent think deeply, feel deeplv, live truly, and express just what you think, feel and live."'