Evolution of Expression — Volume 1Emerson, Charles Wesley
Science
Evolution of Expression — Volume 1
Emerson, Charles Wesley
Elocution; Recitations
2. The delight of social ease, the refined enjoyment of taste in
letters and art, opulent leisure, professional distinction,
gratified ambition--all these came and whispered to the young
student. And it is the force that can tranquilly put aside such
blandishments with a smile, and accept alienation, outlawry,
ignominy, and apparent defeat, if need be, no less than the
courage which grapples with poverty and outward hardship and
climbs over them to worldly prosperity, which is the test of the
finest manhood. Only he who fully knows the worth of what he
renounces gains the true blessing of renunciation.
3. When he first spoke at Faneuil Hall some of the most renowned
American orators were still in their prime. Webster and Clay were
in the Senate, Choate at the bar, Edward Everett upon the academic
platform. From all these orators Phillips differed more than they
differed from each other. Behind Webster, and Everett, and Clay
there was always a great organized party or an entrenched
conservatism of feeling and opinion. They spoke accepted views.
They moved with masses of men, and were sure of the applause of
party spirit, of political tradition, and of established
institutions. Phillips stood alone.
4. With no party behind him and appealing against established
order and acknowledged tradition, his speech was necessarily a
popular appeal for a strange and unwelcome cause, and the
condition of its success was that it should both charm and rouse
the hearer, while, under cover of the fascination, the orator
unfolded his argument and urged his plea. This condition the
genius of the orator instinctively perceived, and it determined
the character of his discourse.
5. He faced his audience with a tranquil mien and a beaming aspect
that was never dimmed. He spoke, and in the measured cadence of
his quiet voice there was intense feeling, but no declamation, no
passionate appeal, no superficial and feigned emotion. It was
simple colloquy--a gentleman conversing. Unconsciously and surely,
the ear and heart were charmed. How was it done? Ah! how did
Mozart do it, how Raphael? The secret of the rose's sweetness, of
the bird's ecstacy, of the sunset's glory--that is the secret of
genius and of eloquence.
6. What was heard, what was seen, was the form of noble manhood,
the courteous and self-possessed tone, the flow of modulated
speech, sparkling with matchless richness of illustration, with
apt illusion, and happy anecdote, and historic parallel, with wit
and pitiless invective, with melodious pathos, with stinging
satire, with crackling epigram and limpid humor, like the bright
ripples that play around the sure and steady prow of the
resistless ship. The divine energy of his conviction utterly
possessed him, and his
"Pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in his cheek, and so distinctly wrought
That one might almost say his body thought."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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