For alas,much as we worship speech on all hands,here is a third assertion which a man may venture to make,and invite considerate men to reflect upon:That in these times,and for several generations back,there has been,strictly considered,really excellent speech at all,but sham-excellent merely;that is to say,false or quasi-false speech getting itself admired and worshipped,instead of detested and suppressed.A truly alarming predicament;and the less so if we find it a quite pleasant one for the time being,and welcome the advent of asphyxia,as we would that of comfortable natural sleep;--as,in so many senses,we are doing!Surly judges there have been who did much admire the "Bible of Modern Literature,"or anything you could distil from it,in contrast with the ancient Bibles;and found that in the matter of speaking,our far best excellence,where that could be obtained,was excellent silence,which means endurance and exertion,and good work with lips closed;and that our tolerablest speech was of the nature of honest commonplace introduced where indispensable,which only set up for being brief and true,and could be mistaken for excellent.
These are hard sayings for many a British reader,unconscious of any damage,nay joyfully conscious to himself of much profit,from that side of his possessions.Surely on this side,if on other,matters stood ill with him?The ingenuous arts had softened his manners;the parliamentary eloquences supplied him with a succedaneum for government,the popular literatures with the finer sensibilities of the heart:surely on this wind ward side of things the British reader was ill off?--Unhappy British reader!
In fact,the spiritual detriment we unconsciously suffer,in every province of our affairs,from this our prostrate respect to power of speech is incalculable.For indeed it is the natural consummation of an epoch such as ours.Given a general insincerity of mind for several generations,you will certainly find the Talker established in the place of ho;and the Doer,hidden in the obscure crowd,with activity lamed,or working sorrowfully forward on paths unworthy of him.All men are devoutly prostrate,worshipping the eloquent talker;and man ks what a scandalous idol he is.Out of whom in the mildest manner,like comfortable natural rest,comes mere asphyxia and death everlasting!Probably there is in Nature a more distracted phantasm than your commonplace eloquent speaker,as he is found on platforms,in parliaments,on Kentucky stumps,at tavern-dinners,in windy,empty,insincere times like ours.The "excellent Stump-orator,"as our admiring Yankee friends define him,he who in any occurrent set of circumstances can start forth,mount upon his "stump,"his rostrum,tribune,place in parliament,or other ready elevation,and pour forth from him his appropriate "excellent speech,"his interpretation of the said circumstances,in such manner as poor windy mortals round him shall cry bravo to,--he is an artist I can much admire,as matters go!Alas,he is in general merely the windiest mortal of them all;and is admired for being so,into the bargain.a windy blockhead there who kept silent but is better off than this excellent stump-orator.Better off,for a great many reasons;for this reason,were there other:the silent one is admired;the silent suspects,perhaps partly admits,that he is a kind of blockhead,from which salutary self-kledge the excellent stump-orator is debarred.A mouthpiece of Chaos to poor benighted mortals that lend ear to him as to a voice from Cosmos,this excellent stump-orator fills me with amazement.empty these musical wind-utterances of his;they are big with prophecy;they annce,too audibly to me,that the end of many things is drawing nigh!
Let the British reader consider it a little;he too is a little interested in it.Nay he,and the European reader in general,but he chiefly in these days,will require to consider it a great deal,--and to take important steps in consequence by and by,if I mistake .And in the mean while,sunk as he himself is in that bad element,and like a jaundiced man struggling to discriminate yellow colors,--he will have to meditate long before he in any measure get the immense meanings of the thing brought home to him;and discern,with astonishment,alarm,and almost terror and despair,towards what fatal issues,in our Collective Wisdom and elsewhere,this ion of talent meaning eloquent speech,so obstinately entertained this long while,has been leading us!Whosoever shall look well into origins and issues,will find this of eloquence and the part it plays in our affairs,to be one of the gravest pheena;and the excellent stump-orator of these days to be only a ridiculous but still more a highly tragical personage.While the many listen to him,the few are used to pass rapidly,with some gust of scornful laughter,some growl of impatient malediction;but he deserves from this latter class a much more serious attention.