The Victorian Art of Speaking: An Introduction Letter (1879)

Introductory.

You have asked me for hints to help you in your studies of the Art of Oratory. I readily comply with your request, and I will endeavor to throw together my thoughts upon it in a shape that may possibly be useful to others also. It is a subject in which I have taken much interest, and on which I hope to be enabled to convey to you some suggestions not to be found in existing treatises.

I wanted to be told what to do, how to do it, and how to learn to do it.

But I must take the liberty to change its name. I do not like the title, — oratory; it has a pretentious sound. We do not think or talk of a man as an orator unless he excels in the art; we look upon an oration as something higher and grander than a speech. If a man were to call himself “an orator,” we should call him conceited; but he might call himself “a speaker” without reproach to his modesty. So, if I were to profess to give you hints for the study of oratory, I should be reasonably met by the objection that I am not myself “an orator,” and therefore have no right to appear as a teacher of oratory. But by the requirements of my profession I am compelled to be “a speaker,”—an indifferent one, I know,—and therefore I may venture, without incurring the charge of presumption, to impart to others so much as I may chance to have learned about the Art of Speaking.

Writing, Reading and Speaking: Three Cultured Arts

But speaking is only one form in which the mind expresses its thoughts. There are two other accomplishments, so intimately allied with the Art of Speaking, that I could not treat fully and satisfactorily of the one, without treating more or less of the others. I propose, therefore, to enlarge the main subject, and, embracing the allied Arts of Writing, Reading, and Speaking, to treat of each separately, but with more particular reference to the connection of the Arts of Composition and of Reading with the Art of Speaking.

And this title, indeed, exactly expresses my design. I contemplate nothing more than to convey to you the lessons taught to me by personal experience, as well as by reading and reflection, relating to the arts which enable a man publicly to give utterance to his own thoughts and the thoughts of others, so that his audience may hearken to him with pleasure and understand him without difficulty.

Eloquence Is an Art to Be Learned

Writing is a necessary part of education for all, and Reading ought to be so. Oratory is the business of the bar and of the church: it is only the accomplishment of other callings. Unless you are content to subside into the chamber counsel, or to sit forever briefless in the courts, you must learn to think aloud, to clothe your thoughts in appropriate language, and so to utter them that your audience may listen to you willingly. To do this is not wholly a gift of nature, though many of nature’s gifts are needed for its accomplishment. It is an art, to be learned by careful study and laborious practice. I do not assert that it can be acquired by all who may desire its attainment; on the contrary, it is certain that many are by nature disqualified from even tolerable proficiency in it. But, if you possess the qualifications, mental and physical, requisite for the work, it is certain that you may advance to much greater proficiency in the art by pursuing it as an art, instead of leaving it, as is the too frequent practice, to be developed by accident and cultivated by chance.

When I was entering, as you are now, upon the study of my profession, conscious of the necessity for acquiring the art of speaking, I sought anxiously in the libraries for a teacher. I found many books professing to elucidate the mysteries of oratory, and each contained some hints that were useful, amid much that was useless. But none supplied the information I most wanted. One was great upon inflections of the voice; another was learned upon logic; a third discoursed eloquently on rhetoric; a fourth professed to teach the composition of a sentence. There was no harm in all this, it is true; it was not wholly worthless; but it did not supply what I required. I wanted to be told what to do, how to do it, and how to learn to do it. After pondering over the pages of my many masters, I did not feel myself better qualified to stand up and make a speech; on the contrary, I was perplexed by the multitude of counsellors, and the variety and often the contradictions of their advice, and I felt that, if it be necessary that I should, while speaking, keep before me one twentieth part of the propounded rules, I should have no time to think what to say. I turned the key of my door, and attempted to put those rules into practice where failure would not be ruin, and I found that neither language, nor voice, nor gesture, as prescribed in the books, was natural and easy, but pedantic, stiff, and ungainly. After patient trial, I threw aside the books, and sought to acquire the art of speaking by a different process,—by writing, to teach facility and correctness of language; and by reading aloud, to teach the art of expressing thoughts.

Learning Through Observation

Success was, however, but partial. Little practical guidance in the arts of writing or of reading could be obtained from the books that professed to teach them. I had to grope my way to the object, halting and stumbling, moving on and trying back, but nevertheless making some progress. I learned at least as much from failures as from successes, for thus I was taught what not to do. Assistance was eagerly sought in every quarter whence help could come. I read books and listened to lectures; “sat under” eloquent preachers; watched famous actors; frequented public meetings, political and religious; and practised speechifying in a small way to worthy and independent electors who were too tipsy to be critical. From these I gathered a great deal of instruction, not to be found in scientific treatises, as to the manner in which a man must talk if he would persuade his fellow-men. Subsequent experience has much enlarged that knowledge. My profession has provided almost daily opportunities for seeing and hearing orators of all degrees of power and skill, observing audiences of all classes and capacities, and noting the treatment of subjects of infinite variety to kindle the speaker and attract the hearer. When I was a listener, the question was ever present to my mind, “How are we, the hearers, affected by this? Are you, the speaker, going to work in the right way to effect your purpose?” If the speech was a failure, I asked myself wherefore it was so? if a success, what was the secret of that success?

My personal experiences have not been large, but they have been very valuable as means for making trial of hints suggested by the efforts of others, and not less so by the proof they have afforded that it is one thing to know what ought to be done, and another thing to do it.

Diligent study of writers and speakers upon the art of speaking and the practice of it had taught me a great deal of what I ought to do; but I could achieve only partial success in the doing of it. Performance fell very far indeed short of knowledge. I made the unpleasing discovery that faults which are personal are not removed by mental recognition of the right. I felt painfully, from the first, that I could not act up to my own intentions, nor put into practice that which I was able distinctly to define in theory.

Performance fell very far indeed short of knowledge.

I state so much by way of introduction, that you may understand wherefore I presume to teach what I confess myself incompetent to practise; and why, being but an indifferent speaker, I venture to treat of the art of speaking. Plainly, then, it is in this wise. For many years I have devoted much time and thought to the subject. By observation, reading, experience, and reflection, I have obtained some practical knowledge how the art of speaking may be studied and should be practised, which, collected, arranged, and set forth as clearly as I can, may, perhaps, save yourself and others much of the labor that was lost to me for the want of an assistant and guide. In a few letters I may possibly be enabled to convey to you the fruit of years of unassisted toil; and, although I cannot hold out to you the promise that any amount of instruction can, without long and large practice, accomplish you as an orator, I am not without hope that you may so far profit by my hints as to escape many of the difficulties and some of the errors that have beset myself, and into which the unguided steps of a learner are sure to wander.

And the same observations apply to the allied arts of writing and reading, upon which I also propose to offer you some hints.

Mrs. Jane Aster