FEELING AND ENTHUSIASM

 

Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit that hovers over the production

of genius.

 

--ISAAC DISRAELI, _Literary Character_.

 

If you are addressing a body of scientists on such a subject as the veins in a

butterfly's wings, or on road structure, naturally your theme will not arouse

much feeling in either you or your audience. These are purely mental subjects.

But if you want men to vote for a measure that will abolish child labor, or if

you would inspire them to take up arms for freedom, you must strike straight at

their feelings. We lie on soft beds, sit near the radiator on a cold day, eat

cherry pie, and devote our attention to one of the opposite sex, not because we

have reasoned out that it is the right thing to do, but because it feels right.

No one but a dyspeptic chooses his diet from a chart. Our feelings dictate what

we shall eat and generally how we shall act. Man is a feeling animal, hence the

public speaker's ability to arouse men to action depends almost wholly on his

ability to touch their emotions.

 

Negro mothers on the auction-block seeing their children sold away from them

into slavery have flamed out some of America's most stirring speeches. True, the

mother did not have any knowledge of the technique of speaking, but she had

something greater than all technique, more effective than reason: feeling. The

great speeches of the world have not been delivered on tariff reductions or