Webster, great debater that he was, knew that the real secret of a speaker's

power was an emotional one. He eloquently says of eloquence:

 

"Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire

after it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreak

of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with

spontaneous, original, native force.

 

"The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances

of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their

wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then

words have lost their power, rhetoric is in vain, and all elaborate oratory

contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the

presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent, then self-devotion is

eloquent. The clear conception outrunning the deductions of logic, the high

purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming

from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right

onward to his subject--this, this is eloquence; or rather, it is something

greater and higher than all eloquence; it is action, noble, sublime, godlike

action."

 

When traveling through the Northwest some time ago, one of the present writers

strolled up a village street after dinner and noticed a crowd listening to a

"faker" speaking on a corner from a goods-box. Remembering Emerson's advice