four she lives her character. Booth, it is reported, would not permit anyone to

speak to him between the acts of his Shakesperean roles, for he was Macbeth

then--not Booth. Dante, exiled from his beloved Florence, condemned to death,

lived in caves, half starved; then Dante wrote out his heart in "The Divine

Comedy." Bunyan entered into the spirit of his "Pilgrim's Progress" so

thoroughly that he fell down on the floor of Bedford jail and wept for joy.

Turner, who lived in a garret, arose before daybreak and walked over the hills

nine miles to see the sun rise on the ocean, that he might catch the spirit of

its wonderful beauty. Wendell Phillips' sentences were full of "silent

lightning" because he bore in his heart the sorrow of five million slaves.

 

There is only one way to get feeling into your speaking--and whatever else you

forget, forget not this: _You must actually ENTER INTO_ the character you

impersonate, the cause you advocate, the case you argue--enter into it so deeply

that it clothes you, enthralls you, possesses you wholly. Then you are, in the

true meaning of the word, in _sympathy_ with your subject, for its feeling is

your feeling, you "feel with" it, and therefore your enthusiasm is both genuine

and contagious. The Carpenter who spoke as "never man spake" uttered words born

out of a passion of love for humanity--he had entered into humanity, and thus

became Man.

 

But we must not look upon the foregoing words as a facile prescription for

decocting a feeling which may then be ladled out to a complacent audience in

quantities to suit the need of the moment. Genuine feeling in a speech is bone

and blood of the speech itself and not something that may be added to it or