substracted at will. In the ideal address theme, speaker and audience become

one, fused by the emotion and thought of the hour.

 

_The Need of Sympathy for Humanity_

 

It is impossible to lay too much stress on the necessity for the speaker's

having a broad and deep tenderness for human nature. One of Victor Hugo's

biographers attributes his power as an orator and writer to his wide sympathies

and profound religious feelings. Recently we heard the editor of _Collier's

Weekly_ speak on short-story writing, and he so often emphasized the necessity

for this broad love for humanity, this truly religious feeling, that he

apologized twice for delivering a sermon. Few if any of the immortal speeches

were ever delivered for a selfish or a narrow cause--they were born out of a

passionate desire to help humanity; instances, Paul's address to the Athenians

on Mars Hill, Lincoln's Gettysburg speech, The Sermon on the Mount, Henry's

address before the Virginia Convention of Delegates.

 

The seal and sign of greatness is a desire to serve others. Self-preservation is

the first law of life, but self-abnegation is the first law of greatness--and of

art. Selfishness is the fundamental cause of all sin, it is the thing that all

great religions, all worthy philosophies, have struck at. Out of a heart of real

sympathy and love come the speeches that move humanity.

 

Former United States Senator Albert J. Beveridge in an introduction to one of

the volumes of "Modern Eloquence," says: "The profoundest feeling among the