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Excerpt from Oratory and Orators
N saying that his object in writing this book has been to aid' in awakening a fresh interest in oratory in this country, the author will probably provoke a smile from his readers. What! He hears some one exclaim, have we not an excess of public Speakers already? Is not the ¿ux ole bouche, - which is said to be the epidemic of republics, one of the greatest evils that can af¿ict a country? Does not Carlyle declare that 'silence is the eternal duty of man,' and that 'england and America are going to nothing but wind and In reply, we would say that we have no Wish to let loose a fresh troop of shallow declaimers upon the country; on the contrary, we feel intensely the social misery which a single declaimer, with a powerful memory, leathern lungs, and a ¿uent tongue, may in¿ict on the public. The Ro man poet, Horace, Speaks of one Novius, an office-holder at Rome, - a tribune, who was elevated to the station he held, chie¿y by the force of his lungs. Has he not a voice, demanded his supporters, loud enough to drown the noise of two hundred wagons and three funerals meeting in the forum? It is this that pleases us, and we have therefore made him tribune.
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