The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-08-06 00:00:00

MR. G. A. SALA ON THE ART OF
SPEECH- MAKING.

In London, on Frila,y evening in last week, the
thirty-sixth anniversary festival in aid af the Royal
General Theatrical Fund was held at the Freemasons'
Tavern, under the presidency of Mr. Henry Irving.
There were about 200 guests present, amongst them
being Mr. H. J. Byron, Mr. G. A. Sala, Mr. J. L.
Toole, Mr. Sims Reeves, Mr. Russell Sturgis, Mr. E.
Clarke, M.P., Mr. E. L. Blanchard, Mr. W. Creswick,
Mr. Puleston, M.P., &c.,

Mr. Irving, in commending the Institution to public
support, remarked that no foundation cyuld be better
or more economically managed.
Responding to the principal toast, Mr. Swinbourne
announced the receipt of the Queen's donation of one
hundred pounds, and said that Mr. Betty had pro-
mised to bequeath ten thousand pounds to the Institu-
tion, which also had a prospect of receiving two thou-
sand pounds from the residue of an estate.
In the course of the evening, Mr. G. A. Sala, who
received a cordial greeting, responding to the toast of
"Literature and Art," said: I have somewhere read
that an illustrious statesman, who was likewise a most
fluent rhetorician, once remarked that he considered
an after-dinner speech to be one of the most arduous
and difficult flights of oratory imaginable, inasmuch as
it was, as a general rule, about nothing at all. (A
laugh.) Bowing, with due deference, to this dictum,
I may at the same time be permitted to express my
own humble opinion that the art of speechmaking,
under all and any circumstances, is a.most painful
and difficult one—to all those, at least, who have
not been born orators, as Brutus was, and as the
majority of Irishmen are. (Laughter.) Speaking
for myself, I can, in all seriousness and sincerity, say
that, whether the speech which I have had to deliver has
been perpetrated after dinner or before dinner, or, as has
frequently happened in the earlier stages of one's career,
without any prospect, within measurable distance, of
dinner at all—(laughter)—l have never begun my exor-
dium without experiencing a- sensation of nervous
terror; I have never pursugillipay argument without
undergoing mental and bodiPrvanguish ; I have never
concluded my peroration—ah ! blissful word, it should
be as soothing to the speaker and his hearers as
"that blessed word Mesopotamia "—(laughter)—l have
never brought my observations to a close without a
feeling of positive exultation. There are a good many
ways of preparing yourself for the utterance of a
speech in public. You may learn it by heart, and
repeat it over and over again in the solitude of your
own study the servants in the lower regions thinking
that you are quarrelling with your wife, or that you
have gone mad—(laughter)—or you may recite it in the
middle of Hampstead Heath, to the admira-
tion of the distant donkey-boys and the
somewhat suspicious perplexity of the park.
keepers, who are not quite certain as to whether they
oaght not to take you into custody for preaching in
the open air—(laughter)—or you may run down by an
early train to Brighton. and "spout" your speech to
the sad sea waves until it is time to run back again to
town, to assume the sable livery of woe called evening
dress, and to surrender yourself to the adamantine
chains and penal fires of a public dinner. (Great
laughter.) You are letter perfect in your speech about
the time when the soup is being served. You are not
quite so certain about your being letter perfect at the
period of the iced pudding making its a ppearance ; and
when, ultimately, the fatal voice of the toastmaster bids
you rise, and, trembling and perspiring, you begin your
speech, you find that you have forgotten all about it.
(Laughter.) Or "another way," as Mrs. Gla,sse would
say. You may write out your speech on a number of
little squares of paper, holding them neatly arranged,
in the hollow of your hand, and glancing at the slips
in a crafty manner as you speak, and slily turning
them over. This is not by any means a bad system
to adopt, unless, indeed, as it will happen with melan-
choly frequency, you find slip five followed by slip_
fifteen, and that by slip nine—when the result is
collapse. (Great laughter,) Finally, there is the rough.
and-reads' way—the Homeric way—of plunging at
once in medias rCS, thrusting your hands in your
pbckets, fixing your eyes on and levelling your voice
at an imaginary old lady with a crimson turban and
a bird of paradise feather in it at the opposite ex-
tremity of the hall, and simply saying what comes
into your head. Thus, lam simply making as articu-
late as I am able to do certain crude and blunder-
ing thoughts of mine, when I say that I rejoice
from the bottom of my heart to find myself a guest in
this hall to-night, and to be called upon by the accom-
plished president of the evening, my dear friend Henry
Irving, to return thanks for the toast of "Literature
and Art." We know that the connection between
literature and art is close, constant, and affectionate,
while the love between literature and the stage was
never stronger than it is at the present time. As with
a fable, so with a speech—it is never complete without
a moral; and the moral of my speech is that you
should support the Royal General Theatrical Fund
with all the power that you are capable of. (Cheers.)
Subscriptions to the amount of eleven hundred
pounds were announced at the dinner.