Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1868-12-31
Rates of Advertising.
Can EIOqueucc be Acquired.

4 correspondent who signs his note
Law Student" asks our opinion "wEeth>
or eloquenee is chiefly natural gift. or
can be ACQUIRED? The question is one
that cannot be answered satisfactorily in
a few sentences, and we therefore give our
reply here rather than in The department
devoted to correspondents.
/ Of all the gifts of genius, that of elo~
ouence is one of the most mysterious and
difficult of analysis. Like the inspiration
ofthe poet, or the brilliant conceptions OF
painter. it flows from source which is
beyond the reach of human KEN 1t Is
not acquired; as WEBSTER has pithily said
"labor and learning may toll for II. but
they will toll in vain The profoundest
reflection and the most exhaustess knows
edge are alike unavailiug here. Nature
alone il is that can inspire that rapturous
enlhusiasm-tha burning passion-that
furious pride and jov of the soul" which
calls up all the imagination of the orator,
that makes his rhetoric become whirl-
wind, and his logic. fire.
The grandest bursts--the most electriS-
| ing passages-in. tine annals Of eloquence;
have been those which have cost the least
trouble; for they came as if by inspiration!
Like chariot wheel in violent raotion, the
soul of the orator catches fire in the swifts
ness of its movement, and throws eff those
divine flashes which fascinate mankind.
Chatham's indignant burst in reply to the
Duke Of Richmond was of this character,
and who does not pay homage TO its lofty
grandure? Thurlow's scathing reply to
the Duke of Grafton when the latter had
taunted him with mean extraction-Grat-
tan S overwhelming deHunciation of Flood
I--Erskine's sublime apostrophe on tho
trial of Stockdale, when lie spoke Of "the
savage in terms so startling and tIiumpho
ant--were all gushes Of inspiration Who
tha: reads lIenry's burning speeches can
doubt that lis most thrilling appeal were
prompted by q similar flush of feeling?
And to go back 10 the great orators OF
ntiquity, how strikingly Is this exempli
fed in their most memorable triumphs.
I: was not from rules and precepts that
Demosthenes derived that eloquence
which is represented as Tightening, bear
ing down every opposer. No study--no
elaborate preparation--could have produ,
ctd those electric appeals which turnsd
whole assemblies with astonishment; which
are compared by his contemporaries to the
torrent, the flame. and every other instance
Of irresistible impeiuosity. To all such
orators Tie secret of their granaest success
WAS doubtless as much mystery as TO
their hcarer. They had arranged nothing
prepared nothing. A leading idea--a
central thought perhaps presented
to the IN ind; but the distribution of tho
figures, and the harmonious adaptation OF
the colors, was left TO that wonderful ins
fluence which directs genius and conse
crates it to Immortality.
But though eloquence is gift, and not
an art to he learned by rote, yet 1t by no
means follows that books and instructions
on the subject are of no value. Because
some men have swayed assemblies witL>
out Cicero or Quintilian, it does not follow
that oratorical success may be command.
ed without instruction. Even supposing
that the Brights, Punshons, and Beechers
of our day are a rule unto themselves, they
are still but brilliant exceptions 10 gener
al principle; and the fact still remains that
the vast majority of our orators-men who
/
speak at the bar, in the pulpit, and in the
Senate might greatly improve their
natural gifts. by assiduous attention TO
those rhetorical rules which have been de-
rived from a profound study of the mas~
/ ters OF the art, and are set forth in works
on eloquence. When Mozart was asked
how he set 10 work 10 compose sympLo-
ny, he replied, '.If yoI once think how
you are ;e do it, you viii never write any,
thing worth hearing; write because l
cannot hep it," But there has been but
one Mozart, and even he must have been
profound student of his art. Cicero, who
was born orator, did not disdain the
schools of the rhetoricians, bnt confesses
in all bis writings that he owed much 10
their teachings. gc ~ bas 9s1oi Hlp
Whiefield had the most dazzling natu.
raj gifts, yet lie cultivated the histrionic
art with The most jealous care, and Foote
and Garrick tell us that his ora,ory was
not at its full hight Until he had repeated
discourse forty times.
In every profession there are men whe
leap TO the nights without much training
but we know net how much higher they
might have risen. had they addeS all poss
BILE acquired ability to the gifts of nature.
"Where natural logic prevails not" says
Sir Thomas Brown, artificial too ,eften
faileth; but when industry builds upon
nature we may expect. Pyramids. CHI
| cAGoAN. ~i+
Hypocrisy is the worlds tacit ac-
knowledgement of the superiority Of
! yirtua r.st.H .f- .-e