Northern tribune. [volume] (Cheboygan, Mich.) 1875-1885, 1883-06-30
After-Dinner Speaking.

George Augustus Sala, reputed to be
the best after-dinner speaker in En-
gland, in speech at the thirty-sixth
annual festival in aid of the Royal Cen
eral Theatrical Fund said:
have somewhere read that an illus
trious statesman, who was likewise
most fluent rhetorician, once remarked
that he considered an after-dinner
speech to be one of the most arduous
and difficult flights of oratory imagin-
able, inasmuch as it was, as general
rule, about nothing at all. A laugh.
Bowling, with due Difference to this
dictum, / may at the same time be per-
mitted to express my own humble opin-
ion that the art of speech-making, UNI
der all and any circumstances, is most
painful and difficult one to all those,
at least who have not been born or
ators, as Brutus, and as the majority of
Irishmen are. Laughter. Speaking
for myself, can, in all seriousness and
sincerity, say that, whether the speech
which l have had TO deliver has been
perpetrated after dinner or before dim
ner, or, as has frequently happened in
the earlier stages of ones career, with
out any prospect within measurable dis
lance of dinnerat all Ilaughter], have
never begun my exOdium without
experiencing sensation of nervous
terror; have never pursued any argu-
ment without undergoing mental and
bodily anguish; have never con-
Guided my peroration-ahp blissful
word, it should be as soothing to the
speaker and his hearers as "that
blessed word Mesopotamia" laugh
ter i have never brought my OBJ
servations to close without feeling
of positive exultation. There are
good many ways of preparing yourself
for the utterance of a speech in pub
lie. You may learn it by heart, and
repeat it over and over again in the
solitude of your own study, the serv-
ants in the lower regions thinking that
you are quarreling with your wife, or
that you have gone mad [laughter]; or
you may recite it in the middle of
Hampstead Heath, to the admiration of
the distant donkey-boys and the some
what suspicious perplexity of the park
keepers, who are not quite certain as
to whether they ought to take you into
custody for preaching in the open
air [laughter]; OF 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 to
town to assume the sable livery of
so-called evening dress, and to sur
render yourself to the adamantine
chains and penal fires of public dinner.
1Great laughter You are letter per-
feet in your speech about the time when
the soup is being served. You are not
quite so certain about being letter per-
feet at the period when the iced pud-
ding makes its appearances; and when,
ultimately, the fatal voice of the toast
master 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. Glass would say. You
may write out your speech on 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 slyly
turning them over. This is not by any
means a bad system to adopt, unless in
deed, as it will happen with melancholy
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-ready
way-the Homeric way-of plunging ut
once in medals res, thrusting your hands
in your pockets, fixing your eyes on and
1eveling your voice at an imaginary old
lady with crimson turban and bird
of paradise feather in it at the opposite
extremely of the hall, and simply say
ing what comes into your head.