The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-06-04
DEPEw AND LORD RosEBERY.
Two Great After-dinner Orators Dis
cussed by an English Newspaper.
From the London News.


Perhaps really gifted after-dinner
speakers are more numerous in New York
than in London, although we have some
remarkable specimens in London of the
after-dinner speakers with preparation
and the after dinner speakers without
preparation. The American after-dinner
speakers of the highest class would be
hard to beat in any civilized society. If
we had not Lord Rosebery in London we
should certainly envy New York Chaun-
cey Depew. But the American orators
Of Jhe second class are apt in their after
dinner speeches to soar too much
on the broad wings of the out
spread eagle Our after-dinner speak
ers here at home are not inspired by
any ambition of that kind. They
have that great merit at all events. Even
the inferior ones among them do not seem
i to care about hyperbOlic fights II is a
curious fact and worth contemplating that
in England, or at all events in London
every art, every craft, every clique, every
set processes to be in possession of the
finest after-dinner speaker now living A
man whose way Of life brings him INTO oc-
CasiOnal association with various profess
sions and occupations and who is vel
coined by all must meet every week in
his social course somebody who is de-
sCribed to him as the finest after-dinner
we fancy, that every profession
and art, and business and clique
does manage to 2, bring out some
| brilliant after-dinner speaker of it's own
and each set is as well entitled to pro-
claim its champion the greatest in the
world as Don QuixOte was entitled to pro-
| claim his Dulcinea the most beautiful of
lodi
who will not admit the necessity for after
dinner speeches at all. But even these
academical anarchists would be ready to
acknowledge that if there must be after
dinner speeches the praise should be given
to the men who speak the best. and who
can condense wit, humor paradox, illus
tration and elOquence into a shorter
speech than that which another man re-
quires in order to show that he can be
dull
No man can hammer or drill himself
into a good after dinner speaker. 1t is
possible that member of parliament, for
example, may begin by being very bad
political speaker and may train himselfbv
unwearied diligence, unconquerable per
severance, immortal self-conceit and at
| the expense of his audience to be a really
powerful parliamentary debater We all
know the stories about the attempt of
Sheridan and Disraeh, and in later DAYS
an example will occur to US of a public
man no longer in the modest representa-
tive chamber who began by being the
worst speaker the House of Commons had
ever heard, and who worked on to be q
very telling and effective debater. But
nothing of this kind can be done
by the after-dinner speaker. If he is
not born for the work it would be utterly
in vain his trying to outrage nature and
force himself upon an unwilling after
dinner public. Nobody cares for argu-
ment in an after-dinner speech. Nobody
wants to be instructed or even informed.
Nobody wants TO have moral pointed
unless it be indeed by pencil tipped with
light. You cannot say of the after-din-
ner speaker as you might of any other
orator: "Well, / think his manner was
bad and his language was poor, but you
must admit that it was marvellous piece
of argument No one wants even
n marvellous piece of argument
from an after-dinner speaker 1t
would be as well to expect sermons from q
skirt dancer. The after-dinner speaker
must not talk nonsense and must not talk
about nothing. But he must seem up to
the original, no matter what leisure he
may have given to get at the sources-the
head waters of his good things-and he
must be brilliant, even though his bril-
lance should have been carefully thought
out in the dark Wit is his province
more than wisdom, although dash of
the wisdom may be tolerated if il is
brought wrapped up in wit and humor.
like the sword of Harmodius among the
wreaths of laurel.