The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-01-13
THE DELIRIUM OF TALK.

We boast ourselves a practical people,
yet there Is scarcely nation upon
earth which to such an extent allow IT.
self to be led by oratory, In public, ana
largely in private, life we can do moth
ing without speeches, except bury each
other, for happily the funeral Grafton
is not yet naturalized among us. we
are governed by orators, indeed 1t
would sometimes appear that Parlia-
ment existed for no other purpose but
to serve as a theatre for their perform
ance. Carlyle who himself perpetrated
vast amount of oratory, once handed
his secretary a cheque in recognition
of "ten years of luminous silence"
The nation would be grateful to the
members of the great "Palaver House.
for single session of such enlighten-
ing virtue. AS Lord Rosebery said at
Edinburgh the other day, the yall speak
too much and too often, The same thing
may be said OF county councils, boards,
Vestries, and other conciliabula of the
law courts, and even-we hint it with
whispering humbleness-of the church
es. We live, in fact in a whlrlwind OF
words, delirium of talk; and this UNI
wholesome environment leads to the de-
velopment of a neucrotic condition of
the political and social organism which
Is fraught with the gravest danger to
the commonWeal. More than once in
recent years the excitement of oratory
has led to attack of hysteria affecting
large numbers of the public, and 1t
| is conceivable that state of acute
national frenzy might be brought about
by tho same course. 1t is hardly too
much TO say, therefore, that the mere
orator is danger to society. Dr. lie
Bon has told us what the madness OF
crowds may lead to, and the orator has
the power of engendering this madness
and stimulating 1t to the highest pitch
of destructive fury, Not only does the
orator act upon the crowd, but it re-
acts upon him. He becomes intoxicated
with the exuberance of his own verbosity
and is carried into excuses of speech
which, when translated by those whom
he has influenced into action, he would
In his saner moments deplore.
A curious illustration of the possible
dangers of oratory was afforded re-
recently by the lunatic who lectured on
his own disease at Vienna. The lecture,
we are told, was admirable as display
of oratorical art; the wealth of ideas
was only equalled by the brilliancy of
expression The effect of such a dis
course on popular audience may
easily be imagined. The speaker
| might in this country have carried on
a campaign against the lunacy laws
the iniquities of mad DOCTORS" and the
horrors of madhorses which would have
led to an agitation for the setting free
of all lunatics and the abolition Of asy-
lums. And If "a tale told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury, signifyng moth
Ing" could do this, what might not a
course of inflammatory orations by a
master of the art of making the worse
appears the better reason onsubjects as
to which the people are without authori-
tative guidance, accomplish? Plato
banished poets from his republic, and
we are inclined TO think that it would
be for the good OF mankind If similar
course were adopted with orators.-
British Medical Journal.