The Cotton Factory Times. — 1892-01-29 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

HOW TO BECOME GREAT.  Some young men, who think themselves gifted with genius, are inclined to the kangaroo style of progressing. They flatter themselves that they, at least, may attain to the heights of fame by a series of leaps, and that, too, without training or hard work. Before they begin their leapings, such fanciful young persons should ponder the words of Salvini, the great Italian actor, to the pupils of his art. "Above all, study—study—study," says this chieftain in a profession which is supposed to reserve its prizes for genius. "All the genius in the world," he adds, " will not help you along with any act unless you become a hard student. It has taken me years to master a single part." Macready, while stopping at a Boston Hotel, was heard crying " murder " for two hours. He was practising to aet the intonation which would express agony and fear. Charlotte Cushman, daring her public readings, once prepared for an encore by studying a comic anecdote. It was but twenty lines, yet for three days it was read and re-read, until she had learned the best way to bring out its ludicrous features. The successes of great orators have been due as much to their hard study as to their genius. They prepared for the fitting occasion, so that when it came it should find them ready. Lord Mansfield was gifted with genius, invention, grace of manner, and • a silver-toned voice. Yet he did not depend upon these natural gifts for oratorical skill, but laboured as hard to acquire it as if he had been a man of ordinary talents. He mastered the speeches of the Greek and Roman orators, and spent years in translating them. Frequent practice at a debating society gave him skill in extemporaneous speaking. He studied law and literature, and associated with "the wits" of the day that he might fertilise his mind. A contemporary might have supposed that nature had done so much for this silvertongued orator, in the way of voice and grace of manner, that he had no need to cultivate tones or gestures. But one day a .brother lawyer, having suddenly entered the orator's room, surprised him speaking a piece before a glass, and with Pope, the poet, sitting by as a critic. Such toils in a "born orator" should teach young men that even genius does not justify .the neglect of hard study, and much self-discipline, if one would become a master of his profession. If ever a man had a genius for oratory, it was the brilliant Irishmat, Henry Grattan. Yet it required years of study and practice to develop that genius. He used to play in private theatricals and declaim in the woods. Against him were his short stature, and long arms, and an awkward and grotesque manner. His personal appearance was not prepossessing; he had neither wit nor pathos, and at the beginning of his speeches he hesitated and drawled. But in spite of these natural defects he made himself, by hard work and much practice, one of the mastering orators of the House of Commons. Henry Clay said that he made himself an orator by forming the habit, at the age of 27, and exercising it for years after, of daily reading some good book and speaking upon a theme suggested by its contents. "These off-hand efforts," he said, in an address to young men, "were sometimes made in a cornfield, and at others in the forest, and not unfrequently in some distant barn, with the horse and ox for my auditors. It is to this early practice in the great art of all arts that I am indebted for the primary and leading impulses that stimulated me forward, and shaped and moulded my subsequent entire destiny. Improve, then, young gentlemen, the superior advantages you here enjoy. Let not a day pass without exercising your powers of speech.' Young man, there is no saoh thing as extemporaneous acquisition." These words were uttered by Webster to a young clergyman, who questioned him about a supposed extemporaneous speech. They should. be "inwardly digested" by every young man who thinks that his genius is a sort of "seven-leagues boots" by which he may step at once to the heights. "The ball is a coward, the bayonet a hero," said the fighting Russian general, Marshal Suwarof, famous for his charges. Adopting the spirit of the apothegm, we would say genius has made many a coward, industry many a hero. The lives of unsuccessful men abound in illustrations of genius retreating from the occasion for which it was too indolent to prepare.