It is for this reason that speaking requires to be in some degree verbose. In writing we may be brief, suggestive, and epigrammatic, because each word remains to be pondered over; but that which falls. on the ear not being so permanent as that which falls on paper, fullness and many-lighted treatment is indispensable.

The "Encyclopedia Metropolitana" has the following practical synopsis of the leading characteristics which conduce to Effectiveness: "As regards the style which speakers should use for the public, it is clear that a style too terse is unintelligible to the majority; while the remedy usually adopted, that of using a prolix and amplifying mode of expression, is repugnant to the public, who never fail to desert a speaker who employs it. The better plan is to use brief and terse sentences, and often repeat the same* idea, not by a mere substitution of terms, but by a different arrangement of the members, reversing the premises, or conclusion, etc., never forgetting in the repetition always to use terse sentences. Burke is for this an admirable model.

"While it is always preferable to use short sentences, it must not be supposed that long sentences are always to be avoided. Long sentences, with a proper arrangement of their members, so that the audience may know what is aimed at, and not be compelled to reread, or call back to memory a sentence just uttered, are by no means obnoxious. If they induce trouble, by requiring a second reference, they cause ambiguity, because readers and auditors will not willingly give themselves this trouble. It is a common fault with authors to suppose a clause intelligible because on their reading it appears to suit

but they forget that when they peruse it they know what is coming, which is more than can be expected of an audience. Hence it frequently happens that the best read and the 'best informed are frequently the worst expounders of their particular subjects of thought and study.

"In laying before the public any exposition, it is absolutely essential to avoid all nice distinctions that please, and indeed are necessary to a discourse in the closet. The oration is similar to a large picture to be viewed at a distance, where nice lines are unseen, or perhaps annoying, while broad, nay, sometimes vulgar strokes are seen, admired, and consequently effective.

"In preparing for the press, as the style was in the former case reversed from the nicety of an essay, it must be again returned to its original propriety.

"As regards delivery, it is not advisable to adopt any system of studied action, modulation of voice, or mimicry of others, but merely to thoroughly understand the subject; and reading or speaking, açcording to sense, allow nature to modulate the voice in her own way, which will inevitably be the

best.

"In speaking, it has often been a matter of deep and curious consideration that a person will explain his views to a single individual in such terms as to force conviction in many instances, and where he fails the exposition would be just such a one as would please an audience. It is notorious that what will not convince one or two will be most effective on many persons; yet while he can succeed in the more difficult task with one or two, when he comes before an audience he is totally abashed, and cannot utter

sense.

two consecutive sentences with propriety, energy, or An analysis proves this bashfulness to be concomitant with other phenomena: 1. The increased liveliness of sympathy with numbers; 2. The constant and free operation of this sympathy thus lively throughout the entire audience. The bashfulness of a speaker may therefore be attributable to intricate action and reaction of these several sympathies. There is, 1. The sympathy of the speaker with the audience; 2. The fact that the speaker knows how each individual sympathizes with him; and, 3. The knowledge of the speaker of the great sympathy existing between all the members of the audience.

"It is therefore necessary that the speaker should endeavor to lose sight of himself in the audience, and be guided and inspired wholly by the subject, having full confidence in his views and in the necessary relations of things, to render an exposition so attempted perfectly successful. This is the reason that vulgar speakers so frequently succeed. Their very eccentricities and vulgarities show the honesty and earnestness of purpose, and it is that that never fails to prosper."

CHAPTER XVIII.

MASTERY.

It is truly held by great teachers that the most useful lesson the young thinker has to master is to learn one thing at a time. Experience tells us that it is also the most difficult. He is initiated into

the art of thinking (power of consecutiveness is the principal sign of this art) who can think of one thing at a time; and he is master of the art who can think of any one thing when he pleases. That which distracts and discourages the young student is confounding the steps of progress with the results and displays of perfection. He confounds the elements of an art with the refinement of its mastery. Let him observe the gradations between incipient efforts and remote excellence, and the perplexity is cleared up, the difficulty surmounted, the discouragement dissipated.

When Dr. Black had a class of young men at the Reform Association, he disciplined them in rhetoric. by causing each to marshal his discourse on a chosen theme under certain heads. These heads once gone over, he required them to be spoken upon by inversion, beginning probably with the peroration, continuing with the argument, taking afterward the statement or other division belonging to the theme, and ending with the exordium. Not until a member could speak equally well on any one head, and in any order, was he deemed master of his subject.

Professor de Morgan, who is considered the greatest of our mathematical teachers, remarks, in a paper which he furnished to Dr. Lardner's Geometry, that to number the parts of propositions is the only way of understanding them. Indeed, all great teachers admit that to identify details and grasp the whole are the two indices of proficiency.

Margaret Fuller relates how backwoodsmen of America, whom she visited, would sit by their log fire at night and tell "rough pieces out of their lives." This disintegration of events by men strong of will and full of matter, in order to set distinct parts

before auditors, is a sign of that power which we call mastery. The ability of the backwoodsman would be natural ability; but all ability is the same in nature, though different in refinement. Ability is always power under command.

A barrister will occasionally state a complex case to the jury before him, beginning with the simplest circumstance, continuing with the more difficult, arranging the facts in such order that the series. throws light on the most obscure, that the whole case may be fully understood. When he feels this to be accomplished he returns, recapitulates, extracts those points that are to have most weight and puts them before the attention in the most prominent and forcible manner, and if his brief will afford it, like Fitzroy Kelly, he sheds tears to make his rhetoric pathetic. Without this power of statement, analyzation, and enforcement of special facts at will, a man is not master of his subject; his subject is rather master of him.

In learning grammar, the parts of speech have first to be distinguished: nouns, verbs, descriptives. When these can be identified instantly, and in any order; when their signs are evident on cursory inspection, parsing is surmounted. When the inflections of these words are as readily perceived, another stage of progress is insured. When the subject, attribute, and object of a sentence are readily known, a third point is attained. There is a natural order of speech-the order of the understanding, the order in which the subject is placed first, the affirmation second, the object last. When these positions can be transposed with ease, and the sense preserved, an additional portion of power is attained. When com