straightforward, unadorned statement of facts and arguments. The purpose is not to excite passion or awaken sympathy, to command or to persuade-but to convince the sober judgment. Hence fine words, polished sentences, and flights of eloquence are inadmissible. The words should not be wasted in formal introductions or perorations, but go at once to the point. Sedulously avoid committing to paper a single sentence you purpose to say. Arm yourself well with the facts and figures; have clearly in your mind the argument by which you apply them to "the question," and trust to your mother wit to express them in the fittest language-the fittest being not the best, but that which is most likely to be understood readily by your audience; and such are the words that come to us spontaneously whenever we really have something to say.

But although you should on no account write even a sentence of a business speech-if you are about to cite figures, you should come well armed with them upon paper. Do not trust your memory with these, for it may prove treacherous at any moment, and throw you into utter confusion. Some small skill is required in so arraying figures that their results may be readily intelligible to your audience. Hence the necessity for the exercise of much forethought in the marshalling of your facts. This is study-work; it must be performed upon paper, with due deliberation, arranged and rearranged, until all is cast into the most convincing form.

A few words here as to the use and abuse of facts and figures in oratory.

The vast majority of persons love a fact and a sentiment, but loathe an argument; because all can comprehend the former, and few can understand the

latter. Minds that can reason a single step beyond the necessary requirements of existence are a small minority. A single fact that seems to confirm an opinion that has been taken upon trust weighs more with such minds than a logical demonstration. In like manner, a sentiment is vehemently applauded, and accepted as if it were proof, by those who feel but cannot think. Facts and figures are essential ingredients in a business speech; but they require careful handling, for they are addressed to the reasoners as well as to those who cannot reason. The art of effectively manipulating facts and figures in a speech, where the audience have not time to grasp the details, as when they read, consists in an elaborate and careful exposition of the results, for these will be readily apprehended and easily remembered, while the items are unheard or forgotten. If, for instance, your theme be Crime and Punishment. You show the operation of existing punishments upon crime by reference to the Judicial Statistics. To make your argument complete it is necessary for you to state the items that compose the totals, for the reporter will need these for the satisfaction of your readers, although your audience cannot possibly follow the calculations with the speed of your utterance. You may therefore recite them briefly and rapidly; but what you desire to impress upon other minds is the result you deduce from them: you show that crime has or has not increased by a certain percentage, or in a certain ratio to the whole population, or in a certain direction; and such conclusions you should invariably put forward in the plainest language, with emphatic utterance, and even repeat them twice or thrice, to be assured that they are understood by all.

The Business Speech is one degree more formal than

the conversational debate. It should be well planned, with attention to natural logic; and if the argument it contains is in any degree abstruse-nay, in any case-it is a prudent practice to wind up with a repetition of the conclusions to which you have designed to conduct your hearers. Let the speech abound in illustration, but be sparing of ornament; your purpose is not to please, but to inform. They who choose to listen do so because the subject interests them; they have come for a certain work; they desire to perform it as speedily as possible, and they resent as a waste of time whatever does not contribute directly to the common object. The man who most readily commands a hearing in the House is not he who makes the finest speeches, but he who speaks sensibly on subjects on which he is well informed. Hence it is that many men have a good reputation in the House, and no fame out of it, and are heard there with respectful silence, although wanting in every grace of oratory. The best training for the Business Speech is frequent practice of the Colloquial Speech, already described; and the best field for its exercise, especially for the beginner, is in Committee of the whole House upon Bills, when the attendance is usually thin, the opportunity for rising frequent, and there is no criticism to be feared.

The third division of the Oratory of the Senate is that of the Oration, properly so called-the set speech on a set subject, after formal notice, with time for preparation, when the speaker is expected to be prepared. The great occasions for these grand exercises are the bringing forward of a motion on a subject of high importance, or asking for leave to bring in a Bill affecting weighty interests. The initiative being then with you, it is your

business to put the House in possession of the entire of the

case the facts, the arguments, the conclusions you deduce from them. In such an enterprise every resource of your art is open to you-nay, is required of you. You may appeal to the passions, to the sympathies, to the sentiments, to the reason, of your hearers; you may strive to convince or to persuade, to win or to warn. You cannot be too eloquent, provided it be true eloquence. Your discourse should be a composition constructed with consummate art, on a definite plan, complete in all its parts, and perfect as a whole. The hints that have been submitted to you in the preceding letters will here be put in requisition-alike as to the structure of the speech, its composition, its ornaments, and its utterance. I need not, therefore, now repeat them. Suffice it to say, that it should be carefully prepared, not in actual wording, but in thought. Commit the plan to paper, but only the plan. Sketch in tabular array your course of argument, so arranged that the eye may catch in a moment the suggestion at any part where your memory may have failed you. If there are figures, or a quotatation, set them out in full at their proper places. But write no more than this, unless it be the peroration, which high authorities have recommended, both by precept and example, as a proper subject for utterance from the memory. I am not quite satisfied that they are right. I doubt whether the transition from the language of extempore speaking to the very different structure of a written composition is not so manifest as to jar upon the ear and offend the taste. On the other hand, I admit the necessity for a striking close to a good speech, and that its effect is much heightened by rising gradually to a climax of thought and language. I acknowledge the extreme difficulty of accomplishing this

by a single effort of the mind, without correction or choice of expressions. At all events, only great genius or intense emotion can extemporise such bursts of eloquence, and it will be safer for average men to prepare their perorations, writing them, correcting them, elaborating them, until they satisfy the taste of the author. But inasmuch as it is very difficult for any man to form a correct judgment of his own recent compositions, it would be desirable, if practicable, to call to your aid a judicious friend, and submit the work to his criticism and correction, before it is finally adopted and committed to the memory.

More than this I cannot recommend you to attempt, for I have witnessed the most painful failures from adoption of the advice given by some writers on oratory, that you should compose and commit to memory certain passages in your speech, to be introduced at points that afford opportunities for a flourish. The transition from the extempore to the written passages is manifest, and mars the unity of the work. The interpolated paragraphs rarely fit into the places into which they are thrust; they are almost certain to be out of keeping with that which preceded or with that which follows. Even if the ideas should harmonise, the construction of the sentences and the language are sure not to do so. And not only the matter, but the manner, undergoes an awkward change. The very tone of the voice and aspect of the countenance are different when you speak from the mind or from the memory. This is unpleasantly apparent to the least critical of your audience. Then the balder and tamer parts of your discourse appear doubly bald and tame after the flowers and the fume of the eloquence that had gone before. Last of all, but not