CHAPTER XV

RATE (RANGES)

In a previous chapter we considered the use of the various rates, moderate, rapid and slow, as applied to single words and sentences, with a view to clearness, emphasis, and suggestiveness of expression. Rate variation with respect to words and sentences will be more or less in evidence throughout every address. At the same time, for sections, or phases of a speech, there should be a generally prevailing rate which is in keeping with the character of the thought or feeling. In his "Oratory and Orators," Matthews cites an incident which bears directly on this point.

"When Sheridan, after passing the night in the House of Commons, was asked what his impression was, he said he had been chiefly struck with the difference of manner between Fox and Lord Stormont. The latter began by declaring in a slow, solemn, drawling, nasal tone, that 'When he considered the enormity and the unconstitutional tendency of the measures just proposed, he was hurried away in a torrent of passion and a whirlwind of impetuosity,' pausing between every word and syllable; while the former, speaking with the rapidity of lightning, and with breathless anxiety and impatience, said that 'such was the magnitude, such the importance, such the vital interest of this question, that he could not help imploring, he could not help adjuring

the House to come to it with the utmost coolness, the utmost deliberation.'

The student must realize that the effect produced upon an audience by the rate of speaking is very definite. Therefore, he should not only avoid making an impression of insincerity or lack of real appreciation of his subject by ridiculous contradictions of matter and delivery, but he should benefit by the positive advantage which derives from a harmonious adaptation of rate to topic.

Normal Rate

The bulk of matters discussed in speeches makes no special requirement for either rapidity or slowness as the prevailing rate of utterance. It is, therefore, highly desirable to develop as a habit a moderate rate. This is often called the "normal" rate, and it might be supposed that, being normal, or natural, it would need no cultivation. However, the fact is that even in conversation, where people are ordinarily self-possessed, speech which is deliberate enough to be easily understood, and sufficiently fluent not to be boresome, is not common. Before an audience, where one's poise is more or less disturbed, faulty tendencies are likely to be exaggerated; and even people who speak admirably in conversation, but who have had little experience before audiences, are less effective in public. Some speakers drawl, often filling the spaces between words with sundry “ah” and “uh" sounds, which are painful to the listeners. A greater number talk too rapidly, for ordinary purposes, making it difficult to hear the words, to say nothing of following the thoughts. Our first aim, then, is to establish as a habit a moderate rate which leans, if at all, toward deliberateness.

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SELECTIONS FOR PRACTICAL APPLICATION

A FALSE ANALOGY

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"If," they say, free competition is a good thing in trade, it must surely be a good thing in education. The supply of other commodities, of sugar, for example, is left to adjust itself to the demand; and the consequence is, that we are better supplied with sugar than if the government undertook to supply us. Why then should we doubt that the supply of instruction will, without the intervention of the government, be found equal to the demand?"

Whether a

Never was there a more false analogy. man is supplied with sugar is a matter which concerns himself alone. But whether he is well supplied with instruction is a matter which concerns his neighbors and the State. If he cannot afford to pay for sugar he must go without sugar. But it is by no means fit that, because he cannot afford to pay for education, he should go without education. Between the rich and their instructors there may, as Adam Smith says, be free trade. The supply of music masters and Italian masters may be left to adjust itself to the demand. But what is to become of the millions who are too poor to procure without assistance the services of a decent school-master?

(MACAULAY: Speech in the House of Commons)

A STANDARD OF WELL-BEING

Faith in machinery is, I said, our besetting danger; often in machinery most absurdly disproportioned to the end which this machinery, if it is to do any good at all, is to serve! but always in machinery, as if it had a value in and for itself. What is freedom but machinery, what is population but machinery, what is coal but

machinery, what are railroads but machinery, what is wealth but machinery, what are, even, religious organizations but machinery? Now almost every voice in England is accustomed to speak of these things as if they were precious ends in themselves, and therefore had some of the characters of perfection indisputably joined to them. I have before now noticed some of Mr. Roebuck's stock arguments for proving the greatness and happiness of England as she is, and for quite stopping the mouths of all gainsayers. Mr. Roebuck is never weary of reiterating this argument of his, so I do not know why I should be weary of noticing it. "May not every man in England say what he likes?". Mr. Roebuck perpetually asks; and that, he thinks, is quite sufficient, and when every man may say what he likes, our aspirations ought to be satisfied. But the aspirations of culture, which is the study of perfection, are not satisfied, unless what men say, when they may say what they like, is worth saying,- has good in it, and more good than bad. In the same way the Times, replying to some foreign strictures on the dress, looks, and behavior of the English abroad, urges that the English ideal is that every one should be free to do and to look just as he likes. But culture indefatigably tries, not to make what each raw person may like the rule by which he fashions himself; but to draw ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, graceful, and becoming, and to get the raw person to like that.

(ARNOLD: Culture and Anarchy)

THE INDEPENDENT ATTITUDE

Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues.

Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world,— as invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need dieting and bleeding. I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance and the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

(EMERSON: Self-Reliance)

THE LOSS OF NELSON

The death of Nelson was felt in England as some. thing more than a public calamity: men started at the