Even genius, however, needs direction and adjustment
to secure the most perfect and reliable results. How, then, shall we
develop the motive, how enlarge the content?
There is such a subtle relation between motive and action that it has been
said, "The effect of any action is measured by the depth of the motive
from which it proceeds." [Footnote: Ralph Waldo Emerson.] And so this is
why the clever performer cannot reproduce the effect of a speech of
Demosthenes or Daniel Webster. This is a reason aside from that arising
from the difference in the occasion. Great men and great artists
_make_ the occasion in the hearts of their hearers. The voice of the
orator peculiarly should be free from studied effects, and responsive to
motive. It is not the voice of entertainment, but of influence above all.
The orator should be taught self-mastery. The orator who is not moved by
high moral sense is a trickster or a hypocrite; the former juggles with
human susceptibility for unworthy or inadequate ends, and the latter poses
for motives he has not. So complex is human nature that this can be done
by a good actor so as to deceive the judgment and feelings; but the
influence will ultimately reveal the truth, if the auditor will use
intuition and not be taken off guard by the psychic influence of a strong
will bent on a given effect.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42