reer, that there are two classes of men who have played and still play
a prominent part in the world--those who accomplish great things, and
those who talk and make speeches about them. The doers of things are for
the most part silent. Those who build up empires or discover secrets of
science, those who paint great pictures or write great poems, are not
often to be found spouting upon platforms. The silent men do the work.
The talking men cry out at what is done because it is not done as they
would have had it, and afterwards take possession of it as if it was
their own property. Warren Hastings wins India for us; the eloquent
Burke desires and passionately tries to hang him for it. At the supreme
crisis in our history when America had revolted and Ireland was defiant,
when the great powers of Europe had coalesced to crush us, and we were
staggering under the disaster at York Town, Rodney struck a blow in the
West Indies which sounded over the world and saved for Britain her ocean
sceptre. Just in time, for the popular leaders had persuaded the House
of Commons that Rodney ought to be recalled and peace made on any terms.
Even in politics the names of oratorical statesmen are rarely associated
with the organic growth of enduring institutions. The most distinguished
of them have been conspicuous only as instruments of destruction.
Institutions are the slow growths of centuries. The orator cuts them
down in a day. The tree falls, and the hand that wields the axe is
admired and applauded. The speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero pass into
literature, and are studied as models of language. But Demosthenes and
Cicero did not understand the facts of their time; their language might
be beautiful, and their sentiments noble, but with their fine words and
sentiments they only misled their countrymen. The periods where the
orator is supreme are marked always by confusion and disintegration.
Goethe could say of Luther that he had thrown back for centuries the
spiritual cultivation of mankind, by calling the passions of the
multitude to judge of matters which should have been left to the
thinkers. We ourselves are just now in one of those uneasy periods, and
we have decided that orators are the fittest people to rule over us. The
constituencies choose their members according to the fluency of their
tongues. Can he make a speech? is the one test of competency for a
legislator, and the most persuasive of the whole we make prime minister.