elves mechanical and methodical in the bad way, who are most afraid
of the artificial training that is given in the schools, and who so
often show by the fruit of their labor that the want of oratory is the
want of education.

How remarkable is sweetness of voice in the mother, in the father, in
the household! The music of no chorded instruments brought together is,
for sweetness, like the music of familiar affection when spoken by
brother and sister, or by father and mother.

Conversation itself belongs to oratory. How many men there are who are
weighty in argument, who have abundant resources, and who are almost
boundless in their power at other times and in other places, but who,
when in company among their kind, are exceedingly unapt in their
methods. Having none of the secret instruments by which the elements of
nature may be touched, having no skill and no power in this direction,
they stand as machines before living, sensitive men. A man may be as a
master before an instrument; only the instrument is dead; and he has the
living hand; and out of that dead instrument what wondrous harmony
springs forth at his touch! And if you can electrify an audience by the
power of a living man on dead things, how much more should that audience
be electrified when the chords are living and the man is alive, and he
knows how to touch them with divine inspiration!

--_Beecher._

* * * * *

Every one endeavors to make himself as agreeable to society as he can;
but it often happens that those who most aim at shining in conversation,
overshoot their mark. Tho a man succeeds, he should not (as is
frequently the case) engross the whole talk to himself; for that
destroys the very essence of conversation, which is talking together. We
should try to keep up conversation like a ball bandied to and fro from
one to the other, rather than seize it all to ourselves, and drive it
before us like a football. We should likewise be cautious to adapt the
matter of our discourse to our company, and not talk Greek before
ladies, or of the last new furbelow to a meeting of country justices.

But nothing throws a more ridiculous air over our whole conversation
than certain peculiarities easily acquired, but very difficultly
conquered and discarded. In order to display these absurdities in a
truer light, it is my present purpose to enumerate such of them as are
most commonly to be met with; and first to take notice of