ply starts his tongue to running, and goes off and
leaves it to work automatically.

Bishop Robert McIntyre was one of the greatest pulpit orators of his
age, yet I dare say this gifted man gave as much time and thought to
his famous word painting of the Chicago fire, as Joseph Cook ever gave
to mining any treasure of thought he laid upon the altar of education.

I know many teachers of oratory say: "Study your subject, analyze it
well, and leave words to the inspiration of the occasion." But suppose
when the occasion comes, instead of inspiration one has indigestion,
then what?

While a speaker should not be so confined to composition that he
cannot reach out after, and cage any passing bird of thought, yet as
the leaf of the mulberry tree must go through the stomach of a
silk-worm, before it can become silk, so climaxes should be warped and
woofed into language before they can be forceful and beautiful.

At the Lincoln, Nebraska, Assembly some years ago a noted humorist
gave an address on the "Philosophy of Wit." He called oratory a lost
art, and to prove his contention he quoted from William Jennings
Bryan's famous Chicago convention speech. He said: "What would a young
woman think of her lover who would say 'My darling, the crown of
thorns shall never be pressed down upon your fair brow?'" The humorist
expected applause but it failed to materialize, for Mr. Bryan is
highly respected in his state and his oratory is a charm wherever he
is heard.

The speaker not only exhibited poor taste, but his wit was pointless,
for when a man can go before a convention of fourteen hundred
delegates and by one burst of eloquence capture the convention, secure
the nomination for the presidency, and then with the press and the
leaders of his party against him go up and down the country, and from
the rear of a railroad train, almost capture the White House, the day
of oratory is not gone by.

Schriner, the great animal painter, painted the picture of a bony mule
eating a tuft of hay. That picture sold in Petersburg, Russia, for
fifteen thousand dollars, while the original mule sold for one dollar
and thirty cents. If the painting of Schriner made in the price of
that mule, a difference of fourteen thousand, nine hundred,
ninety-eight dollars and seventy cents why is not word painting worth
something?

Listen, while I give you a short extract from the address of James G.
Blaine at the memorial service of our martyr President G