Eloquence - Counsel on the Art of Public Speaking; With Many Illustrative Examples, Showing the Style and Method of Famous Orators #249992

Eloquence is the sister of poetry, and this is not the less true when the term eloquence is limited to spoken discourse; for, in the beginning, both eloquence and poetry were equally spon taneous in utterance, the first poets being rhap sodists. Poetry, to its great advantage, long ago became a slave of the pen; but eloquence, by its very nature, remains free. Still, the two have never lost the indicia of their original kinship. The old saying that the poet is born and the orator made is one of those time-honored epi grams that will not bear close examination. Genius, talent, special aptitude, circumstances play as large a part in the one case as in the other. The great orator is as truly a product of genius as the great poet, and neither can be made by any amount of practice. It would be as ixnpossible for a training-school to create a Demosthenes as 8. Homer.