“Clearness, force, and eloquence are the qualities
which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed,
does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far.
Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain.
Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way,
but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man,
in the subject, and in the occasion.
Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation,
all may aspire to it: they cannot reach it. It comes,
if it comes at all, like the out-breaking of a fountain
from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires,
with spontaneous, original native force.
The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments
and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men,
when their own lives and the fate of their wives,
their children, and their country hang on the decision
of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric
is vain and all elaborate oratory contemptible.
Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued,
as in the presence of higher qualities.
Then patriotism is eloquent; then self devotion is eloquent.
The clear conception, outrunning the deduction of logic,
the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit,
speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye,
informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward,
right onward to his object,- this, this is eloquence; or rather
it is something greater and higher than all eloquence,-
it is action, noble, sublime godlike action.”
Daniel Webster. [1826]
Islander.