Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1884 — Emotional. [ARTICLE]

Emotional.

An orator who uses pathos should bp careful that he does not fall into bathos. The best precaution That he can take against such a disaster is for him to see to it that his emotion is real and not put on, and that it is expressed in homelv phrases and short words. In his eloquent speech against the continuance of the Crimean war, John Bright dared to be pathetic, even in the House of Commons, whose critical sense is always alive. At—one—pass age of the -peroration, —“The Angel of'Death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of h s wings.” the silence was intense. The “beating” might have been heard could it have occurred. But as they left the House, Mr. Cobden, his friend, said to him : “Bright I tremble I for you to-night. If you had said flapping, we should have laughed at once.” But the ear of the great orator ivas too musical and his taste too sensitive to allow him to say “flapping” instead of “beating.”

“Ridicule is the test of truth,” says an. old aphorism. This may or may not be a true saying, but it is true that the pathos which cannot endure raillery is, at least, suspicious. An anecdote will make clear our meaning. In the days of our fathers, one of the most eloquent of advocates at the bar of New York was Elisha Williams. He was noted for the gracefulness of his delivery and famous for the melody of his flute-like voice. His power over a jury, when he used Iris pathetic tones —and he did in every case which admitted their use—was wonderful. Mr. Williams seldom failed to secure a verdict for his client when he played to jurors oh his human Hute. But on one occasion he failed so ludicrously that court and spectators were convulsed with laughtei. He was defending a man charged witn murder. The jury was made up of countrymen, each one of whom was thrilled by the pathos of the orator.; The friends of the murdered man had retained an unlettered pettifogger, of great local reputation among the farmers, to assist the District Attorney. This ignorant man, following the defence, said: - "Gentlemen of the jury, I should despair, after the weeping speech, which has been made to you by Mr. Williams of saying anything to do away with its eloquence. “I never heard Mr. Williams speak that piece of hisn better than what he spoke.it now. Onct I heerd him speak it in a case of stealin’ down to Schaghticoke. Then he spoke it agin in a case of assault up to Alsopus, and the last time I heerd it, before jest now, was when them niggers was tried—and convicted, too, they was—for rpbbin’Van Pelt’s hen-house, over beyond Kingston. 7 ...........

“But I never knowed him to speak it and affectin’ as what he spoke it just now.” The juiy looked at one another shyly, as if ashamed of the tears they bad shed. Then they whispered together. The pettifogger saw at once that he had convinced them. lie was shrewd enough to -top with the single remark, — “Gentlemen, if you can’t see that this speech don’t answer all cases, then there's no use of my saying anything more.” There was not; his ridicule had done its work. There could not have been truth and real power back of the pathos. The jury gave the pettifogger their verdict.— Youths' Companion.