CHAPTER XI CONFIDENCE A resourceful self-reliance is necessary to complete confidence. Emerson says, "Knowledge is the antidote to fear." A man must train himself to be equal to any emergency. He should examine himself, thoroughly prepare himself and make up his mind to take the risk of failure if necessary. Successive failures should be an incentive to greater effort. Above all he should do his work under the immediate inspiration of duty. The habit of clear and deliberate utterance should be cultivated both in conversation and public address. He should be bold, but not too bold. More failures in public speaking are due to egotism than to anything else. The first possession of every man should be self-possession, and this can best be acquired through the practise of concentration, modesty of manner, thorough preparation, and physical earnestness. EXAMPLES 1. What, my lord, shall you tell me, on the passage to the scaffold which that tyranny, of which you are only the intermediate minister, has erected for my murder, that I am accountable for all the blood that has been and will be shed, in this struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor? Shall you tell me this, and must I be so very a slave as not to repel it? I, who fear not to approach the Omnipotent Judge, to answer for the conduct of my short life, am I to be appalled here, before a mere remnant of mortality?—by you, too, who, if it were possible to collect all the innocent blood that you have caused to be shed, in your unhallowed ministry, in one great reservoir, your lordship might swim in it! "On Being Found Guilty of High Treason." ROBERT EMMET. 2. No one in a hurry can possibly have his wits about him; and remember that in law there is ever an opponent watching to find you off your guard. You may occasionally be in haste, but you need never be in a hurry; take care-resolve-never to be so. Remember always that others' interests are occupying your attention, and suffer by your inadvertence-by that negligence which generally occasions hurry. A man of first-rate business talentsone who always looks so calm and tranquil that it makes one's self feel cool on a hot summer's day to look at him-once told me that he had never been in a hurry but once, and that was for an entire fortnight at the commencement of his career. It nearly killed him; he spoiled everything he touched; he was always breathless and harassed and miserable. But it did him good for life; he resolved never again to be in a hurry-and never was, no, not once, that he could remember, during twenty-five years' practise! Observe, I speak of being hurried and flustered-not being in haste, for that is often inevitable; but then is always seen the superiority and inferiority of different men. You may indeed almost define hurry as the condition to which an inferior man is reduced by haste. I one day observed, in a committee of the House of Commons sitting on a railway bill, the chief secretary of the company, during several hours, while great interests were in jeopardy, preserve a truly admirable coolness, tranquillity, and temper, conferring on him immense advantages. His suggestions to counsel were masterly, and exquisitely well-timed; and by the close of the day he had triumphed. "How is it that one never sees you in a hurry?” said I, as we were pacing the long corridor, on our way from the committee-room. "Because it's so expensive," he replied, with a significant smile. I shall never forget that observation; and don't you. "Attorneys and Solicitors." WARREN. 3. With conscience satisfied with the discharge of duty, no consequences can harm you. There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from, but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or for our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power, nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close, and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity, which lies yet farther onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us whenever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it. "The Knapp Murder Trial." WEBSTER. 4. But this I will avow, that I have scorned, Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb, Hang hissing at the nobler man below! "Catiline's Defiance." GEORGE CROLY. EARNESTNESS Earnestness is the natural language of sincerity and high purpose. It manifests itself in voice, look, and gesture. It is the result of deep conviction, sympathy, self-abandon ment, and a heartfelt desire to share the truth with others. The act of standing before an audience should kindle the heart and imagination of any speaker, but we know from observation that this is not always the case. Frequently an audience is strange, cold, and unresponsive, but here the speaker must call to his aid the power of self-excitation. He must have faith in himself and in his message. The speaker should realize that he is, to quote Nathan Sheppard, “An animal galvanic battery on two legs!" The physical apparatus should be so trained as to promptly and correctly respond to every demand made upon it. In true earnestness there is no place for violence or impulsiveness. All must be well considered. Exaggerated shaking of the head, rolling the eyes, twisting and contorting the body, meaningless gesture, all are to be studiously avoided. In the early stages of practising, where there is a lack of feeling, it may for a time be assumed. Sluggish emotions can in this way be aroused and subsequent efforts will become less and less difficult. Nothing contributes more to the well-springs of genuine feeling than long and varied experience among all classes of people. To accustom oneself to sharing the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, of others, will cultivate the deepest feelings of the human heart. 1. Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever! DANIEL WEBSTER. 2. But thou, O Florence, take the offered mercy. See! the cross is held out to you; come and be healed. Which among the nations of Italy has had a token like unto yours? The tyrant is driven out from among you; the men who held a bribe in their left hand and a rod in their right, are gone forth, and no blood has been spilled. And now put away every other abomination from among you, and you shall be strong in the strength of the living God. Wash yourself from the black pitch of your vices, which have made you even as the heathens; put away the envy and hatred that have made your city as a nest of wolves. And there shall no harm happen to you; and the passage of armies shall be to you as the flight of birds, and rebellious Pisa shall be given to you again, and famine and pestilence shall be far from your gates, and you shall be as a beacon among the nations. But, mark! while you suffer the accursed thing to lie in the camp, you shall be afflicted and tormented, even tho a remnant among you may be saved. Savonarola in "Romola." GEORGE ELIOT. 3. Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new. nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation— or any nation so conceived and so dedicated-can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who have given their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our power to add or to detract. The world will very little note nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here, to the unfinished work they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that |