Goethe, on being reproached for not having written war songs against the French, replied, “In my poetry I have never shammed.  How could I have written songs of hate without hatred?” Neither is it possible to plead with full efficiency for a cause for which you do not feel deeply.  Feeling is contagious as belief is contagious.  The speaker who pleads with real feeling for his own convictions will instill his feelings into his listeners.  Sincerity, force, enthusiasm, and above all, feeling—­these are the qualities that move multitudes and make appeals irresistible.  They are of far greater importance than technical principles of delivery, grace of gesture, or polished enunciation—­important as all these elements must doubtless be considered. Base your appeal on reason, but do not end in the basement—­let the building rise, full of deep emotion and noble persuasion.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. (a) What elements of appeal do you find in the following? (b) Is it too florid? (c) Is this style equally powerful today? (d) Are the sentences too long and involved for clearness and force?

Oh, gentlemen, am I this day only the counsel of my client?  No, no; I am the advocate of humanity—­of yourselves—­your homes—­your wives—­your families—­your little children.  I am glad that this case exhibits such atrocity; unmarked as it is by any mitigatory feature, it may stop the frightful advance of this calamity; it will be met now, and marked with vengeance.  If it be not, farewell to the virtues of your country; farewell to all confidence between man and man; farewell to that unsuspicious and reciprocal tenderness, without which marriage is but a consecrated curse.  If oaths are to be violated, laws disregarded, friendship betrayed, humanity trampled, national and individual honor stained, and if a jury of fathers and of husbands will give such miscreancy a passport to their homes, and wives, and daughters,—­farewell to all that yet remains of Ireland!  But I will not cast such a doubt upon the character of my country.  Against the sneer of the foe, and the skepticism of the foreigner, I will still point to the domestic virtues, that no perfidy could barter, and no bribery can purchase, that with a Roman usage, at once embellish and consecrate households, giving to the society of the hearth all the purity of the altar; that lingering alike in the palace and the cottage, are still to be found scattered over this land—­the relic of what she was—­the source perhaps of what she may be—­the lone, the stately, and magnificent memorials, that rearing their majesty amid surrounding ruins, serve at once as the landmarks of the departed glory, and the models by which the future may be erected.

Preserve those virtues with a vestal fidelity; mark this day, by your verdict, your horror of their profanation; and believe me, when the hand which records that verdict shall be dust, and the tongue that asks it, traceless in the grave, many a happy home will bless its consequences, and many a mother teach her little child to hate the impious treason of adultery.

    —­CHARLES PHILLIPS.