[Footnote 2:  Those who sat in the pit or the parquet.]

[Footnote 3:  Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2.]

CHAPTER X

FEELING AND ENTHUSIASM

    Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit that hovers over
    the production of genius.

    —­ISAAC DISRAELI, Literary Character.

If you are addressing a body of scientists on such a subject as the veins in a butterfly’s wings, or on road structure, naturally your theme will not arouse much feeling in either you or your audience.  These are purely mental subjects.  But if you want men to vote for a measure that will abolish child labor, or if you would inspire them to take up arms for freedom, you must strike straight at their feelings.  We lie on soft beds, sit near the radiator on a cold day, eat cherry pie, and devote our attention to one of the opposite sex, not because we have reasoned out that it is the right thing to do, but because it feels right.  No one but a dyspeptic chooses his diet from a chart.  Our feelings dictate what we shall eat and generally how we shall act.  Man is a feeling animal, hence the public speaker’s ability to arouse men to action depends almost wholly on his ability to touch their emotions.

Negro mothers on the auction-block seeing their children sold away from them into slavery have flamed out some of America’s most stirring speeches.  True, the mother did not have any knowledge of the technique of speaking, but she had something greater than all technique, more effective than reason:  feeling.  The great speeches of the world have not been delivered on tariff reductions or post-office appropriations.  The speeches that will live have been charged with emotional force.  Prosperity and peace are poor developers of eloquence.  When great wrongs are to be righted, when the public heart is flaming with passion, that is the occasion for memorable speaking.  Patrick Henry made an immortal address, for in an epochal crisis he pleaded for liberty.  He had roused himself to the point where he could honestly and passionately exclaim, “Give me liberty or give me death.”  His fame would have been different had he lived to-day and argued for the recall of judges.

The Power of Enthusiasm

Political parties hire bands, and pay for applause—­they argue that, for vote-getting, to stir up enthusiasm is more effective than reasoning.  How far they are right depends on the hearers, but there can be no doubt about the contagious nature of enthusiasm.  A watch manufacturer in New York tried out two series of watch advertisements; one argued the superior construction, workmanship, durability, and guarantee offered with the watch; the other was headed, “A Watch to be Proud of,” and dwelt upon the pleasure and pride of ownership.  The latter series sold twice as many as the former.  A salesman for a locomotive works informed the writer that in selling railroad engines emotional appeal was stronger than an argument based on mechanical excellence.