Forefathers Day Dinner, Congregational Club, Boston
In treating of this subject of post-prandial oratory, a subject which I have long been familiar with and may be called an expert in observing it in others, I wish to say that a public dinner is the most delightful thing in the whole world, to a guest. That is one fact. And here is another one: a public dinner is the most unutterable suffering in the whole world, to a guest. These two facts don’t seem to jibe—but I will explain. Now at a public dinner when a man knows he is going to be called upon to speak, and is thoroughly well prepared—got it all by heart, and the pauses all marked in his head where the applause is going to come in—a public dinner is just heaven to that man. He won’t care to be anywhere else than just where he is. But when at a public dinner it is getting way along toward the end of things, and a man is sitting over his glass of wine, or his glass of milk, according to the kind of banquet it is, in ever-augmenting danger of being called up, and isn’t prepared, and knows he can never prepare with the thoughtless gander at his elbow bothering him all the time with exasperating talky-talk about nothing, that man is just as nearly in the other place as ever he wants to be. Why, it is a cruel situation. That man is to be pitied; and the very worst of it is that the minute he gets on his feet he is pitied.
Now he could stand the pity of ten people or a dozen, but there is no misery in the world that is comparable to the massed and solidified compassion of five hundred. Why, that wide Sahara of sympathizing faces completely takes the tuck out of him, makes a coward of him. He stands there in his misery, and stammers out the usual rubbish about not being prepared, and not expecting, and all that kind of folly, and he is wandering and stumbling and getting further and further in, and all the time unhappy, and at last he fetches out a poor, miserable, crippled joke, and in his grief and confusion he laughs at it himself and the others look sick; and then he slumps into his chair and wishes he was dead. He knows he is a defeated man, and so do the others.
Now to a humane person that is a heartrending spectacle. It is indeed. That sort of sacrifice ought to be stopped, and there is only one way to accomplish it that I can think of, and that is for a man to go always prepared, always loaded, always ready, whether he is likely to be called upon or not. You can’t defeat that man, you can’t pity him at all. My scheme is this, that he shall carry in his head a cut-and-dried and thoroughly and glibly memorized speech that will fit every conceivable public occasion in this life, fit it to a dot, and win success and applause every time. Now I have completed a speech of that kind, and I have brought it along to exhibit here as a sample.
Now, then, supposing a man with his cut-and-dried speech, this patent adjustable speech, as you may call it, finds himself at a granger gathering, or a wedding breakfast, or a theological disturbance or a political blowout, an inquest, or funeral anywhere in the world you choose to mention, and be suddenly called up, all he has got to do is to change three or four words in that speech, and make his delivery anguishing and tearful, or chippy and facetious, or luridly and thunderously eloquent just as the occasion happens to call for, and just turn himself loose, and he is all right, but I will illustrate, and instead of explanations I will deliver that speech itself just enough times to make you see the possibilities.
We suppose that it is a granger gathering, and this man is suddenly called on; he comes up with some artful hesitancies and diffidences and repetitions, so as to give the idea that the speech is impromptu. Here, of course, after he has got used to delivering it, he can venture outside and make a genuine impromptu remark to start off with. For instance, if a distinguished person is present, he can make a complimentary reference to him, say to Mr. Depew. He could speak about his great talent or his clothes. Such a thing gives him a sort of opening, and about the time that audience is getting to pity that man, he opens his throttle valve and goes for those grangers. That person wants to be gorgeously eloquent; you want to fire the farmer’s heart and start him from his mansard down to his cellar.
Now this man is called up, and he says: “I am called up suddenly, sir, and am indeed not, not prepared to—to—I was not expecting to be called up, sir, but I will, with what effect I may, add my shout to the jubilations of this spirit-stirring occasion. Agriculture, sir, is, after all, the palladium of our economic liberties. By it—approximately speaking—we may be said to live, and move, and have our being. All that we have been, all that we are, all that we hope to be, was, is, and must continue to be, profoundly influenced by that sublimest of the mighty interests of man, thrice glorious agriculture! While we have life, while we have soul, and in that soul the sweet and hallowed sentiment of gratitude, let us with generous accord attune our voices to songs of praise, perennial outpourings of thanksgiving, for that most precious boon, whereby we physically thrive, whereby our otherwise sterile existence is made rich and strong, and grand and aspiring, and is adorned with a mighty and far-reaching and all-embracing grace, and beauty, and purity and loveliness! The least of us knows—the least of us feels—the humblest among us will confess that, whereas—but the hour is late, sir, and I will not detain you.”
Now then, supposing it is not a granger gathering at all, but is a wedding breakfast; now, of course, that speech has got to be delivered in an airy, light fashion, but it must terminate seriously. It is a mistake to make it any other way. This person is called up by the minister of the feast and he says: “I am called up suddenly, sir, and am, indeed, not prepared to—to—I was not expecting to be called up, sir, but I will, with what effect I may, add my shout to the jubilations of this spirit-stirring occasion. Matrimony, sir, is, after all, the palladium of our domestic liberties. By it—approximately speaking—we may be said to live, and move, and acquire our being. All that we have been, all that we are, all that we hope to be, was, is, and must continue to be profoundly influenced by that sublimest of the mighty interests of man, thrice glorious matrimony! While we have life, while we have soul, and in that soul the sweet and hallowed sentiment of gratitude, let us with generous accord attune our voices to songs of praise, perennial outpourings of thanksgiving, for that most precious boon whereby we numerically thrive, whereby our otherwise sterile existence is made rich, and strong, and grand, and aspiring, and is adorned with a mighty and far-reaching and all-embracing grace, and beauty, and purity and loveliness! The least of us knows—the least of us feels—the humblest among us will confess, that whereas—but the hour is late, sir, and I will not detain you.”
Now, then, supposing that the occasion—I make one more illustration, so that you will always be perfectly safe, here or anywhere—supposing that this is an occasion of an inquest. This is a most elastic speech in a matter of that kind. Where there are grades of men you must observe them. At a private funeral of some friend you want to be just as mournful as you can, but in the case where you don’t know the person, grade it accordingly. You want simply to be impressive. That is all. Now take a case halfway between, about No. 4½, somewhere about there, that is, an inquest on a second cousin, a wealthy second cousin. He has remembered you in the will. Of course all these things count. They all raise the grade a little, and—well, perhaps he hasn’t remembered you. Perhaps he has left you a horse, an ordinary horse, a good enough horse, one that can go about three minutes, or perhaps a pair of horses. It may have been one pair of horses at hand, not two pair or two pair and a jack. I don’t know whether you understand that, but there are people here—. Well, now then, this is a second cousin, and he knows all the circumstances. We will say that he has lost his life trying to save somebody from drowning. Well, he saved the mind-cure physician from drowning, he tried to save him, but he didn’t succeed. Of course he wouldn’t succeed; of course you wouldn’t want him to succeed in that way and plan. A person must have some experience and aplomb and all that before he can save anybody from drowning of the mind-cure. I am just making these explanations here. A person can get so glib in a delivery of this speech, why by the time he has delivered it fifteen or twenty times he could go to any intellectual gathering in Boston even, and he would draw like a prizefight. Well, at the inquest of a second cousin under these circumstances, a man gets up with graded emotion and he says:
“I am called up suddenly, sir, and am, indeed, not prepared to—to—I was not expecting to be called up, sir, but I will, with what effect I may, add my shout—voice to the lamentations of this spirit-crushing occasion. Death, death, sir, is, after all, the palladium of our spiritual liberties. By it—approximately speaking—we may be said to live, and move and have our ending. All that we have been, all that we may be here, all that we hope to be, was, is, and must continue to be profoundly influenced by that sublimest of the mighty interests of man, thrice-sorrowful dissolution. While we have life, while we have soul, and in that soul the sweet and hallowed sentiment of gratitude, let us with generous accord attune our voices to songs of praise, perennial outpourings of thanksgiving, for that most precious boon by which we spiritually thrive, whereby our otherwise sterile existence is made rich, and strong, and grand, and aspiring, and is adorned with a mighty and far-reaching and all-embracing grace, and beauty and purity, and loveliness. The least of us knows—the least of us feels—the humblest among us will confess, that whereas—but the hour is late, sir, and I will not detain you.”
The speech as used at a funeral may be used to prop up prohibition, and also anti-prohibition, without change, except to change the terms of sorrow to terms of rejoicing.
The speech as used at a granger meeting may be used in Boston at the sacred feast of baked beans without any alteration except to change agriculture—where it occurs in the second sentence—to “the baked bean,” and to “bean culture” where it occurs in the fourth.
The agricultural speech becomes a prohibition speech by putting in that word and changing “economic” to moral, and “physically” to morally. It becomes a Democratic, Republican, Mugwump or other political speech by shoving in the party name and changing “economic” to political, and “physically” to politically.
Any of these forms can be used at a New England Forefathers dinner. They don’t care what you talk about, so long as it ain’t so.
December 20, 1887