Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 2, Issue 11, September, 1858
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11,
September, 1858, by Various
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858
Author: Various
Release Date: December 14, 2003 [eBook #10456]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 2, ISSUE 11, SEPTEMBER, 1858***
E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Keith M. Eckrich, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
VOL. II.--SEPTEMBER, 1858.--NO. XI.
ELOQUENCE.
It is the doctrine of the popular music-masters, that whoever can speak can sing. So, probably, every man is eloquent once in his life. Our temperaments differ in capacity of heat, or we boil at different degrees. One man is brought to the boiling point by the excitement of conversation in the parlor. The waters, of course, are not very deep. He has a two-inch enthusiasm, a pattypan ebullition. Another requires the additional caloric of a multitude, and a public debate; a third needs an antagonist, or a hot indignation; a fourth needs a revolution; and a fifth, nothing less than the grandeur of absolute ideas, the splendors and shades of Heaven and Hell.
But because every man is an orator, how long soever he may have been a mute, an assembly of men is so much more susceptible. The