The Secret of Eloquence: The Polynesian, August 6, 1859

The Secret of Eloquence
Source: The Polynesian (Honolulu) Saturday, August 6, 1859
(Transcribed by Jeffrey Bingham Mead)

Henry Clay once remarked:

"I owe my success in life to one single fact, viz., that at the age of twenty-seven, I commenced a continued process of daily reading and speaking upon the contents of some historical and scientific books. These off-hand efforts were made sometimes in a corn field, at others in the forest, and not infrequently in some distant barn, with the horse and ox as my auditors. It is to this early practice in the great art that I am indebted for the primary leading impulses that stimulated me forward, and shaped and moulded my entire subsequent destiny. Improve then, young gentlemen, the superior advantages you here enjoy. Let not a day pass without exercising your power of speech. There is no power like that of oratory. Caesar controlled men by exciting their fears; Cicero by captivating their affections and swaying their passions. The influence of the one perished with its author -that of the other continues to this days."