one good illustration or anecdote for each main point of the discourse. You will thus make sure of distributing your reasoning and your relief all through the speech, and will not put all the dough in one pan, and all the yeast in another.

And by way of closing admonition, I should give this sixth and final rule: Do not torment yourself up to the last moment about your speech, but give your mind a rest before it. combine ample preparation with a state of mental clearness and freshness-that is the problem. Who does not know how clear the mind is when we wake in the morning, how we solve problems and think out perplexing questions while bathing and dressing, although the previous night the mind was inert and dead? That is what is meant by mental freshness; and what we need is to bring this precise quality-this oxygen of the mind-into our speeches. The students at Oxford and Cambridge in England, after preparing for the severe examinations for honors far severer than any of ours, though the ordinary "pass" examinations for the mere academical degree are not so hard as ours-make it a rule not to work at all on the day before the ordeal, but to spend that time, if possible, out of doors and away from books. They thus refresh their minds, and get rid of that terrible feeling of expectancy.

I have been told by clergymen who enjoyed the actual process of preaching, that no one could describe the mental depression they felt on Saturday evening, and even on the morning hours of Sunday, in looking forward to that exercise, not knowing whether they should succeed or fail. There is a rather apocryphal story of Carlyle, that he was once driven to despair by the noise of some neighboring peacocks. "But," said the neighbor, "they do not scream more than twice in twenty-four hours." "Perhaps not," said Carlyle, "but consider the agonies that I undergo in waiting for that scream!" It is not the public speaking that wears upon a man, it is the waiting for it. Look at the faces of the after-dinner speakers at a public dinner: how woebegone till their time comes! how cheerful afterwards! To make your speeches successful, therefore, learn the art of completing your preparation beforehand, and then indulging in entire rest-newspapers, Mark Twain, exercise, anything you please until the important moment comes.

These are all very simple rules-almost too simple, it may seem, to put on paper. Compared with the elaborate counsels of the books on rhetoric, how trivial they are! Yet I am sure, from observation and experience, that there is a good deal of help in them; and while they may not secure for any man the power to make a great speech, they will at least aid him to avail himself of his own gifts, such as they are, and bring him up to a fair average of successful execution. The power of public speaking is probably the most transitory of all kinds of intellectual influence, for it dies with the death of its individual auditors, whereas a good book keeps on. But it is, on the other hand, the most concentrated and telling of all forms of mental action, the most stimulating to those who hear it, and, by reflex action, to the speakers themselves. No writer has any echo so intoxicating as the applause of a visible audience: no writer can elicit from himself sparks so brilliant as those which seem to be struck out between your eyes and the answering eyes of your hearers. The best things in any speech are almost always the sudden flashes and the thoughts not dreamed of before. Indeed, the best hope that any orator can have is to rise at favored moments to some height of enthusiasm that shall make all his previous structure of preparation superfluous; as the ship in launching glides from the ways, and scatters cradle timbers and wedges upon the waters that are henceforth to be her home.

AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES

E-M

EDWARD VII

THE COLONIES

Speech of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales [Edward VII, crowned King of England January 23, 1901], at the banquet given at the Mansion House, London, July 16, 1881 by the Lord the Mayor of London [Sir William McArthur], to the Prince of Wales, as President of the Colonial Institute, and to a large company of representatives of the colonies-governors, premiers, and administrators. This speech was delivered in response to the toast proposed by the Lord Mayor, "The Health of the Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, and the other members of the Royal Family."

MY LORD MAYOR, YOUR MAJESTY, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN:-For the kind and remarkably flattering way in which you, my Lord Mayor, have been good enough to propose this toast, and you, my lords and gentlemen, for the kind and hearty way in which you have received it, I beg to offer you my most sincere thanks. It is a peculiar pleasure to me to come to the city, because I have the honor of being one of its freemen. But this is, indeed, a very special dinner, one of the kind that I do not suppose has ever been given before; for we have here this evening representatives of probably every colony in the Empire. We have not only the Secretary of the Colonies, but Governors, past and present, ministers, administrators, and agents, are all, I think, to be found here this evening. I regret that it has not been possible for me to see half or one-third of the colonies which it has been the good fortune of my brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, to visit. In his voyages round the world he has had opportunities more than once of seeing all our great colonies. Though I have not been able personally to see them, or have seen only a small portion of them, you may rest assured it does not diminish in any way the interest I take in them.