Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

by Unknown

  Then Elizabeth came along. It is true she scolded her Parliaments for meddling with matters with which, in her opinion, they had no concern, and more than once soundly rated the Speaker of her Commons, but she never carried her quarrels too far, and was able to end her disputes by some clever compromise; in other words, she never let Parliament down, and that is what I don’t believe any wise woman will do in spite of the fears of some of the men.

  Now, why are we in politics? What is it all about? Something much bigger than ourselves. Schopenhauer was wrong in nearly everything he wrote about women—and he wrote a lot, but he was right in one thing. He said, in speaking of women, “the race is to her more than the individual,” and I believe that it is true. I feel somehow we do care about the race as a whole, our very nature makes us take a forward vision; there is no reason why women should look back—mercifully we have no political past; we have all the mistakes of sex legislation with its appalling failures to guide us.

  We should know what to avoid, it is no use blaming the men—we made them what they are—and now it is up to us to try and make ourselves—the makers of men—a little more responsible in the future. We realize that no one sex can govern alone. I believe that one of the reasons why civilization has failed so lamentably is that it has had a one-sided government. Don’t let us make the mistake of ever allowing that to happen again.

  I can conceive of nothing worse than a man-governed world except a woman-governed world—but I can see the combination of the two going forward and making civilization more worthy of the name of civilization based on Christianity, not force. A civilization based on justice and mercy. I feel men have a greater sense of justice and we of mercy. They must borrow our mercy and we must use their justice. We are new brooms; let us see that we sweep the right rooms.

  Personally, I feel that every woman should take an active part in local politics. I don’t mean by that that every woman should go in for a political career—that, of course, is absurd—but you can take an active part in local government without going in for a political career. You can be certain when casting your vote you are casting it for what seems nearest right—for what seems more likely to help the majority and not bolster up an organized minority. There is a lot to be done in local politics, and it is a fine apprenticeship to central government; it is very practical, and I think that, although practical, it is too near to be attractive. The things that are far away are more apt to catch our eye than the ones which are just under our noses; then, too, they are less disagreeable.

  Political development is like all other developments. We must begin with ourselves, our own consciences, and clean out our own hearts before we take on the job of putting others straight. So with politics if we women put our hands to local politics, we begin the foundations. After all, central governments only echo local ones; the politician in Washington, if he is a wise man, will always have one eye on his constituency, making that constituency so clean, so straight, so high in its purpose, that the man from home will not dare to take a small, limited view about any question, be it a national or an international one. You must remember that what women are up against is not what they see, but the unseen forces.

  We are up against generations and generations of prejudice. Ever since Eve ate the apple—but I would like to remind you, and all men, why she ate the apple. It was not simply because it was good for food or pleasant to the eyes, it was a tree to be desired to make one wise. “She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.” We have no record of Adam murmuring against the fruit—of his not doing anything but eat it with docility. In passing, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on woman—however, we will leave Adam.

  Ever since woman’s consciousness looked beyond the material, men’s consciousness has feared her vaguely, he has gone to her for inspiration, he has relied on her for all that is best and most ideal in his life, yet by sheer material force he has limited her. He has, without knowing it, westernized the harem mind of the East. I don’t believe he knows it yet so we must break it to him gently. We must go on being his guide, his mother, and his better half. But we must prove to him that we are a necessary half not only in private but in political life.

  The best way that we can do that is to show them our ambitions are not personal. Let them see that we desire a better, safer, and a cleaner world for our children and their children and we realize that only by doing our bit by facing unclean things with cleanliness, by facing wrongs with right, by going fearlessly into all things that may be disagreeable, that we will somehow make it a little better world.

  I don’t know that we are going to do this—I don’t say that women will change the world but I do say that they can if they want and I, coming in from the Old World which has seen a devastating war, cannot face the future without this hope—that the women of all countries will do their duty and raise a generation of men and women who will look upon war and all that leads to it with as much horror as we now look upon a coldblooded murder. All of the women of England want to do away with war.

  If we want this new world, we can only get it by striving for it; the real struggle will be within ourselves, to put out of our consciousness, of our hearts, and of our thoughts all that makes for war, hate, envy, greed, pride, force, and material ambition.

  William Lyon Phelps Praises the Owning of Books

  “Books are for use, not for show; you should own no book that you are afraid to mark up….”

  Spending his “indoor life” in a room of six thousand books, William Lyon Phelps displayed a love for literature that infused his four decades of teaching at Yale. When he retired, Professor Phelps shared that same love for books with a wider audience, in the following speech that was broadcast on April 6, 1933.

  Rarely does the professor lapse into the formal third-person address (“One should have one’s own bookshelves”); instead, he uses the second-person “you” to explain conversationally the joy of owning books. By comparing books to friends, he celebrates the democratic nature of literature (“Books are of the people, by the people, for the people”).

  Professor Phelps has a ready reply for strangers who ask, “Have you read all of these books?” His stock answer is disarming: “Some of them twice.” Of course, in the case of antiquarian volumes, his advice to mark them up is an invitation to vandalism; get a reading copy and mark that up.

  ***

  THE HABIT OF reading is one of the greatest resources of mankind; and we enjoy reading books that belong to us much more than if they are borrowed. A borrowed book is like a guest in the house; it must be treated with punctiliousness, with a certain considerate formality. You must see that it sustains no damage; it must not suffer while under your roof. You cannot leave it carelessly, you cannot mark it, you cannot turn down the pages, you cannot use it familiarly. And then, someday, although this is seldom done, you really ought to return it.

  But your own books belong to you; you treat them with that affectionate intimacy that annihilates formality. Books are for use, not for show; you should own no book that you are afraid to mark up, or afraid to place on the table, wide open and face down. A good reason for marking favorite passages in books is that this practice enables you to remember more easily the significant sayings, to refer to them quickly, and then in later years, it is like visiting a forest where you once blazed a trail. You have the pleasure of going over the old ground, and recalling both the intellectual scenery and your own earlier self.

  Everyone should begin collecting a private library in youth; the instinct of private property, which is fundamental in human beings, can here be cultivated with every advantage and no evils. One should have one’s own bookshelves, which should not have doors, glass windows, or keys; they should be free and accessible to the hand as well as to the eye. The best of mural decorations is books; they are more varied in color and appearance than any wallpaper, they are more attractive in design, a
nd they have the prime advantage of being separate personalities, so that if you sit alone in the room in the firelight, you are surrounded with intimate friends. The knowledge that they are there in plain view is both stimulating and refreshing. You do not have to read them all. Most of my indoor life is spent in a room containing six thousand books; and I have a stock answer to the invariable question that comes from strangers. “Have you read all of these books?” “Some of them twice.” This reply is both true and unexpected.

  There are, of course, no friends like living, breathing, corporeal men and women; my devotion to reading has never made me a recluse. How could it? Books are of the people, by the people, for the people. Literature is the immortal part of history; it is the best and most enduring part of personality. But book friends have this advantage over living friends; you can enjoy the most truly aristocratic society in the world whenever you want it. The great dead are beyond our physical reach, and the great living are usually almost as inaccessible; as for our personal friends and acquaintances, we cannot always see them. Perchance they are asleep, or away on a journey. But in a private library, you can at any moment converse with Socrates or Shakespeare or Carlyle or Dumas or Dickens or Shaw or Barrie or Galsworthy. And there is no doubt that in these books you see these men at their best. They wrote for you. They “laid themselves out,” they did their ultimate best to entertain you, to make a favorable impression. You are necessary to them as an audience is to an actor; only instead of seeing them masked, you look into their inmost heart of heart.

  Broadcaster John Hilton Talks about Talking

  “To read as if you were talking you must first write as if you were talking. What you have on the paper in front of you must be talk stuff, not book stuff.”

  John Hilton, a BBC broadcaster in London before World War II, proved a popular announcer with the radio audience. Instead of reading the prepared text in monotones, Hilton enlivened his words with what he called “calculated spontaneity”—the ability to make reading sound like conversational speaking.

  Hilton discussed this ability when he ended a lengthy series of broadcasts with the following lecture on the topic of talking. Hilton’s focus in this broadcast, delivered on the BBC on July 1, 1937, is the art of public address, particularly the tricks that allow speakers to sound as if they were thinking out loud. With colloquial expressions (“I must buckle to”) and deliberate interjections (“Well, there you are”), he uses an informal tone designed to keep listeners interested. Through the internal dialogue—a conversational device of asking questions and then offering the answers himself—Hilton is able to achieve “calculated spontaneity.”

  ***

  I KEPT WONDERING what to say to you in this last talk, and then I had a bright idea. At least I hope it’s a bright idea. I said to myself. “Suppose you give a talk about giving a talk.”—“A talk about giving a talk! How d’you mean?”—“Why, how you set about it, and the tricks of the trade, and so on.”—“Yes, that is rather an idea,” I said to myself. So here goes….

  There’ve been bits in the paper sometimes about my broadcasts. The bits I’ve always liked best are those that refer to John Hilton “who just comes to the microphone and talks. So different from listening to something being read.” Oh yes, I like that. For, of course, I read every word of every talk. If only I could pull it off every time—but you have to be at the top of your form. Yes, of course, every word’s on paper even now—this—what I’m saying to you now—it’s all here. Talking! Just as it comes to him! Right out of his head! I hope it sounds so; it’s meant to. If it does—well—this is one of my good days.

  “Tricks of the trade.” Must I really tell you those? All right. The first trick of the trade is that there aren’t any tricks. I mean tricks don’t come off. That’s my experience, anyway. I’ve tried, in my time, this way and that. I like experiments. I’ll try anything once. But the little stunts and try-ons—no good! For me, I mean, of course. I think what listeners can spot more surely than anything else is any trace of falseness. I think you’ve got to find yourself—the radio rendering of yourself, and then be true to it. Truth, not tricks. For my sort of stuff, I mean, of course.

  “But to read as if you were talking! Isn’t that a trick?” Oh no, that’s an art—or a craft, whichever you like. And in every art or craft there’s a technique, a method, a way. What is it here? Well, I suppose each has to find his own; but my notion is that to read as if you were talking you must first write as if you were talking. What you have on the paper in front of you must be talk stuff, not book stuff.

  It’s, in part, a mere matter of how you put the words down on the paper. That very sentence now, the one you’ve just heard. It began with “It’s in part….” If I’d said to you, “It is, in part,” you’d have thought, “He’s reading.” In speech we say, “It’s,” not “It is.” So I write “I T apostrophe S,” and not “It is” on the paper. I know if I wrote, “It is,” I should say “It is.”…

  I don’t know anything about others, as I say, but my way is to speak my sentences aloud as I write them. In fact, here’s my second rule, all pat: “To write as you would talk you must talk while you write.” If you were outside my room while I’m writing a talk you’d hear muttering and mumbling and outright declaration from beginning to end. You’d say, “There’s somebody in there with a slate loose; he never stops talking to himself.” No, I wouldn’t be talking to myself but to you….

  You can scrap, in writing a talk, most of what you’ve been told all your life was literary good form. You have to; if you want your talk to ring the bell and walk in and sit down by the hearth. You’ve been told, for instance, that it’s bad form to end a sentence with a preposition. It may be, in print. But not in talk. Not in talk. I’m coming to the view that what I call the “prepositional verb” (I’m no grammarian—I invent my own names for those things)—that what I call the prepositional verb is one of the glories of the English language. You start with a simple verb like “to stand”; and with the help of a pocketful of prepositions you get all those lovely changes: to stand up, to stand down, to stand off, to stand in, to stand by, to stand over—and twenty others. We score over the French there. The Germans have it; but they stick their prepositions in front of the verbs. I think our way has much more punch to it. And what bull’s-eyes you can score with the prepositional verb if only you’ll search for it and, having found it, let the preposition come at the end of the sentence.

  You know how odd moments stick in the memory. One stays in mine. I was dealing with retirement pensions. I was tired. Tired to the point of writing that awful jargon that passes for English. I’d written something like “I don’t want what I’ve said to discourage you from pursuing this question further; rather I would wish that my arguments should prove an added stimulus….” At that point I said to myself, “Now, come on, John, pull yourself together. That won’t do: what is it you’re trying to say?” And I pulled myself together (tired as I was)—I pulled myself together and searched and found it. “I don’t want to put you off. I want rather to set you on.” That was all. (What torment we have to go through to find what it is we’re trying to say and how to say it in simple words.) That was all. Two simple sentences: put you off—set you on. Each ending with a preposition.

  At that point, as I wrote this script, I went for a walk round the houses. Two lads were talking as I passed. One had three dogs on a leash. The other asked, as I went by, “What d’you keep dogs for?” I pricked up my ears at that (for more reasons than one, you know). But I’m always interested in the way people say things. Quite as much as in what they say. “What d’you keep dogs for?” That was his way of asking, “Why do you keep dogs?” It’s most people’s way. I fancy it’s my way, as often as not. In my everyday speech, I mean. But suppose I’m writing a talk, and want to ask a question like that in it. Which form shall I use? Shall I say, “Why,” or shall I say, “What for”? The first saves a word, and over the air a word saved in expressing a thought i
s a kingdom gained. The second not only wastes a word, but the sentence ends in the wrong sort of preposition, the one on which you drop your voice: “What d’you keep dogs for?” So you’d say, “Use the first.” Yes, but I like what I say to get home; and to get at that lad, mustn’t I use his form, not the best form? The times I’ve had to face that question: popular English or good English!

  I think I’ve mostly dodged it. There’s an idiom, I believe, lies behind both. Behind both stiff speech and loose talk. I think if you can get back to that, the boy on the bike and the girl at the counter and the man at the works and the woman in the home will all feel the speech you’re using to be, perhaps not “true to life”—but something better: truer than life. It’s a choice of word and a turn of speech that, if only you can get it, reflects the very soul and spirit of our language. It comes down, of course, through Shakespeare and the Authorized Version. But there’s nothing old-fashioned, nothing dead and done with about it. It’s all alive and kicking. But it keeps to the homely words that belong to the oldest English and to homely turns of speech. That’s the way out I’ve tried to find. Sometimes I’ve felt I’ve really found it, and then what a thrill! How often I’ve tried for it and failed….