ins, and thread the intricacies of its forests, by
the paths which he has already trodden. It is an imperfect and partial
preparation in this respect, which so often renders the manner awkward
and embarrassed, and the discourse obscure and perplexed.[11] But when
the preparation is faithful, the speaker feels at home; being under no
anxiety respecting the ideas or the order of their succession, he has
the more ready control of his person, his eye, and his hand, and the
more fearlessly gives up his mind to its own action and casts himself
upon the current. Uneasiness and constraint are the inevitable
attendants of unfaithful preparation, and they are fatal to success. It
is true, that no man can attain the power of self-possession so as to
feel at all times equally and entirely at ease. But he may guard against
the sorest ills which attend its loss, by always making sure of a train
of thought,--being secure that he has ideas, and that they lie in such
order as to be found and brought forward in some sort of apparel, even
when he has in some measure lost the mastery of himself. The richness or
meanness of their dress will depend on the humor of the moment. It will
vary as much as health and spirits vary, which is more in some men than
in others. But the thoughts themselves he may produce, and be certain of
saying _what_ he intended to say, even when he cannot say it _as_ he
intended. It must often have been observed, by those who are at all in
the habit of observation of this kind, that the mind operates in this
particular like a machine, which, having been wound up, runs on by its
own spontaneous action, until it has gone through its appointed course.
Many men have thus continued speaking in the midst of an embarrassment
of mind which rendered them almost unconscious of what they were saying,
and incapable of giving an account of it afterward; while yet the
unguided, self-moving intellect wrought so well, that the speech was not
esteemed unwholesome or defective by the hearers. The experience of this
fact has doubtless helped many to believe that they spoke from
inspiration. It ought to teach all, that there is no sufficient cause
for that excessive apprehension, which so often unmans them, and which,
though it may not stop their mouths, must deprive their address of all
grace and beauty, of all ease and force.

[11] Nemo potest de ea re, quam non novit, non turpissime
dicere. Cic. de Or.

7. We may introdu