r of corrupting souls. Since it is an art, it is also a power which
must produce its effect for good or evil.

It has been said that the fool always finds a greater fool to listen to
him. We might add that the false, the ugly and the vicious have each a
fibre in the human heart to serve their purpose. Then let the true
orator, the good man, armed with holy eloquence, seek to paralyze the
fatal influence of those orators who are apostles of falsehood and
corruption.

Poets are born, orators are made: _nascuntur poetae, fiunt oratores_.
You understand why I have engraved this maxim on the title-page of my
work. It contains its _raison d'etre_, its justification. Men are poets
at birth, but eloquence is an art to be taught and learned. All art
presupposes rules, procedures, a mechanism, a method which must be
known.

We bring more or less aptitude to the study of an art, but every
profession demands a period more or less prolonged. We must not count
upon natural advantages; none are perfect by nature. Humanity is
crippled; beauty exists only in fragments. Perfect beauty is nowhere to
be found; the artist must create it by synthetic work.

You have a fine voice, but be certain it has its defects. Your
articulation is vicious, and the gestures upon which you pride yourself,
are, in most cases, unnatural. Do not rely upon the fire of momentary
inspiration. Nothing is more deceptive. The great Garrick said: "I do
not depend upon that inspiration which idle mediocrity awaits." Talma
declared that he absolutely calculated all effects, leaving nothing to
chance. While he recited the scene between Augustus and Cinna, he was
also performing an arithmetical operation. When he said:

"Take a chair, Cinna, and in everything
Closely observe the law I bid you heed"--

he made his audience shudder.

The orator should not even think of what he is doing. The thing should
have been so much studied, that all would seem to flow of itself from
the fountain.

But where find this square, this intellectual compass, that traces for
us with mathematical precision, that line of gestures beyond which the
orator must not pass? I have sought it for a long time, but in vain.
Here and there one meets with advice, sometimes good but very often
bad. For example, you are told that the greater the emotion, the
stronger should be the voice. Nothing is more false. In violent emotion
the heart seems to fill the larynx and the voice is stifled.