Page:Modern Eloquence - Volume 1.djvu/24



T would be interesting to trace the origin and development of a custom which is usually thought modern, were its beginning not lost in remote antiquity. Imagination can picture a tribe of feeding men, not too primitive to talk intelligently as they ate, and yet so numerous that mere table-talk would not keep a single subject of discussion before them for long, nor allow any but a chieftain to monopolize attention. At length it might become desirable to reconcile opposing views and factions, to give direction to roused energies, and a single purpose to divided aims.

The hour had arrived for the men of counsel, who must have preceded the men of war as soon as clan organization succeeded to the personal struggle of every man for himself. It would be safe to say that in early times and in the childhood of races a feast was not an unnecessary factor in getting the assembly together and in securing assent to propositions. This method is efficacious with children still, and adults have been known to be not entirely insensible to its subtle influence.

Now the truth of this natural suggestion of the fancy is established the moment that the beginnings of history and literature reveal the customs of those primeval men whose ways are a matter of authentic record. And it is fair to suppose that in so simple habits as eating and speaking the manner of them had come down unchanged, except in refinement, from rude ages to the more polished of which early literatures are a reflection. In the Homeric poems, for example, which gather up the traditions of the earlier Epos, the feast and the speech are in frequent and close conjunction, and both are often tributary to important occasions and measures. An example or two will illustrate this well-known