Page:Modern Eloquence - Volume 1.djvu/33

xxiv are apt to be few and the speakers many. But extemporaneous talkers are the worst of time-keepers. The fear of not having enough to fill a few minutes often carries one on to many until all consciousness of time is gone. Or the elation bred by fluency may produce the same result. Then, too, the respectful attention or easy applause of a good-natured company may be delusive. It is not an unknown occurrence that an erudite and long-winded speaker has mistaken the stamping which was intended to silence him for genuine applause, and has continued to labor on for the supposed gratification of his tired hearers after he would himself have gladly closed. Therefore, it is not always safe to trust to the appearance of an audience for the gauge of interest. A watch in the hands of a next neighbor at the table is more trustworthy. Even the rare speaker from a manuscript on the cloth has an advantage with respect to time limit. He knows how long he will be in reading it. It would be well if the rule of the debater's signal could be established by general consent, and the clink of a tumbler notify the speaker when to begin to make an end. Then he could make it in such time as he might allow himself or be allowed.

If he has a purpose to gain or a cause to further, the close of his speech, according to the common rule of address, will be convincing or persuasive. There will be a climax of some sort as the outcome of what has gone before. It may be serious or humorous, but the weight of it, like the weight of a hammer, will be at the far end, if anything is to be enforced and a lasting impression left. This does not imply that the impression of the speech as a whole is not to be considered, nor that all its grace, fitness and power are to be reserved for the closing sentences. These simply gather up the thoughts that have been presented and mass their appropriateness and their force.

This ordering and prearrangement of a speech may seem too careful and formal for so informal remark as an after-dinner speech is supposed to be. To be sure there are all grades and sorts of such discourses, as there are all kinds of occasions and dinners, which themselves are often extremely formal and elaborate. An address which should resemble a sumptuous banquet in its artificiality and length should not be contemplated for a moment. Yet there are occasions