Page:Letters, sentences and maxims.djvu/274

This page needs to be proofread.

you cannot make them what they should be, you must take them as they are. I repeat it again, they are only to be taken by agrémens, and by what flatters their senses and their hearts. Rabelais first wrote a most excellent book, which nobody liked; then, determined to conform to the public taste, he wrote "Gargantua and Pantagruel," which every-*body liked, extravagant as it was. Adieu. [Same date.]


True Elocution.—What then does all this mighty heart and mystery of speaking in Parliament amount to? Why, no more than this, that the man who speaks in the House of Commons, speaks in that house, and to four hundred people, that opinion, upon a given subject, which he would make no difficulty of speaking in any house in England, round the fire, or at table, to any fourteen people whatsoever; better judges, perhaps, and severer critics of what he says, than any fourteen gentlemen of the House of Commons.

I have spoken frequently in Parliament, and not always without some applause; and therefore I can assure you, from my experience, that there is very little in it. The elegancy of the style, and the turn of the periods, make the chief impression upon the hearers. Give them but one or two round and harmonious