nervous in opening, but never in reply. John Bright was intensely nervous at starting. Bishop Wilberforce confessed to being nervous even in the pulpit. I doubt if any good speaker can plead immunity from nerves, or has any clear idea, before he begins, whether he is going to make a good speech, a bad speech, or an indifferent speech. This applies, of course, much more to Parliament than to the platform, where the conditions are more stable, and can be more safely predicted. In Parliament so much turns on the accident of the moment, the temper of the House, the number present, the speeches that have preceded. The nervousness of the inexperienced speaker who is waiting to begin is visible in his manner and movements, but even the "old hand" is often some time before he warms to his task. A speaker who has no nerves will probably never attain to the first rank of Parliamentary orators which perhaps may explain why the hero of the platform is so often a failure in the House. On the other hand, I doubt if any considerable speaker is nervous when he has once gained the ear of his audience, while the expert debater, so far from feeling apprehensive, looks forward with eager expectancy to his reply.
Appearance and action.Another question may be put: Is an orator greatly assisted by grace of manner, voice, and action, and is he correspondingly handicapped by an uncomely or ignoble appearance, harsh accents, inelegant gestures, or unconscious tricks? A priori there can be but one answer to these questions; and, in the art of great orators like Chatham, Gladstone, Daniel O'Connell, or Bright, it is clear that a large part was played by the splendour or harmony of their physical endowment. On the other hand genius is beyond and above the law; and far more common than the spectacle of eloquence reinforced by grace of manner or dignity of person, is that of the orator triumphing over physical obstacles or mannerisms that might be thought fatal to success. Burke was angular and awkward in his gestures; Mirabeau was ugly almost beyond words. Pitt used to saw the air with his arms like a windmill; Abraham Lincoln was gaunt
