THROUGH CLEARNESS OF SPEECH LESSON IV

The word is the most direct manifestation of the thought; hence it is one of the most important agents of Influence when it clothes itself with precision and clearness, indispensable in cooperating in creating conviction in the minds of ones hearers.

Were not the burning words of Peter the Hermit the sole cause of the rising of arms for the conquest of the tomb of Jesus? And was it not especially because that monk believed himself firmly to be moved by a divine will that he knew how to make his belief shared by thousands of men of all classes, poor or rich, who under the influence of his words all possessed only a single soul, impregnated with sentiments of heroic piety which urged them to dye the sands of Palestine with their blood?

What arguments had this monk found? Only three words, but powerful words, when one considers the mentality and the peculiar religiosity of that epoch: “God wishes it! ”

“God wish it!” These words were the first to declare to the ignorant masses Peter’s all-powerful influence. In the eyes of the vulgar, this man who transmitted to them thus the will of the Most High assumed in their eyes the proportions of a divine messenger, a sort of prophet in communication with the Master of Masters, who designed to dictate to him His orders.

For others, it was to resume debates by an argument without reply; it was to excuse fatigues and privations and an unknown death under a foreign sky. God wished it! How vain were all other speeches after these three words, which bowed all heads under the powerful breath of divine domination, as wheat bends under the tempestuous winds!

Yoritomo speaks as a true sage, then, when he says:

“Leaders of souls should not forget this one thing: Too great wealth of words is hostile to conviction.”

And, alluding to a Japanese proverb, which is very similar to one of our own well-known proverbs, he added:

“If speech is like jade, silence is like a diamond.”

“Speech is like a diamond when it is the vibrating form of the concrete thought and when it presents itself in a quiet way, rendering its suggestions familiar and clear by the way in which the orator knows how to present them.”

“Prolific speech is the medium of powerful thought – of that thought of which we should be master and not slaves.”

“Speech is the seed, good or ill omened, which, sown in irresolute natures, may produce either nettles or wheat.”

This may be also the ‘fixed idea’ that is supposed to be implanted in every weak brain. Suppose someone should chance to being endowed with the power of initiative, but with a wavering will:

“You will be good, because goodness is the supreme end of life,” if the order is accompanied by the dominating look of which we have spoken and pronounced in a tone that will impress, there is no doubt that these influences will produce such a radiation as, in spite of himself, would make him feel himself under the influence of good emanating from himself to converge toward his fellows.”

“This may seem very obscure at first, but the brevity and precision of order will implant themselves little by little in his brain, of which the passive forces, always submissive to confused influence, will at a certain moment determine the active forces to emerge from the background where up to then they had lain hidden.”

“But if one expresses this prophecy some day before being afflicted with moral weakness: ‘You will be a criminal,’ the idea, originally repelled with horror, ends by sowing in his brain an idea first of the impossibility of the suggestion, then, more frequently evoked it become less monstrous and he finishes with a smile of doubt at the beginning, then with fear, by facing the eventuality of this prophesied crime, the specter of which had pursued him so persistently, that one day, when carried away by anger or violent passion, he accomplished this criminal act against the temptation of which he would certainly have reacted, had he not been possessed with the fixed idea which designed him before his own eyes as the instrument predestined by Fate.”

‘That is the reason why,” added the Shogun, with infinite wisdom, “one cannot blame too much such parents as the prophesy for their children terrible punishments for reprehensible acts which they can hardly help committing.”

And he added:

“Those who, thinking to cure their children of faults more or less characteristic, repeat to them: ‘You will die under the executioner’s whip,’ are sometimes the involuntary cause of this execution.”

“To strengthen this idea of so lugubrious a fate for the little ones, they familiarize them with it, and dwell on its horrors.”

“Then they compromise constantly their authority before their children, for they, seeing them the next day filled with kind feelings and expressing tenderness toward them, will not fail to regard lightly the terrible menace with which they were threatened.”

“It might happen that they were struck by it, and that would be likely to be unlucky for their future, for, once implanting this idea in their brains, they will not fail to wonder at the serenity of their parents, who can admit the possibility of so terrible a fate and yet go on living peacefully with the menace of such a future for their child.”

“In every way, the authority of the heads of the family will find itself lessened, and the seed sown in the heart of the child by the imprudent prophecy cannot fail to produce bad fruit.”

“It will be so much the more dangerous if it should be resumed in a few words, those incisive words that draw mental pictures, which take root in the brain.”

“Long lectures have only a repressing effect on the spirit.”

“Ones listeners, endowed with will and discernment, very soon give up trying under the avalanche of words that fall on their ears with the monotony of flakes of snow, to distinguish truths that are uttered in the confused mass of verbiage.”

“On the contrary, they force themselves to turn these thoughts from this wordy chaos, in which the confusion equals the monotony.”

“As for others, the laxity of their attention does not permit them to follow the same idea very long, and, all effort being painful to them, they will not long follow the orator in the mazes of thought through which he would conduct them.”

“But those that know how to present their thoughts in a few phrases, in a way that impresses itself on their listeners, may easily become leaders of the masses.”

“The first quality of the speaker who would be convincing should be to think deeply of what he wishes to say.”

“As soon as he knows how to transform his thoughts into clear-cut images, the contours of which will not admit of any ones divining one line to be different from the line intended, he will be careful to project them into the minds of others under the form of lights and shades.”

“We have already seen how the power of thought has the gift of influencing others, particularly when this force is aided by the power of the eye; when these two ruling faculties are augmented by the power of spoken discourse, the listeners are conquered by the ideas that are presented to them.”

“Those who will acquire these gifts will find that he can interest men and attach them to himself; in a word, can lead them by the means of the influence that will assure him of mental empire over most of his contemporaries.”

“It is necessary, also,” the Shogun continued, “to base oneself on the theory of like attracts like, in the expansion of the sympathetic radiation which must converge toward great numbers to illumine men’s souls.”

“It has been remarked with what facility people follow noble impulses, heroic appeals, and generous outbursts.”

“A speaker would be culpable, then, should he count on the inferior mental quality of his auditors in order to descend to their level.”

“This is the fault of too many speakers who like to court less noble sides of the popular spirit.”

“They give as a reason – I would almost say an excuse – that to address them in this way one is better listened to and more readily understood.”

“This is a gross error. How many times have I uttered a noble thought in the midst of an assemblage of persons of mental mediocrity! ”

“As this thought was always expressed in language clear and exact, formed of words that all could comprehend, every time I have had the pleasure of seeing the multitude vibrate like a harp struck by an expert hand, and to feel for a moment that the souls of the roughest of palanquin-bearers were elevated under the influence of my words which were adapted to the purest ideal.”

“Is not this a kind of conquest for which those have devoted themselves to the art of influencing should strive?”

“It is by speech that one develops emotion, generator of noble gestures and of generous realization.”

“Speech is the distributor of the thoughts that surround us, of which the reiterated suggestions, after impregnating certain groups of cells in our brain, travel, by affinity, to haunt the same group of brain-cells in other auditors.”

“This is one reason why it is not well to dwell too long on the same subject, so that one can allow some rest to the weaker brains in an audience.”

“Still, it is an undoubted fact that to jump from one subject to another, and to leave them only to attack them again, as is the custom of some speakers, is more fatiguing and less satisfactory, for minds wearied by this continual exercise end by ceasing to follow the flight of these fugitive thoughts; and, after waiting in vain for some repose in a discourse, they give up trying to follow the constant flight of too soaring imagination.”

“Another type to be dreaded, are those devoted to idle chatter and gossip.”

“One might, if he were greatly in earnest, correct them in this way: listen to their conversation, summarize it, and in ten minutes repeat to them all that had taken them an hour to say; by ‘all’ one must understand merely the ideas and not the repetitions.”

“But will they stand correct? Will they not do as did a certain lord who, having seen his neighbor very ill, and having talked incessantly while visiting him without letting the sick man get a word in edgewise, said, when leaving him: .”

“I will return tomorrow to learn how you are, for I fear I have tired you very much because I have done so much talking today.”

“Conciseness and clearness in speaking is thus a great force in the work of influencing, which is a noble task for one who undertakes it seriously.”

“Moderation must be among the qualities whose aim is to action by the word in order to direct the focus of attention toward the principal thought which, excluding all accessory thoughts, should be imposed on the minds of his auditors by the speaker that wishes to extend his influence over them.”

“Discretion is equally indispensable in forming influence by speech.”

“From indiscretion to lying the step is short, and one should not forget this axiom that might be written in characters of jade on leaves of purest gold.”

“Lying is a homage which inferiority renders unconsciously to merit.”

“Bands of precious metals should be hung on the walls of salons, replacing, in a way more comprehensible to all minds, the covered rose-filled vases that ornament festal tables.”

And Yoritomo reminded us of that ancient custom, which we believed peculiar to the Grecian sages, and which, it appears, was begun centuries ago among the philosophers of the Far East:

“Harpocrates, the god whom the ancient Greeks worshiped under the image of silence, had presented to the God of Love a flower which, coming from his hands, represented the virtue which he was supposed to symbolize.”

“This gift was made in order to encourage the wanton boy to guard the secrets of his mother, Venus, for we know that Love was always ready to reveal the secrets of those that were attacked by his flames.”

“This act of the god was imitated first by the Grecian sages, then by the Japanese philosophers; and at all banquets appears a closed vase, the cover of which must not be lifted.”

“This vase encloses the roses, whose perfume filters through the interstices of the vessel, letting one guess what flowers are within.”

“It was a custom to ask the guests to let nothing transpire regarding the discussions that took place in these gatherings.”

“Later the custom became general and was followed among ordinary people, and then followed among ordinary people, when the closed and flower-filled vase was a constant warning to the guests to use discretion, and not to allow escaping outside anything that might have been said under the influence of wine.”

“Our modern humor has immortalized this custom in the form of a figure of speech that is on everybody’s tongue, but of which few persons know the origin, people often say of one who tells secrets: ‘He has uncovered the rose jar! ’”

The etymology of this figure is known to few, but however that may be, we are grateful to Yoritomo for recalling it to us by connecting it with one of the lessons he has taught us, which, disguised in the form of a parable, fix them in our minds in so attractive a fashion that we do not forget them as soon as we have heard them.