The Nature of True Eloquence

True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it, but cannot reach it. It comes,if it comes at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires with spontaneous, original, native force. The grades taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives and the fate oftheir wives, their children, and their country hang
on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, and rhetoric is vain, and all the elaborate oratory is contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing

every feature, and urging the whole man onward - right onward to his object - this, this is eloquence.
     By: Daniel Webster