/ 



342 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



who, in public lecturing, combined a popular method with 

 exact scientific information. He was accustomed to use 

 freehand drawing on the black-board, in a mode which 

 was novel when he first began, but which soon became 

 common enough. He gave up lecturing mainly because of 

 the extreme shyness which he never ceased to feel in 

 addressing a strange audience. Had he not expressed 

 this sense of suffering, no one would have guessed it from 

 his serene and dignified manner of speaking on these 

 occasions. His fondness for romantic poetry, and his 

 habit of reciting it at home with a loud, impressive utter- 

 ance, naturally produced an effect upon his manner in 

 public speaking and lecturing. 



It was a subject of constant regret to us in later years 

 that he would not cultivate, for the general advantage, his 

 natural gift of elocution. He needed, however, what he 

 certainly would not have accepted, some training in the 

 conduct of his voice, which he threw out with too monoto- 

 nous a roll, a rapture too undeviatingly prophetic. But his 

 enunciation was so clear and just, his voice so resonant, and 

 his cadences so pure and distinguished, that he might easily 

 have become, had he chosen to interest himself in human 

 affairs, unusually successful as an orator. But it would 

 doubtless always have been difficult for him to have stirred 

 the enthusiasm, though he would easily have been secure 

 of the admiration and attention, of an audience. Of late 

 years, as long as his health permitted, he preached every 

 Sunday in his chapel, always with the same earnest im- 

 pressiveness, the same scrupulous elegance of language ; 

 but apt a little too much, perhaps, for so simple an 

 audience, to be occupied with what may be called the 

 metaphysics of religion. 



His public speaking, however, was highly characteristic 

 of himself, which is more than can justly be said of his 



