304 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VII. 



your intellectual relation. I am sure the highest success in ora- 

 tory, true oratory, heaven- born eloquence, lies within your power; 

 you have every gift that should make you a very Demosthenes, 

 and yet your lips are sealed ; the mere gift of utterance is denied 

 you, or rather has never been developed by you. I always think of 

 you as a great river dammed up by a floodgate, so that the water 

 only escapes here and there through holes and by channels, and 

 nobody sees its greatness of volume. You are to blame, Jeems, 

 for never cultivating the mere talkee, talkee habit. All the 

 follies of debating societies are worth enduring for the readiness 

 they give a man in bringing his thoughts rapidly to the surface 

 in the shape of words, and in accustoming him to think of 

 moulding his thoughts into the form best fitted to influence 

 others. A thoughtful, silent dweller in solitude like you, think- 

 ing for the sake of your own satisfaction only, must find it an 

 effort to throw these thoughts into a shape suited to the grasp 

 of others, and especially of inferior minds, and this to a greater 

 extent than weaker intellects better practised will do. This is 

 a horrid lecture I am inflicting on you, but I must tell you that 

 you have a noble gift of eloquence in you, would you but take 

 the trouble to dig and wear away a channel for it to flow in. I 

 would not enter the lists against you on any subject where our 

 knowledge was equal, with any hope of success, if you had half 

 the practice I have had as a speaker. It is not popularity, Jeems, 

 I wish you to fight for ; it's worth nothing, nothing, nothing. 

 It's to fight against the worldliness and materialism of the age, 

 and smite down the little men who are leading it astray. What 

 effect would all the physical science crew have in lowering pub- 

 lic taste if a gifted professor of the absolute like you would come 

 down from your solitary dream-filled altitudes and oppose them? 

 We, physiker, have too much of the public ear ; our stuff is more 

 apprehensible than yours ; but you should roar the louder down 

 the trumpet. My dear brethren, I will conclude with a ques- 

 tion or two. Whether do you expect to bring your audiences 

 up to you, or to have to descend to them ? Or may the differ- 

 ence be split ? This may be, but split with a greater descent on 

 your part than ascent on theirs. You may write in the loftiest 

 vein, but to preach in any very high one to ordinary audiences 



