Chapter Speech given to Conceal Thought to Splendid Shilling of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Speech given to Conceal Thought to Splendid Shilling

Speech given to Conceal Thought. La parole a été donnée à l’homme pour déguiser la penser or pour l’aider à cacher sa pensée. Talleyrand is usually credited with this sentence, but captain Gronow, in his Recollections and Anecdotes, asserts that the words were those of count Montrond, a wit and poet, called “the most agreeable scoundrel and most pleasant reprobate in the court of Marie Antoinette.”

Voltaire, in Le Chapon et la Poularde, says, “Ils n’employent les paroles que pour déguiser leurs pensées.”

Goldsmith, in The Bee, iii. (October 20, 1759), has borrowed the same thought: “The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.”

Speech-Makers (Bad).

Addison could not make a speech. He attempted once in the House of Commons, and said, “Mr. Speaker, I conceive—I conceive, sir—sir, I conceive—” Whereupon a member exclaimed, “The right honourable secretary of state has conceived thrice, and brought forth nothing.”

Campbell (Thomas) once tried to make a speech, but so stuttered and stammered that the whole table was convulsed with laughter.

Cicero, the great orator, never got over his nervous terror till he warmed to his subject.

Irving (Washington), even with a speech written out and laid before him, could not deliver it without a breakdown. In fact, he could hardly utter a word in public without trembling.

Moore (Thomas) could never make a speech.

(Dickens and prince Albert always spoke well and fluently.)

Speed, an inveterate punster and the clownish servant of Valentine one of the two “gentlemen of Verona.”—Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594).

Speed the Parting Guest.

Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.
   —Pope: Homer’s Odyssey (1725).

Speed the Plough, a comedy by Thomas Morton (1798). Farmer Ashfield brings up a boy named Henry, greatly beloved by every one. This Henry is in reality the son of “Morrington,” younger brother of sir Philip Blandford. The two brothers fixed their love on the same lady, but the younger married her. Whereupon sir Philip stabbed him to the heart and fully thought him to be dead; but after twenty. years the wounded man reappeared and claimed his son. Henry marries his cousin Emma Blandford; and the farmer’s daughter, Susan, marries Robert only son of sir Abel Handy.

Spenlow (Mr.), father of Dora (q.v..), He was proctor, to whom David Copperfield was articled. Mr. Spenlow was killed in a carriage accident.

Misses Lavinia and Clarissa Spenlow, two spinster aunts of Dora Spenlow, with whom she lived at the death of her father.

They were not unlike birds altogether, having a sharp, brisk, sudden manner, and a little, short, spruce way of adjusting themselves, like canaries.—Dickens: David Copperfield, xli. (1849).

Spens (Sir Patrick), a Scotch hero, sent in the winter-time on a mission to Norway. His ship, in its home passage, was wrecked against the Papa Stronsay, and every one on board was lost. The incident has furnished the subject of a famous old Scotch ballad.

Spenser of English Prose-Writers (The), Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667).