好文共賞：After-dinner oratory 晚餐後的演講

Rogar · 發表於 2013-3-1 16:08:43

好文共賞：After-dinner oratory 晚餐後的演講

美國著名詩人James Russell Lowell於1883年7月4日在倫敦發表演說節錄：
And I am sure that I may also say that the chief magistrate of England will be welcomed by the bar of the United States, of which I am an unworthy member, and perhaps will be all the more warmly welcomed that he does not come among them to practise. I have heard since I came here friends of mine gravely lament this as something prophetic of the decay which was sure to follow so serious an innovation.
I answered with a little story which I remember having heard from my father. He remembered the last clergyman in New England who still continued to wear the wig. At first it became a singularity and at last a monstrosity; and the good doctor concluded to leave it off.
But I must not allow myself to indulge in any further remarks. There is one virtue, I am sure, in after-dinner oratory, and that is brevity; and as to that I am reminded of a story. The Lord Chief Justice has told you what the ingredients of an after-dinner oratory are. They are the joke, the quotation, and the platitude; and the successful platitude, in my judgment, requires a very high order of genius.
I believe that I have not given you a quotation, but I am reminded of something which I heard when very young—the story of a Methodist clergyman in America. He was preaching at a camp meeting, and he was preaching upon the miracle of Joshua, and he began his sermon with this sentence: "My hearers, there are three motions of the sun. The first is the straightforward or direct motion of the sun; the second is the retrograde or backward motion of the sun; and the third is the motion mentioned in our text—the sun stood still."