How to Improve the Memory/Lesson 8
LESSON VIII
HOW TO MEMORIZE A SPEECH
IN memorizing a speech, we rely on the same helps as those used in remembering a story, except that instead of dividing it into scenes we arrange it into its three divisions (opening, body, and conclusion), and besides these helps we call into use Apposition, Opposition, Combination, and Sequence.
The example here used is an extract from the great speech delivered by Daniel Webster in the celebrated White murder case, when he appeared as special counsel in behalf of the state.
The opening of the speech ends with "so many ounces of blood"; that of the body, with "the secret is his own and is safe"; the conclusion, with the close of the speech.
These three grand divisions are subdivided as follows:
(1) Opening: (a) Why the advocate has undertaken to assist the prosecution. (b) Definition of the case.
(2) Body: (a) Description of the victim, (b) how the assassin entered the house, (c) how he reached his victim, (d) the location of the room and the victim. (e) The murder, (f) the retreat of the assassin, (g) his thoughts.
(3) Conclusion: (a) Exposing the delusion of the murderer, (b) description of his torture, (c) "murder will out."
Crime Its Own Detector
Daniel Webster
(1) (a) Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I cannot have the slightest prejudice; I would not do him the smallest injury or injustice. (b) But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. (c) I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how much soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning, or hand in executing, this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice.
(d) Gentlemen, this is a most extraordinary case. In some respects it has hardly a precedent anywhere—certainly none in our New England history. (e) This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like temptation springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it, before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long-settled and deadly hate. (f) It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all "hire and salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of money against life, the counting out of so many pieces of silver against so many ounces of blood.
(2) (a) An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder, for mere pay. The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers held him in their soft but strong embrace. (b) The assassin enters through the window, already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. (c) With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half-lighted by the moon—he winds up the ascent of stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. (d) The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike.
(e) The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death. It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished! The deed is done. (f) He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. (g) He has done the murder—no eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and is safe!
(3) (a) Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner, where the guilty can bestow it, and say that it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which glances through all disguises, and beholds everything, as in the splendor of noon—such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by man.
True it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of heaven by shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery; especially in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circumstance, connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intently dwell on the scene; shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery.
Meantime, the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret.
(b) It is false itself; or rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself: it labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant; it finds itself preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it asks no sympathy or assistance, either from heaven or earth.
The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him. And, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. (c) It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to break forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession.
COMMENT
It should be noted that the speech divides nicely into three divisions, opening, body, and conclusion. The opening states why the advocate appears in the case, and what kind of a case it is. The body deals with a description of the murdered man, the manner in which the assassin gains access to the house, how he reaches his victim, the state of the room as the murderer enters it, and the condition in which he beholds the man whom he has determined to deprive of his life. It also describes the murder, explains how the murderer escapes from the scene of his crime, and tells what the criminal thinks regarding the probability of his being called upon to answer for his transgression. The conclusion shows how fallacious were the hopes of the assassin regarding his escape, describes his mental torture, and shows how murder, in the majority of cases, cannot be hidden from the eyes of man.
By means of sequence, all these facts may be impressed upon the mind, and being thus arranged in a natural and logical manner, they will flow from the mind consecutively and continuously whenever it is desired to repeat the speech. When memorizing a speech it is always advisable to reduce it to a mere skeleton, a framework, and impress the mind with the thoughts before attempting to learn the words which are to express them. We should bear in mind that the words are only symbols, that they stand for something other than themselves, and that this other, the thought, is what we should look for, and unless we grasp the thought, the words themselves will not remain long with us. Of course, we must study words so that we may see the thought, in order that we may know their meaning and significance, but we should never study words for the sake of remembering words. If we did so, the words would only cumber the memory to the exclusion of thoughts, and make of the mind a receptacle of useless material things instead of making it the abode of immortal spiritual creatures.
Once more the student is admonished to look for the soul of the discourse, the thing that gives it life, the thought; to arrange all thoughts in a sequence, and not to bother about the words in which they are framed.