THE LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 
 U*IV”SSTY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 TUTTLE 
 
STACKS 
 
BROWN UNIVERSITY. 
 
 CLASS OF ’66. 
 
 ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 MANNING HALL, 
 
 CLASS BAY, JUNE 14th, 1S66. 
 
 PRINTED BY REQUEST OF THE CLASS. 
 
 PROVIDENCE : 
 
 KNOWLES, ANTHONY & CO., PRINTERS. 
 
 1 8 6 6 . 
 

 
 
 
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bio .1 
 m’oA & 
 
 A T a meeting of the Senior Class of Brown University, June 18th, 
 1866, it was unanimously 
 
 Resolved , That a vote of thanks be tendered to William H. Spencer, 
 the Orator, and to Preston Gurney, the Poet, for the acceptable manner 
 in which they performed their duties on Class Day. 
 
 Resolved, That Edward K. Glezen, Samuel H. Albro and Herbert 
 C. Bullard constitute a Committee to solicit of the Orator and the Poet 
 their productions, for publication. 
 
THE POWER OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 ORATION 
 
 BY WILLIAM H. SPENCER, 
 
 % 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
THE POWER OP SUGGESTION. 
 
 
 T HERE is a certain readiness of perception, commonly 
 described as knowing how to take a hint, — an inge- 
 nuity' in detecting relations between things remotely con- 
 nected. It guesses effects while as yet they lie wrapped up 
 in their cause, and is constantly finding, in material objects 
 and physical exercise, symbols of ideas and mental acts. 
 Practical common sense knows no deeper cunning than this. 
 Perhaps it will be found that sagest wisdom has no surer 
 way of reaching its conclusions ; that the whole course of 
 training that constitutes education, in the most general sense, 
 is but a series of attempts to acquire truth by means of 
 hints. For it is certain that however much may be ex- 
 pressed, in what is said or written or done, there is always 
 much more that remains to ’be guessed at. Without much 
 shrewd guess-work and taking of hints, our numerous teach- 
 ers, — natural, human and divine,— would labor to little pur- 
 pose in our education. If the ultimate aim of education be 
 to interpret the various objects of sense, to hear the deep 
 undertones of life, to feel the sweet thrill of relation that 
 unites us with the Infinite, then substance, fact, sound — all 
 show and noise — are not the proper subjects of teaching or 
 learning, however indispensable they may be as the means 
 
8 
 
 ORA TION. 
 
 of knowledge. They are the windows, more or less defec- 
 tive and stained, through which the pure thought glimmers. 
 
 For life, in its subtler spiritualisms, the true complexion 
 of thought, is revealed only in hints, and can, in no way, 
 be fully expressed. Even in ordinary speech, how does the 
 poverty of language stand confessed ! How much we de- 
 pend upon tones in detecting the delicate shades of thought 
 and feeling! There is far less in words and phrases than 
 in the tone that wings them.* The greeting of a friend is 
 conveyed in his hearty tone, in his eye, rather than in the 
 commonplace phrase that he utters. There is a whine in 
 the petition of a professional beggar that proclaims his call- 
 ing. There is often a thickness of utterance in the voices 
 of brave men in battle, betraying the natural dread that the 
 presence of peril inspires. 
 
 A glance at some of the different sources of our infor- 
 mation may serve to illustrate the significance of hints in 
 teaching, and may lead to some notion of their real value. 
 
 Nature stands before us, full of meanings and purposes at 
 which she only hints. Her looks and tones are all pro- 
 phetic. Never satisfied with exhibitions of what is now doing 
 in her realm, she always scatters before her the hints of 
 coming events. The present is but a promise of the future. 
 Just as, when a man is about to say a good thing, you 
 can see his eye twinkle, and his face begin to shine with 
 the thought, before he utters a word, so, when nature con- 
 ceives the thought of Summer in her heart, you can read 
 it in the color that mantles the hills, of late so pale, in the 
 twinkle of wild flowers and the chuckle of meadow-brooks. 
 T,here is a bustle of preparation in the sky that tells you 
 of the coming rain. Boys can take the hint conveyed in a 
 young orchard, or a melon-patch, long enough before nature 
 
 % 
 
ORA T10N. 
 
 9 
 
 spells out the magic word — fruit! You have abundance 
 of time to guess what nature is about when she undertakes 
 the full expression of the meaning of an acorn. 
 
 Again, it is from hints, thrown out by nature in her 
 careless way, that the man of science discovers her latent 
 forces and turns them into directions of utility. She did 
 not provide men with a steam-engine, all polished and com- 
 plete. She only kept blowing off the covers of pots and 
 kettles, wherever steam was confined, and left it to the wits 
 of the curious and thoughtful to take the hint, and find 
 out what could be done with this restive spirit. We boast 
 of wresting from nature the stores of energy and the rich 
 treasures she has kept so long concealed ; but when has 
 nature ever hid her face or closed her hand to earnest 
 seekers ? There are wonderful inventions, shrewd discoveries 
 in physical science, that were begging for recognition and 
 employment during ages of stupidity and superstition. 
 How many apples dropped upon unsuspicious pates before 
 a man was found who could give the. act its name ? How 
 many centuries did pendulums of all sorts swing before 
 the eyes of men, before any one took the hint of a clock? 
 Is there anything which the conceit of men has ascribed 
 to the acuteness of their observation, that was not hinted 
 broadly enough long before it was perceived ? 
 
 But there are subtler meanings in nature, which are no 
 less real than steam-engines and clocks. Matter everywhere 
 throbs with a force that is not material, — something which 
 eludes the most subtile chemical analysis. When we have 
 traced physical phenomena to their vital source, and can go no 
 further, we stop, baffled, and give to the fact that eludes 
 us some hard name — attraction, repulsion, chemical affinity 
 
 — terms which are nothing but’ meaningless labels, attached 
 2 
 
10 
 
 ORATION. 
 
 for the sake of convenience to something that defies analy- 
 sis, — a mysterious energy, which has given a few signs 
 of its presence. 
 
 Beauty is something that is felt, not seen. There is 
 shapeliness in form, harmony in sound, because an idea 
 lives in the figure and breathes in the tones. Whatever 
 truth there is in relation, in the fitness of things, it is 
 something that we can .only feel. He who hears only 
 noise and sees only sights in nature, is like one who dozes 
 over a book, and reads the same page again and again, 
 without any perception of its sense. There is something 
 in the plash of fountains and cascades, in the rustling of 
 leaves when airy fingers sweep over them, in the sounds 
 which fill the air of a Summer night, that the ear does 
 not hear. There is an undertone of gladness, or, it may 
 be, a hint of sadness, which you can only feel, without 
 knowing why it is, that these simple sounds should be sad 
 or glad. There is more than mere color and perfume in 
 flowers. A tree has a distinctive character of its own, 
 visible in its shape, as the human soul 4n the countenance. 
 One who is in sympathy with nature feels a spirit of 
 action in the hills, and in the lowlands a spirit of repose. 
 To such an one, all physical phenomena are full of ideas, 
 seeking to subordinate all coarse, material uses to the higher 
 and purer cravings of spiritual instincts. To the musical 
 soul of Hadyn, the course of the seasons suggested an 
 oratorio. So to every one who will but take the key-note 
 of nature, the infinite jargon of sounds in all her busy life 
 shall glide into an anthem, befitting the organ and the Di- 
 vine Performer. Unite all the sounds of Summer to the 
 minor strains that sob in the air of October days, add the 
 shrill piping of November' gales, and the hoarse fury of 
 
ORA TION . 
 
 11 
 
 Winter storms, and then let the fullness of tone die away, 
 and break out again more softly in the songs of birds and 
 the dancing 'of streams. These are but the separate parts 
 of the yearly anthem. It is the universal u Hymn of 
 Praise.” 
 
 Thus, in many ways, nature teaches those who will 
 learn, hinting, in looks and tones more than in her thousand 
 voices, the mysteries that yearn for full expression. 
 
 But what nature cannot do, human art dares at least to 
 attempt. For true art never seeks to copy nature. To 
 clothe the idea with forms, to find some true expression 
 for the thought, is the darling aim of genius. Not to re- 
 produce the blunders of nature, but to vie with her in its 
 interpretations of the thoughts of God. Adopting the 
 method, and using the materials best suited to its power 
 and purpose, it passionately strives to chisel or paint or 
 speak or sing the imprisoned ideal. But, though the work 
 of the artist have no fellow or superior in nature, though 
 the form and countenance of the Apollo Belvidere glow with 
 a divinity such as no mortal ever wore, though the spiritual 
 beauty that illumines the face of a Madonna find no coun- 
 terpart in all the models of female loveliness, yet it is im- 
 perfect. Whatever it be that genius does represent to us, 
 it is never the exact idea it seeks to embody. The work 
 of an artist is only a hint of what he would fain do. It 
 disappoints its own author. Its features are not the perfect 
 features of his thought. The richest legacies of genius that 
 grace the treasuries of art may be viewed only as strong 
 suggestions of what their authors vainly endeavored to re- 
 alize. Such hints may, however, serve to convey some no- 
 tion of the sublime originals. Angelo’s stately genius raised 
 for itself a fitting shrine in the grandest temple ever reared 
 
12 
 
 ORA TION. 
 
 by Christian art ; and St. Peter’s, which hangs a “ firmament 
 of architecture” over the profound depths of long drawn 
 aisle and nave below, may show to what breadths and 
 heights the soul of the architect could expand. 
 
 But the great masters suggest more than the single idea 
 they attempt to exhibit. In the different schools of art we 
 catch something of the spirit of the age or nation to which 
 they belong. As with heroes and the times in which they 
 live, each is in some measure the product of the other, so 
 the representative arts take their tone from the general ten- 
 dencies of the age, and leave their own impress upon them. 
 The mystical, unformed notions of Eastern speculation seek 
 expression in the vague, monstrous shapes peculiar to their 
 shrines and their gods. The clear logical instinct of the 
 Greeks, on the other hand, is shown in the severe simpli- 
 city and unity of their architecture. The practical tenden- 
 cies of Roman art appeared in their roads, bridges, aque- 
 ducts, amphitheatres, baths, while conquest supplied them 
 ' with monuments of decorative art. The piety of the Middle 
 Ages has left us proofs of its strong sincerity in heavenward 
 pointing arch and spire ; of its intense humanity, in gro- 
 tesque ornaments and quaint conceits ; of its devotion, in 
 the careful pains and costly effort bestowed upon minute 
 details. 
 
 But though art may thus furnish an index of the char- 
 acter of a nation or an epoch, the special aim of the artist 
 is never realized. Let him pray for some hand to guide 
 his own, that he may give form and color to the struggling 
 thought, let his very work itself be a prayer, yet shall he 
 always keep back more than he declares. His highest in- 
 tuitions shall evermore refuse to be uttered. 
 
 Among the modes of expression, there is none that offers 
 
ORA TION. 
 
 13 
 
 such advantages as language, whether spoken or written* 
 As poetry is Queen of the arts, so does speech, the in- 
 strument of her power, excel all other modes of representa- 
 tion. The power of words, even of a single word, to 
 awaken iiiiages of beauty or sublimity, must ever give to 
 literature a place above the work of the sculptor or the 
 painter. No single stroke of chisel or of brush can ever 
 crowd the mind with remembered forms and scenes like the 
 one word — home. No image of Jove by the hand of 
 Phidias himself could bear comparison with the sublime 
 conception of the Deity in the Book of Job. “Art’s fiery 
 finger ” may appeal in Power’s Greek Slave, 
 
 “From God’s pure heights of beauty against man’s wrong,” 
 
 but a truer idea of slavery lives in “ Uncle Tom.” 
 
 Yet even the possibilities of expression attainable in poetry 
 are insufficient for the ideal. There are fancies too etherial 
 to be imprisoned in words. There is a heroism too sublime 
 to find a voice, except in deeds ; a sense of wrong so deep 
 that the strongest words are like the bubbles that proclaim 
 the struggle of a drowning man. Here and there the ocean 
 of thought lashes itself into a spray of syllables, but how 
 rarely does an Aphrodite rise in perfect beauty from the 
 formless foam of words! There are many veins of clear 
 water that seek the surface of the ground, but even as they 
 gush from rock or sand, they gather sediment and are 
 colored by the soil. So many a pure thought springs from 
 the heart and leaps to the lips, but it flows out over a sur- 
 face of words, that dim its clearness and mar its beauty. 
 
 The unutterable thought seeks expression,, too, in music. 
 The soul can sometimes sing what it cannot speak. Men- 
 delsohn composed songs without words, because he said 
 
14 
 
 ORA TIOJST. 
 
 words were “ so ambiguous, so vague, so unintelligible when 
 compared with genuine music.” Though some of us would 
 be inclined to question this assertion, of the great composer, 
 and to return upon music the charge of vagueness, yet the 
 fault may after all be in us. Music is a more exclusive 
 language than that of words, but to those who are fa- 
 miliar with it, it is doubtless a purer medium of expression 
 than any other. In some degree, we can all understand its 
 utterances and feel its power. The true musical artist can, 
 with a few skillful hints of his instrument, awaken in us 
 an indefinable ecstasy. A vague ineffable sweetness or 
 
 sadness may be suggested in the music of violins. Brazen- 
 throated bugles will thrill the soul with martial ardor, and 
 religious enthusiasm is kindled in organ tones and choral 
 harmonies. 
 
 But of far greater significance than all that can be 
 learned of the inner life of individuals, in whatever form 
 they clothe their hints, is the unconscious revelation of 
 social tendencies, as exhibited in the events of* history. 
 For true history is not a simple chronicle, any more than 
 a poet’s ideal is the printed page that attempts its descrip- 
 tion. Nor do facts themselves constitute history. “ His- 
 tory, properly so called,” says Cousin, “ is the science of 
 the relation of facts to ideas.” The conquests, revolutions, 
 rebellions, the whole sad story of human strife is concerned 
 with the real history only as the word is concerned with 
 the thought, as the more or less successful daubs of an 
 artist are concerned with his glowing ideal. The real his- 
 tory to be sought in the records of the past is that inner 
 life of a nation or an epoch, which shows itself in events, 
 the peculiar tone and mood of an age that fixes its char- 
 acter. And here, we are confronted with the old difficulty, 
 
ORA TION. 
 
 15 
 
 which everywhere baffles the seeker of truth, namely, the 
 hopelessness of finding the idea that lies concealed in the 
 fact. In a difficult piece of music, you will often meet 
 with discords, interrupting the perfect harmony, and what 
 with fugues in endless succession, and the different and op- 
 posite character of the various parts, not every hearer will 
 be able to feel the particular sentiment, which pervades the 
 composition as a whole. So when the Supreme Disposer 
 of events makes use of a nation to execute some special 
 purpose, there will be such a variety of elements opposing 
 one another, such jarring discords, such different ideas 
 swaying the various orders of society, that it must be a 
 practised ear that can trace, through all the noise of strife 
 between social theories and systems, inflamed by individual 
 ambition, the true key which represents the design of 
 Providence. Nations rarely start with a definite theory of 
 government which they propose to illustrate. But even 
 when they do, as was the case with our own Federal Union, 
 is the idea ever realized? Where is the perfect harmony 
 between the separate States and the General Government ? 
 How have we seen the pure idea of representation carried out ? 
 Does Congress truly represent the “ public reason ?” Are 
 we ever in danger of confounding the terms congressman 
 and statesman ? What, in reality, is our patent government 
 but a hint — a strong hint, it may be — but only a hint 
 of what it was meant to be ? It wdll be found that social 
 and political ideals, like the ideal beauty in an artist’s 
 brain, has ever had to maintain a struggle with gross ele- 
 ments, that prevented their perfect development. Codes 
 always need alterations. Constitutions are forever wanting 
 amendments. Supreme Courts are needed to interpret the 
 statutes that were meant to exhibit the pure spirit of law, 
 
16 
 
 ORA TION . 
 
 but which, after all the care of legislation, proved to be full 
 of ambiguity. 
 
 Thus, it is seen that in nature, in the arts of represen- ' 
 tation, in the facts of history, there is something more than 
 substance, motion and sound. It is not to be forgotten, 
 even by the practical Yankee, whose ears are filled with 
 the hum of machinery, that the real end and purpose of 
 the objects of sense is not greenbacks only, but beyond 
 and above all meaner ends, the expression of ideal truth. 
 
 Looking in this light upon the world of forms, hearing 
 with this thought the babel of sounds, all appearances have 
 for us, besides the common ends of utility, a two-fold 
 value. 
 
 1. However imperfectly the form expresses the idea, it 
 is a hint in the true direction, and is, so far as it goes, 
 a minister of truth, and may be a teacher to some one. 
 Remembering the infinite diversity of wants, and the grad- 
 ual shading of ignorance that dyes us all, we shall find 
 teachers in the humblest guise. The cheapest print, that 
 lends a pitiful grace to the bare walls of poverty, may have 
 a voice for many a one to whom a Raphael would be dumb. 
 What humblest object is there in nature that has not been 
 to some one the suggestion of a living thought ? In a drop 
 of dew as in an ocean, in a blade of grass as in an ex- 
 tended forest, an invisible principle glows through the veil 
 of forms. The smallest grain of truth in any representation, 
 however coarse, of the idea, is enough to redeem it from 
 total condemnation. We are not in the habit of referring 
 to Feudalism as the perfect realization of the social idea; 
 but a just criticism shows that, in spite of all the violence 
 that disgraced the system, the essential spirit that breathed 
 in its forms was a love of independence and a strong sense 
 
ORA TION. 
 
 17 
 
 of individuality. It exhibited only half the truth of society, 
 it is true, but the hint of individual importance, so totally 
 wanting in the worn-out Roman society, has not been lost 
 upon modern civilization. The daintiest falsehood must 
 have a spice of truth, or it will not go down. Literature, 
 more or less false from beginning to end, owes its accep- 
 tance to the yellow grains of truth that gleam in the mud 
 of error. Music is powerful only as it adapts itself to the 
 heart of the singer. There is something sacred in the 
 ministry of song, a stooping of Divinity, as it were, which 
 can ally the purest melodies with common uses, and give 
 the lowly heart a voice. The eloquence which is denied 
 to many a heart swelling with a hatred of oppression, 
 breaks forth in the songs of liberty. There were masters 
 of oratory in that company of Girondists that the tumbrils 
 bore away to the guillotine one morning of shame in Paris, 
 but no speech could have proclaimed such heroism, such 
 defiance of death, such denunciations upon their murderers, 
 as they hurled at the mob in the fiery music of the Mar- 
 seilles Hymn, until, as one by one the voices of the sing- 
 ers were hushed, the last one closed the strain. Viewing 
 all forms as interpreters of the idea, there is nothing so 
 common, that, if it have truth, may not furnish a useful 
 hint to some growing soul, and for a time provide it with 
 a medium of expression. The most obvious truism, the 
 stalest platitude of wisdom has to some mind the freshness 
 of the latest flash of intuition. If we have indeed got be- 
 yond the rudiments of knowledge, our advance is due to 
 the hints that have led us on our way. 
 
 2. But forms have a second value, independent df their 
 common physical uses, in that they constantly lead to some- 
 thing beyond what is expressed. The best effects in nature, 
 3 
 
18 
 
 ORA T10N. 
 
 the master-pieces of art, fail as teachers of the true and 
 beautiful, if they do not suggest some ideal perfection yet 
 unattained. The clouds are marshaled for evening parade, 
 and set before the eye in many a brilliant effect of changing 
 tints, but no one ever yet saw the perfect sunset. Peerless 
 forms of physical beauty, noblest acts of virtue, highest ex- 
 cellence in character, all stand as prophets of still better 
 things. There is danger that we behave like the men at 
 Lystra, and esteem the prophets and teachers that, come to 
 us as gods. It would seem that Art has for the most part 
 deserted the worship of the divine ideal and gone after 
 other gods. She who was the sister of nature, of equal 
 rank, and in some of her accomplishments superior, has be- 
 come her servant. To copy nature, forsooth, is art’s highest 
 mission ! As if nature herself could furnish perfect models ! 
 In the conduct of life there is the same idolatry. Every 
 one has his idol saint. The idol-makers — the biographers 
 and novelists — have a trade as lucrative as the makers of 
 silver shrines at Ephesus. The servile imitation of some 
 more or less faulty development of character takes the place 
 of self-development. Self becomes a monster made up of 
 other men’s characteristics, instead of a realization of the 
 ideal me. The contemplation of excellence will, however, 
 afford a barren pleasure, if it do not suggest a more excel- 
 lent way. “ Give me a beautiful action,” says a French 
 philosopher, “ and I will imagine one still more beautiful.” 
 Beauty in form and expression will appeal to unapprecia- 
 tive senses, if it do not suggest a loveliness still more en- 
 trancing. Fitness and relation will address their teaching 
 to brutish minds, if they do not impel us to trace our 
 connection with the universe of Being. For mind can 
 never rest satisfied with material show and noise. After 
 
ORA TION. 
 
 19 , 
 
 the earthquake, the fire and the wind, the soul waits for 
 the still small voice. 
 
 Such being the means and end of teaching, we cannot 
 elude the final question, — Can education ever be complete? 
 Shall genius ever quite express the fullness of its intuition? 
 Shall the purified imagination ever behold, in the mirror 
 of material forms, the perfect reflection of the ideal ? The 
 past has lessons of hope for the future. Though the infi- 
 nite glory be hid, and the way thereto be hedged to finite 
 endeavor, yet can it be approached much nearer than now. 
 All that has been seen is but a hint of visions yet un- 
 veiled. Nature, crowding the universe with types and 
 symbols ; Art, nobly aspiring to vie with her in revelations 
 of the ideal ; Poetry, draping with fitting words the bright 
 creatures of the imagination, — all belong to the glorious 
 company of prophets and teachers of the truth, pointing 
 evermore to a fuller apocalypse of the Glory that shall be 
 revealed. 
 

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