_Paris, Monday, April_ 13.--Tocqueville, Jobez, Marcet, St.-Hilaire,[1] Charles Sumner, and Lord Granville breakfasted with us.
The conversation turned on public speaking.
'Very few indeed of our speakers,' said Tocqueville, 'have ever ventured to improvise: Barrot could do it. We have told him sometimes that a speech must be answered immediately; and when he objected that he had nothing to say, we used to insist, and to assure him that as soon as he was in the tribune, the ideas and the words would come; and so they did. I have known him go on under such circumstances for an hour; of course neither the matter nor the form could be first rate, but they were sufficient.'
'In fact,' said Lord Granville, 'much of what is called improvisation is mere recollection. A man who has to speak night after night, gets on most subjects a set of thoughts, and even of expressions, which naturally pour in on him as soon as his argument touches the train which leads to them.
'One of our eminent speakers,' he continued, 'Lord Grey, is perhaps best when he has not had time to prepare himself. He is so full of knowledge and of inferences, that he has always enough ready to make an excellent speech. When he prepares himself, there is _too_ much; he gives the House more facts and more deductions than it can digest.'
'Do you agree with me,' I asked, 'in thinking that Lord Melbourne was best when he improvised?'
'I agree with you,' answered Lord Granville, 'that his set speeches were cold and affected. He was natural only when he was quite careless, or when he was much excited, and then he was admirable.'
'Never,' answered Tocqueville. 'He prepared himself most carefully. So did Guizot. We see from the "Revue rétrospective" that he even prepared his replies. His long experience enabled him to foresee what he should have to answer. Pasquier used to bring his speech ready written. It lay on the desk before him, but he never looked at it.'
'That seems to me,' I said, 'very difficult. It is like swimming with corks. One would be always tempted to look down on the paper.'
'It is almost equally difficult,' said Tocqueville, 'to make a speech of which the words are prepared. There is a struggle between the invention and the memory. You trust thoroughly to neither, and therefore are not served thoroughly by either.'