If I
tell you you've got to believe so-and-so, your disposition is to refuse to
do anything of the sort. It was the voluntary instinct that breathes in all
of us that made Falstaff refuse to give Prince Hal reasons: "I give thee
reasons? Though reasons were as plenty as blackberries I would not give
thee reasons _on compulsion_--I."
I was once talking to a member of Parliament, who was lamenting that he had
failed to win the ear of the House. He was puzzled by the failure. He was a
fluent speaker; he knew his subject with great thoroughness, and his
character was irreproachable; and yet when he rose the House went out. He
was like a dinner-bell. He couldn't understand it. Yet everybody else
understood it quite well. It was because he was always "telling you," and
there is nothing the House of Commons dislikes so much as a schoolmaster.
Probably the most successful speaker, judging by results, who ever rose in
the House of Commons was Cobden. He was one of the few men in history who
have changed a decision in Parliament by a speech.
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