英語演講高潮結尾術欣賞

*In Climax

#高潮結尾術欣賞

At a time like this, scorching iron, not convincing argument, is needed. O! Had I the ability, and could I stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quicken; the conscience of the nation must be aroused; the propriety of the nation must be started; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and men must be proclaimed and denounced.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a shame; you boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy─a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.

Go, where you may, search where you will roam through all the monarchies and despotism of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

現在這種時候，需要的不是有説服力的理論，而是熾熱的烙鐵。啊，要是我有能力使全國人民都聽到我的聲音，我今天就會滔滔不絕地傾吐出尖刻的嘲笑、強烈的譴責、無情的譏刺和嚴厲的申斥。因為現在需要的不是光，而是火；不是和風細雨，而是雷電霹靂；我們需要暴風，需要颶風，需要地震。我們需要觸動這個國家的感情，喚起她的良知，震動她的禮儀之心，揭露她的偽善，公開譴責她違反上帝和人類的罪行。

你們的7月4日對於美國奴隸來説是個什麼日子？我要回答説：這日子比一年之中其他日子更使他們看見他們經年累月所受的不公正和殘酷待遇。你們的慶祝對於他們是一場欺騙；你們鼓吹的自由不過是瀆神的放縱；你們所謂偉大的民族精神不過是自欺欺人的虛榮自負；你們的歡呼是虛張聲勢；你們對專制的譴責是厚顏無恥的胡扯；你們高喊的自由平等是空洞虛假的冒牌貨；你們的禱詞和讚美詩，你們那喋喋不休的佈道説教和滔滔不絕的感恩祈禱，加上你們那些宗教遊行和隆重儀式，都只不過是對上帝的吹牛、撒謊、矇蔽、不敬和偽善，都只是為了把你們的罪惡遮蓋起來的一層薄紗。哪怕是野蠻人的國家也會因這樣的抓揆鶄pnz件j莧琛５牽衷諉揮幸奧説墓搖４聳貝絲蹋詰厙蟶廈揮心囊桓雒褡宓乃魎頌牛醒任讀恕?BR>

你們走遍了海角天涯，找遍舊大陸（指歐洲）所有君主專制的集權國家，訪遍南美洲，到處去挑出一切陋規惡習，然後拿那些東西與這個國家每天所幹的事情比較一下，你們就會像我這樣説：在極端野蠻和最無恥的偽善方面，美國確實首屈一指，舉世無雙。