rhetoric as we get our oxygen--unconsciously--by reading the masters.
Rhetoric is a steed for a light load under the saddle but he's too warm
blooded for the harness. He was for the day of the plumed knight--not for
these times. No man of sense would use a prancing horse on a plow or a
stone boat. A good plow horse is a beautiful thing. The play of his
muscles, the power of his stride are poetry to me but when he tries to
put on style he is ridiculous. That suggests what rhetoric is apt to do
to the untrained intellect. If you've anything to say or write head
straight across, the field and keep your eye on the furrow. Then comes
the sowing and how beautiful is the sower striding across the field in
his suit of blue jeans, with that wonderful gesture, so graceful, so
imperious! Put him in a beaver hat and broadcloth and polished calfskin
and a frilled shirt and you couldn't think of anything more ridiculous!"

In the last diary of Samson Henry Traylor is this entry:

* * * * *

"I went to Gettysburg with the President to-day and sat near him when he
spoke. Mr. Everett addressed the crowd for an hour or so. As Kelso would
say 'He rode the prancing steed of Rhetoric.' My old friend went straight
across the field and his look and gestures reminded me of that picture of
the sower which Jack gave us one night long ago in Abe's store. Through
my tears I could see the bucket hanging on his elbow and the good seed
flying far and wide from his great hand. When he finished the field,
plowed and harrowed and fertilized by war, had been sowed for all time.
The spring's work was done and well done."

* * * * *