the crowd: his clothes hung awkwardly on his giant frame; his face was of
a dark pallor, without the slightest tinge of color; his seamed and
rugged features bore the furrows of hardship and struggle; his deep-set
eyes looked sad and anxious; his countenance in repose gave little
evidence of that brain power which had raised him from the lowest to the
highest station among his countrymen; as he talked to me before the
meeting, he seemed ill at ease, with that sort of apprehension which a
young man might feel before presenting himself to a new and strange
audience, whose critical disposition he dreaded. It was a great
audience, including all the noted men--all the learned and cultured of
his party in New York editors, clergymen, statesmen, lawyers, merchants,
critics. They were all very curious to hear him. His fame as a powerful
speaker had preceded him, and exaggerated rumor of his wit--the worst
forerunner of an orator--had reached the East. When Mr. Bryant
presented him, on the high platform of the Cooper Institute, a vast sea
of eager upturned faces greeted him, full of intense curiosity to see
what this rude child of the people was like. He was equal to the
occasion. When he spoke he was transformed; his eye kindled, his voice
rang, his face shone and seemed to light up the whole assembly. For an
hour and a half he held his audience in the hollow of his hand. His
style of speech and manner of delivery were severely simple. What Lowell
called "the grand simplicities of the Bible," with which he was so
familiar, were reflected in his discourse. With no attempt at ornament
or rhetoric, without parade or pretence, he spoke straight to the point.
If any came expecting the turgid eloquence or the ribaldry of the
frontier, they must have been startled at the earnest and sincere purity
of his utterances. It was marvellous to see how this untutored man, by
mere self-discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown
all meretricious arts, and found his own way to the grandeur and strength
of absolute simplicity.