the habit of public speaking, and with artistic skill of articulation
and emphasis. As an illustration of memory it was remarkable, for it
was but the second time that the address had been spoken. It occupied
an hour and a half in the delivery, and yet the manuscript lay
unopened upon the table. Only three or four times was there any
hesitation which reminded the hearer that the speaker was repeating
what he had already written. His power in this respect has been often
mentioned. He is understood to have said that, if he reads anything
once, he can repeat it correctly; but if he has written it out, he can
repeat it exactly and always. This unusual facility secures to all his
addresses a completeness and finish which very few orators command. He
can say exactly what he means, and nothing more, being never betrayed
by confusion or sudden emotion to say, as so many speakers say, more
than they really think.

But, on the other hand, it is doubtful whether all that electric
eloquence by which the hearer is caught up as by a whirlwind and swept
onward at the will of the orator, is not now a tradition in the
speeches of the orator. The glow of feeling, the rush of rhetoric, the
fiery burst of passionate power--the overwhelming impulse which makes
senates adjourn and men spring to arms--were they in the orator or in
the fascinated youth of those who remember the sermon in Brattle
Street, the apostrophe to Lafayette?




AT THE OPERA IN 1864.