Buckley's distinctive, ah, cadences. For decades, he crisscrossed America, speaking seventy or more times a year on behalf of conservatism, while in his spare time hammering out a thrice-weekly column, hosting the weekly television series Firing Line , editing National Review , and writing about a book a year, many of them bestsellers. He is the most indefatigable and probably the most famous American lecturer since Mark Twain. His achievement is all the more stunning because this is not an age friendly to forensic excellence. Wagner's music, Twain quipped, is better than it sounds.
Most modern speeches are the opposite.
They are much worse than they sound. But Buckley's speeches are superbly readable. Full of argument, wit, and occasionally drama, they provide lessons for aspiring orators and speechwriters. Readers of Buckley's spy novels and newspaper columns expect his kind of moral commentary, and they will not be disappointed with Let Us Talk of Many Things . What is surprising, however, is how personally revealing these speeches are.