Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1859-07-26
ABOUT RUFUS CHoATE.

The following description and anecdotes of
Mr.. Choats, are from an article published in
Putnamis Monthly, for April. 1855:
"Mr. ChOate IL great actor, an artist Of the
first rate; but an actor after all. We rather
think from the piles Of written sheets behind
which he rises to address q jury, and which
disappears one by one as the speech rolls on,
that every word Of the eloquent and impas-
stoned argument Is all there, cut and dried
49, We heard Webster, once, in q sem
tence and look, crush an hours argument Of
tho curious workman; ii was most intellectual
ly wire-drawn and hair-splitting with Grecian
sophistry, and o subtlety the Leontine Gorgias
might have envicd. It was about two car
wheels, which, to common eyes looked as like
as two eggs; but Mr.. Choate, by fine line Of
argument between tweedle- dunn and tweedle-
dee, and adiscourse on s'the fixation Of points,"
so deep and fine ss to be lost in security, showed
the jury that there was heaven-wide differ
ence between them. But" said Mr. Web
ster, and his great eyes opened wide and black
rs he stared at the big twin wheels before him.
gentlemen Of the jury, there they ars-look
at EN- '" and rs he pronounced this answer in
tones of vast volume, the distorted wheels
seemed to shrink back again into their original
similarity. and the long argument on ''fxation
Of points died natural death. It was an
example OF the ascendency mere character over
mere intellectually, but 50 much greater,
nevertheless, the intellectually. ~
You would by no means suspect the volcanic
energies lurking beneath, from any appear
ance on the surface. In his wan, and worn
and bloodless, but benignant face, you would
see enough to suspect intellectual treasures
slowed up, and an inner life of strange and
unusual topics and movement. He looks as if
he moved about In his own mysterious solitude
forever, whether in crowds or alone; like some
strange child of land bathed in sunset beauty,
musing over on warm Arabian skies, and the
burning stars and gorgeous bloom of the hang
ing-gardens OF his home. But his mere ora
toric presenoO is nothing; and therefore he
never impresses an audience, especially a pro-
fessiOnal one, with a sense of his greatness till
he does something; till he speaks or acts in the
legal drama. We see no external symptom of
overpowering native character; no symptom of
anything which would make You think that
that man, by his grand NOV vement, by his
basilisk eye, by his uplifted arm, might strike
dumb opposition and palsy hate. And yet
We have seen him when in battle, his battle
that Of thoughts and words, standing right over
a legal adversary, with outstretched arm, with
eye burning black with smothered fire, and face
white with a death-like palor, his form erect,
his brow more spacious, and the dark curly
locks on his temples auttering about waving
and uplifting like battle flags to faunt defiance
to the foe; then he look ed the oratorc war-god
He ean present his thoughts as bold and bare
a. bleeding bones, but he prefers to give it
forth rs it first comes to him, embodied in
beauty and robed in splendor. You can never
listen to him ten minutes, anywhere, without
being walked up by some surprising imaginl-
tive analogy or fanciful illustration. In court
or with an audience this warm imagery ap-
pears, equally in an insurance case he apOstro-
phizes 1.-The spirit which leads the philanthrO-
py Of two hemispheres to the icy grave of Sir
John Franklin" or when in Faneuil Hall he
copjures up before the eyes of a wildly-ap
plauding political assembly a vision beauteous
Of ''the dark-eyed girls Of Mexico wailng to
the light guitar, All woe is me. Albania, for a
thousand years" and by the vividness of his
conception and the corresponding intensity of
his delivery causing the people almost to hear
with the mortal ear the long lament ms Of the
daughters Of Judea over a ruined land sounds
the most melancholy Of all the sorrow-stricken
fields of earth