Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1884-10-04
GLADsTONE,s oRAToRY.
Methods and Platform characteristics
OF the Great Premier.

OF the Great Premier.
In Mr.. Gladstone's orat0ry you may find ex-
amples of nearly every charm which it is posi-
Bile for an orator to work upon his hearers,
writes G. W. Smalley TO the New York Tribune.
The effect he produces does not owe much to
gesture There is gesture, but it often lacks ex-
pTessiveness. The arms are used pretty con-
stantly but the same movement of the same
muscles is made to signify. or meant to signify
very different things 1t wants what on the
French stage is called largeness or amplitude
and is sometimes violent sometimes deficient
in the grace and suayity which the admirable
smoothness of voice leads you to expect. The
shoulders rise and fall with what am afraid
must at times be described as ierkness-ndeed
at such moments the voice itself sometimes loses
its purity, and harsh notes are heard. The
rather frequent passage of the right
forefnger across the lips, and the Curl
Gus touch Of the thumb on par
tlcular spot at the summit Of the broad arch of
the forehead are pecuiiarities which mention
only for the sake of fidelity, and with every
apology to the orator for taking note of such
specks upon the general spendor of his delivery.
SO of the quick bending and Strengthening of
the knees. The impression one gets from these
exceptional things is but momentary-they are
accidents due to the overmastering intensity of
thought and aim-nature in her cruder moods
getting the better of the consummate art which
is the prevailing but almost continuous con-
dition with the orator. If there be any def
ciencies of this Sort YOU will hardly observe
them unless after long familiarity with the
speaker. 1t is the face which will riYet your
gaze, the play of features alike delicate and
powerful, and the eyer-resting. far-searching
glance. Never was such tel-tale countenance.
Expression after expression sweeps across it,
the thought pictures itself to you almost before
it is uttered. and if your eyes by chance meet
his, it is blaze OF sunlight which daZZles you.
Nor do the little blemshes really matter. What
matters. what fmpresses you, and what you will
carry away with you as
A PERMANENT AND PRECIOUS MEMORY
is. above all other things. the nobleness of pres
ence, the beautiful dignity the stateliness of
bearing, the intense sincerity which are visible
to the eyes Of the most careless spectator, and
which fill the hail with their influence. and place
the great multitude wholly at the mercy of the
one feli0w-being who stands before them.
| have been asked often enough by nv own
countrymen if any American was like Mr. Glad
stone. | know of none. nor of any European
either. In appearance, the late Mr.. Daniel Web
ster was slightly, very slightly. like Mr. Glad
stone. but the massive features and form had
an addition of coarse robustness of which in Mr.
Gladstone there is none. | once saw and heard
Webster in Worcester. when he spoke from the
step to the gate leading into the front door ward
OF the late Gov. Lincoln of Massachusetts. be-
meath lantern the rays from which
fell straight on his face. He almost exact
ly realized what Emerson had in mind
when he said that ii Webster were first
revealed to him by a flash OF lightning he should
not be sure whether an angel or a demon were
standing before him. Well. it is no compliment
to Mr.. Gladstone to say that nobody would take
him for demon. beneath flash OF lightning or
otherwise. l hope | am not dealing in compli-
meEts at all My sole aim is to be descriptive.
But Webster was of the earth. Mr.. Gladstone
has light on his face that seems to come from
the upper air. Webster was a speaker of extra
ordinary powers OF mind. As Theodore Parker
said of him. he could state a case better than
any man in America. He was occasionally an
orator. 1t is but seldom that Mr.. Gladstone is
not. l should like to draw much more minute
comparison between Mr.. Gladstone and Wendell
Phillips, for it would. / think oe much more
Illustrative. though / should begin BY saying
that neither Mr.. Gladstone nor anybody else had
that
APOLLO LIKE BEAUTY OF PRESENCE.
OF that voice of god or that genius for cOncilia-
ting or controlling hostile audience which
were among Philips many incompatible gifts
But cannot dc that l have heard CASTELAR, ad-
dress 5000 Spaniards at Prices circus in Madrid
in his all too copious Castillan; supple. sympa-
thetic, sinuous. and orator to the tips of his
fingers. | have heard Bismarck when in the
"HlLe uilIlOIHi Oh inc CuEaSslelS, OF WnOm ne
was major. and booted to the knee he gave his
orders with military directness to the parlia-
ment OF Prussia. / heard Gambetta in the
greatest effort OF his life, when in 1877 he
closed a four days debate In the chamber at
Versailles with what | am disposed to think
the greatest single effort of oratory ever lis
tened to in Europe. and he. too. had Il great
deal in common with Mr.. Gladstone Both
had the same miraculous hexibiiity Of mind and
lnexhaustible abundance of various diction. Mr..
Bright, the one Englishman living whose great
est speeches might be proftably studied side by
side with Mr.. Gladstone's, would be more pro-
fitable for contrast than for comparison The
lucid flow of Mr.. Bright's simply constructed
sentences. always direct, always the best word
in the best place. always effective out of all pro-
portion to any machinery of rhetoric evident to
the eye scanning them in print-nothing could
be more unlike the method of Mr.. Gladstone.
and nothing could be more instructive than q
full statement OF the secret OF each. But. on the
whole, not much is to be gained by these brief
"reminiscences of great contemporaries for the
most part so essentially unlike Mr. Gladstone,
and it is time to have done with it.