Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1884-11-27
THE WORLDS ORATORS.
Comparison of Americans with Glad.
stone, who is Seldom Not an
Orator.

| re-. w. Smalley's London Correspond ence.l
| have been asked often enough by my
own countrymen if any American was
| like Mr.. Gladstone. know of none, nor
of any European either. In appearance
| the late Mr.. Daniel Webster was slightly,
very slightly, like Mr.. Gladstone, but the
massive features and form had an addition
of coarse robustness of which in Mr. Glad
stone there is none. | once saw and heard
Webster in Worcester, when he spoke from
the step to the gate leading into the door
yard Of the late Gov. Lincoln, of Massa-
chusetts beneath a lantern, the rays from
which fell straight on his face He almost
exactly realized what Emerson had in his
mind when he said that if Webster were
revealed to him beneath flash of light
ming he would not be sure whether an
angel or demon were standing before him.
Well, it is no compliment to Mr.. Gladstone
to say that nobody would take him for q
demon, beneath flash of lightning or
otherwise | hope / am not dealing in
descriptive But Webster was of the
earth. Mr.. Gladstone has light on his
face that seems to come from the upper
air. Webster was speaker of extraordi-
nary power of mind As Theodore Parker
said of him, he could state case better
than any man in America He was occa-
sionally an orator. 1t is but seldom that
Mr. Gladstone is not. / should like to
draw much more minute comparison be-
tween Mr.. Gladstone and Wendell Phillips,
for it would think, be much more illus
trative, though | should begin by saying
that neither Mr.. Gladstone nor anybody else
had that Apollo-like beauty of presence, or
that voice of gold, of that genius for con-
cilliating or controlling hostile audience
which were among Phillips many incom-
parable gifts. ] have heard CASTELAR, ad
dress six thousand Spaniards in Prices
circus in Madrid in all too copious Castil-
lian; supple, sympathetic, sinuous and
orator to the tips of his fingers. l have
heard Bismarck, when in the white uni
form of the cuirassiers of whom he was
major. and booted to the knees, he gave
his orders with military directness to the
parliament 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 dis
/ posed to think the greatest single effort of
oratory / ever listened to in England, and
he, too-had a great deal in common with
! Mr.. Gladstone. Both had the same
miraculous fexibility of mind and mex
haustible abundance of various dction.
Mr. Bright, the one Englishman living
whose greatest speeches might be profit
ably studied side by side with Mr.. Glad
stones, would be more profitable for con-
trast than for comparison. The lucid flow
49, D. A.
tences, always direct, always the best
word in the best place, always effective
out of all proportion 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 full state
ment 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.