The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1888-10-06
BATTLE FIELD ELOQUENCE.
BY DAVID SWING.

No licher or more valuable eloquence has
ever been uttered than that spoken over
the graves of men who have died in battle.
From old Athens to the new America this
kind of thunder has rolled along for the
living heart. II is possible the Greeks be
gan this now venerable costume of recall
ing the dead warrior. In the earlier epochs
the soldier was only slave and merited
nothing, whether in life or in DEATH But
in the land of Pericles and Plato the soldier
became the highest form of human noble
ness, his honor was equal TO that of the
orator, or artist, or poet, and when he died
fighting for Greece his tomb became worthy
of tears. BY natural process the land
| which could first perceive the value of
heroic defender was the land which could
| first find that strange power of speech
which is called eloquence. The reason of
such digniied and emotional speech came
/ in that measurement of manhood which
could die for the public safety and welfare.
A literature of eulogy had to come because
persons had come into being who were
worthy of the most stately praise. Thus
an eloquence was born where the great free
soldier was born. The peninsula which
produced the powerful fine arts, which
made the mind capable of expressing itself
in poetry, history, philosophy and the
drama, made also the soldier and the elo-
quence which could recount his worth.
The patriotic soldier is as much a piece
of fine work as is the statue or the marble
temple, There must enter into his men
tai composition the power to comprehend
and love good country. Our Washington
had to be one of the greatest men before he
could be one of the greatest of soldiers
Thus with Cromwell and the Prince of
Orange. With this kind of greatness the
Greek soldier came into the history of the
world. Behind the Persian troops went a
driver with whip, but each Greek soldier
carried his impulse all in his own mind. 1t
was from this fact Of personal worth came
the desire of the Athenian eminent citizens
to be also soldiers. Demosthenes enlisted
and went into battle, and although history
reports him as becoming panic-stricken
and retreating in terror, yet his enlisting
betrayed his desire to reach the soldiers
height of honor. Pericles, from scholar
and orator, passed on to add the military
fame. Socrates went to war, and with all
his giant power carried the wounded
Xenophone off the field, Here, therefore,
where the soldier attained such reach of
mind and such renown, the graves of the
dead ones became sacred, and thus came
into being battle field eloQuence. 1t was
a speech with great reason beneath ii.
There can be no oratory except upon a
great theme. There can be tales founded
upon the romance of two Young hearts
there can be legends based upon an imp, a
dragon, a mermaid, giant-klller, or upon
child reared by wolfe; there can be an
essay founded upon some event, some per
son, or some fact of nature; readable
poem may be composed by Burns about
an honest man, or by Mrs. Browning upon
a lock of hair, but eloquence can exist only
where some tremendous subject exists,
and hence its thunder has rolled over only