New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1894-04-04


greatest of the ancient orators?''
! "Clcero. He was the lord of language.
He. above all men, expressed the great
lest and the grandest thoughts, and the
most wonderful congratulations. He
had, in a supreme degree, the gift of i'm
agination, without which he coall not
| have been an orator. In corrupt age,
he was patriot and gave the best of his
isplendid efforts to the denunciation of
treason. There never stood before nor
after him at the bar of Rome a lawyer
who was worthy to fasten his sandals.
His splendid gifts were exercised in no
cramping rut. Whatever affected hu-
manity interested him, and he illuminate
ed it with tho splendor of his genius.
The reverence for and the beauties of
old age were better appreciated after
they had been framed in his golden SEN
fences. Friendship became holier for
| his treatment, and so men became better
and broader when they heard Cicero's
exposition, or read what he had said on
the subject"
Chow do the modern compare with
the ancient orasors, in your opinion" I
| asked.
"We can compare the efforts of the
poets, architects, sculpotrs and. painters
Of antiquity, particularly where their
! works survive in whole or i'll part, with
those of the moderns, but IN oratory so
much depends on the individual peculi-
ar1ties of the man, that it is almast i'm
possible to make anything like a judici-
al comparison. The orations of the an
clients we're carefully prepared and to
that fact is due their preservation. The
most effective addresses of the French
Revolution were largely extemporaneous,
and, no means having been taken in the
tumult Of tho times to preserve them ex
actly, they wels lost. In the same way,
many Of the mastery speeches of the ell
der Pitt died with the sound of the voice
that uttered them, yet enough remains to
show that he, in Els limited field, was a
great orator. Fox WIS powerful plead
q rather th..n great orator, and while
Burt1es speeches, prepared and penned
By his fine scholarship and exquisite taste
are models of splendid diction and ele
waited rhetoric, We know that he was
called the dinner belp for his rising was
a signal for friend and opponent to emp
| | ty the benches. 8heridan had many O.
the requisites Of great orator, but hi
= training made him theatrical and hi
i !. worked for effects, aad enc feels that thu
S curtain should have besn rang down OF
his climaxes. TO my mind Curran wa!
Il the greatest crater Of bis day, and some
? of the passagsa in bis speeches thrill tht
l. reader to-day like trumpet blast, ane
= they will continue to thrill while trutl
" lsolemnly uttered has tbs power to etfec
Is mankind. No, I do not regard Gladstone
u as great crater, but it must be conced
a ed that he Is grand speaker. He is
wanting in feeling and imagination. He
l. says fine things in stately, well-bal-
q anced way, but defy his greatest ad-
4 mirer to repeat, on the spur of the mo,
3 |ment, one sentence of Gladstone that has
Il been burned into the memory and the
= recital of which stirs the pulse into a
y faster beat"
j, Chow do you think American orators
r compare with those OF other lands?"
8 "The Americans are the most fluent
t people in tie world, and our political
r methods have done much to foster the
8 art Of public speaking, but this has not
encouraged true oratory, for when every
l one is speaker, people are satisfied with
Q mediocrity. Tho true artist is not going
. to enter the field against the sign paint
! e., nor will the poet compete with the
: maker Of advertising rhymes.
J "Wehster was man of great POSSIBLE
n tiles rather than Of great achievements
IS He aimed at being sonorous and ponder
n Gus, and he succeeded. He ignored tn.
g heart while addressing himself to tn.
$ head, yet he has left few grand orator
ical paragraphs that ills1srvive in tn,
: language after his starding as a states
n man is forgotten. Clay YVES handicapped
r by inadequate training. His success
= with the masses, who idolized him, wa
due more to his personal magnetism thar
+ to his originality, for he had none. Their,
$ was. far more in his manner than in hiis
matter he was great force, but his