Daily capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1896-1899, 1896-10-05
4 lIlNcoLNls ,l--I aIFTIYsnuna spetch.


Sublime 4 tn1ftsf.i'ttis hOugh HattheE
s.r.-.i hrf r..,-r Heerd cf H.
1 stood oluee by and heard thatspo6ch
dolvcred. lt cane upon us after The
condtrnus and elaborate rhetoric Of Ed
Mr.. e.. r.it lil.o blaze Of real fire
attn a l.. icblcss picture Of fire. 1t
sprauc, Ike the strophes Of old, out OF
d chaGCErd heart almost broken with
the weight Of conquest, but still daunt-
loss in its American faith, and the man
who spoke the words was, for the mo-
ment, trans6gured for us, and his fur
rowed face and gaunt form took on
che light that never was on land or
sea, so that he became the archetype OF
the people themselves, uttering better
than hc Lnew the great prayer Of that
finer and better humanity that our ia
theirs and VIC believed was to come with
liberty and equality out of storm and
stress and an mistaken confidence in
man.
But l don't think any of us then
knew how masterful is the speech Of
the human heart when it comes through
the furnace to these great occasions and
plants its sad sincerity by the side Of
mere scholarship and the grooved thun-
der of rhetoric.
We had to live on for quater of n
century and see that brief speech burn
ing with unquenchable flame in our
schoolbooks and standing out with mod
est majesty on our page Of recorded
history to comprehend how God "an
touch with a living coal the lips of a
rail splitter just as he touched the lips
Of ter.maker of Tarsus and lifted the
untutored heart of the shoemaker, Bun
yam, into communion with the immor
tails.
Turn it every way You can, the Get
tysburg speech stands unique as briet
literary ard patriotic composition 1t is
the noblest condensation into the fittest
words of all the emotions, aspirations
and sentiments that millions of mute
people wanted at that moment to utter.
SO inv rought is that speech with the
heart Of the occasion, and so majestic
ally does it sweep over into the time to
come, that should think all men every.
where would discern its intrinsic quail.
~. But that is not the case.
/ remember talking with Matthew
Arnold whcI ho was in this country
bout Abraham Linooln-you will re.
member that he said of Lincoln that he
had no distinction and | called his
attention to the Gettysburg speech. !
shall never forget the imperturbable
Saturday Review stare with which he
asked, "Ah, what IL the Gettysburg
speechF'
He had never heard Of it. 1 believe
when he went back he asked Professor
Bryce what it was about, and when it
was huH,ed up in an American school
book and shown to him he read it hasti.
ly and put it away with commiserating
reticeuce.
Suppose you ask NJ. Bourget, who is
looking into tho American heart by the
way of the American bodice and on
space rates, if lac has read the Gettys-
burg speech. ! happen to know of my
own knowledge that Robert Louis
Stevenson had not heard Ct it when he
was exploring our continent, and Sir
Lepel Griffin and Rudyard Kipling had
an idea that it was newspaper fake.
The current number of The Saturday
Review lies open before me, and this is
what my eye falls on:
1.-THE common American delusion
that there have been number of great
American poets, that there is indeed
such a thing as American literature
itself with unusual pomposity."
1t is impossible for these literary
prigs of q special cult to understand
that there may be stimulant condi-
tions of national life that wake into
tumultuous activity all the higher and
better functions of the soul prior to the
chartered formulation of them into an
art, and that it is in these periods of
awakening and not in the after repose
of an elaborate 9sthetioism the most
precious heartbeats of the race have
made themselves heard and felt, some
times in half articulate tones, but often
er in organ blasts which have set the
key of liberty and fixed the vocabulary
of hope and victory.
Before eloquence or poetry was an art
it was a burning soul and fetched its
style from the agonies and mysteries of
an untutored nature
Let us by all means confer distino.
tion ON q deathless utteranoe by mold
ing it in bronze. If we add metal enough
and surround it with the arabesque of
Oxford, future Matthew Arnolds may
join the pilgrims and throw the English
tribute Of we'll turned phrase upon
the tablet, which, after all, is but
weak hieroglyph of the record in TO-
900, 900 hearts Andrew @. Wheeler
in New York Sun
Electric Current In the Quilt.
A new invention, called by its invent.
Or the thermogen, consists of quilt
IA coil of wire. bent in the
fashion Of gridiron, inclosed in insu-
lating and nonconGucting material, and
lmbedded in cotton, wool or other soft |
substance with silk or woolen cover
Ing.
The resistance offered by the coil to |
the flow of an electric current through |
the wire produces heat in the same way |
hat heat and eventually light are pro-