Daily capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1896-1899, 1896-06-08
uNoolN.s esrrYseuRo SPEECH.
Sublime and Immortal. Though Matthew
Arnold HAD Never Heard Of It.

|
Sublime and Immortal. Though Matthew
Arnold nad Never Heard OF It.
I stood close by and heard that speech
delivered. It came upon as after the
ponderous and elaborate rhetoric of Ed.
ward Everett like blaze Of real fire
after n matchless picture of fire. 1t
sprang, liEo the strophes Of old, out Of
4 chastened heart almost broken with
the weight of conquest, but still daunt-
| less in its American faith, and the man
who spoke the words was, for the mo-
ment, trans6gured for us, aud his fur
rowed face and gaunt form took on
che light that never was on land or
sea, so that be became the arohetype Of
the people themselves, uttering better
than no knew the great prayer Of that
finer and better humanity that our ia
theirs and we believed was to come with
liberty and equality out of storm and
stress and an unshaken confidence in
man.
But l don't think any Of us then
knew how mastorful 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
nero scholarship and the grooved thun-
Ter of rhetoric.
We had to live on for q quater Of q
century and see that brief speech burn.
ing with unquenohable flame In our
schcolbooks and standing out with mod
est majesty ON our page Of recorded
history to comprehend how God "an
touch with q living coal the lips Of
rail splitter just as he touched the lips
of tentmaker Of Tarsus and lifted the
untutored heart Of the shoemaker, Bun.
yam, into communion with the immor.
tails.
Turn 1t every way you can, the Get
tysburg speech stands unique rs brief
literary and patriotic composition. It IL
tho 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 inwrought is that speech with the
heart of the occasion, and SO majeatio-
ally does it sweep over into the time to
/
where would discern its intrinsic quail
ty. But that is not the case
l remember talking with Matthew
Arnold when he was in this country
about Abraham Linooln-you will re-
member that he said of Lincoln that he
had no "distinotion"-and I called his
attention to the Gettysburg speech. !
shall never forget the imperturbable
Saturday Review stare with which he
asked, "Ah, what is the Gettysburg
speeohY'
He had never heard of it. believe
when no went back he asked Professor
Bryce what it was about, and when II
was hunted mp in an American school
book and shown to him he read IL hasti-
ly and put it away with commiserating
reticence.
Suppose you ask NJ Bourget, who Is
looking into the American heart by the
way of the American bodice and ON
space rates, if he has read the Gettys-
burg speech. happen to know of my
own knowledge that Robert Louis
Stevenson had not heard Of it when he
was exploring our continent, and Sir
Lepel Griffin and Rudyard Kipling had
an idea that IL was newspaper fake.
The current number Of The Saturday
Review lies open before me. and this is
what my eye falls on:
THE common American delusioh
that there have been q number of great
American poets, that there is indeed
such thing as American literature.
dlsports itself with unusual pomposity.
1t is impossible for these literary
prigs OF a special cult to understand
that there may be stimulant oondi-
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 tie after repose
OF an elaborate @sthetioism the moot
precious heartbeats OF the race have
made themselves heard and felt, some-
Times IN half articulate tones, but often
OF IN organ blasts whish have set the
Key OF liberty and fixed the vocabulary
OF hope and victory.
heIore eloquenoe or poetry was an art
u was burning soul and fetched its
s1yie from the agonies and mysteries of
an untutored nature
Let us by all means confer distino-
.ion ON a deathless utteranoe by mold
ing TIN bronze. II we add metal enough
anu surround it with the arabesqus Of |
o1Iord' future Matthew Arnoids may
YIN the pilgrims and throw the English |
1lou'e sh1 on Well turned phrase upon |
'ne tablet which, after all, Is but a |
We weaH dhaietoSyph Of the record in 10,
vVv,VOo hearts Andrew @. Wheeler