The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-08-04

a monkey in commissions. His bowings
down and Strengthening himself again,
were spoken of by another critic, not
unfriendly, as opening and shutting like
g jack knife. His curly black hairs
seemed each to have seperate life of
it's own. His eyes shone like Goals Of
fire."
Edward Everett paid this tribute to
Choate in Faneuil Hall the week after
the great advocates death:
HE is sometimes satisfied in concise
epigrammatic clauses to skirmish with
his light troops and drive in the enc
my's Outposts. 1t is only on fitting Oc-
casions, when great principles are to
be indicated and solemn truths told,
when some moral or political Waterloo
or Solferino is to be fought, that he
puts on the entire panoply of his gor-
geous rhetoric. 1t is then that his ma
jestic sentences swell to the dimen-
sions of his majestic thought; then it
is that we hear afar off the awful roar
of his rifled ordnance; and when he
has stormed the heights and broken
the center and trampled the squares and
turned the staggering wings OF the ad-
versary that he sounds. his imperial
and moves forward with all his hosts in
one overwhelming charge"
Edward Everett seems to Senator
Hoar, on the whole, our best example
of the orator, pure and simple:
webster was great statesman,
great lawyer, great advocate, a
great public teacher. TO all these his
matchless oratory was but an instru-
ment and incident. Choate was great
winner of cases, and as relaxation ne
gave, in the brief vacations of an over
worked professional life Che once de-
fined a lawyers vacation as the time
after he has put question to a wit
ness while he is waiting for an answer)
a few wonderful literary and historical
addresses. He gave a brief period OF
brilliant but most unwilling service in
each house of Congress. He made
some powerful political speeches to
popular audiences. But his heart was
always in the court house. No gamb-
Ter ever hankered for the feverish de-
light of the gaming tables as Choate did
for that absorbing game, half chance.
half skill, where twelve human dice
must all turn up together one way or
ways the orator. He was a clergyman a
little while. He was a Greek professor
little WHILE He was a college presi-
dent little while. He was a minister
to England a little while. He was
Representative in Congress and Sena-
tor. He was a Governor of the, Com
monwealth. In these. places he did good
service enough to make a high reputa-
ton for any other man. Little of these
things is remembered now"
Senator Hoar also considers him the
foremost American orator in one class:
There is one function of the orator
peculiar to our country and almost
wholly unknown elsewhere. That is
the giving utterance to the emotion of
the people, whether of joy or sorrow,
on the occasions when it's soul is deeply
stirred-when some great man dies, or
there is great victory or defeat or
some notable anniversary is celebrated.
This office was filled by other men, on
some few occasions by Daniel Webster
himself, but by no man better than
Everett. A town or city or State is
very human. In sorrow it must utter
it's cry of pain, in victory, it's note of
triumph. AS events pass it must pro-
nOunce it's judgment. It's constant
purpose must be fixed and made more
steadfast by expression. 1t must give
voice to it's love and it's appreciation
and condemnation. 1t must register the
high and low water mark of it's tide,
it's rising and it's sinking in heat and
cold. This office Edward Everett, for
nearly fifty years, performed for Mas
sachuSetts and for the whole country.
In his orations are preserved and re-
corded everything of the emotion of the
great hours of. our peoples history. The
camera of his delicate photography has
preserved for future generations what
passed in the soul of his own in the
times that tried the soul of men,"
If one would really appreciate the
beauty of Everett's style, Senator Hoar
makes this suggestion: Read the
welcome to Lafayette or the close of the
matchless leulogy on the illustrious OBJ
ject of the peoples love. Read the
close of the grafton on Washington.
Read the contrast of Washington and
Marlborough Read the beautiful pas
sage where, just before the ocean cable
was laid, the rich fancy of the speaker
describes: The thoughts that we
think up here on the earth's surface in
the cheerful light of day-clOthing
themselves with elemental sparks and
shooting with fiery speed in moment
in the twinkling of an eye, from hemis-
phere to hemisphere, far down among
the unocuth monsters that wallow in
the neither seas, along the wreck paved
floor through the oozy dungeons of the
rayless deep; the last intelligence Of
the crops, whose dancing tassels will in
a few months be coquetting with the
west wind on those boundless prairies,
flashing along the Shiny decks OF old
sunken galleons, which have been rot
ting for ages; messages OF friendship
and love, from warm, living bosoms
burn over the cold green bones OF men
and women, whose hearts, once as warm
as ours, burst as the eternal guifs
closed and roared over them, centu-
ries ago."
A FIREMAN'S CLOSE CALL.
II stuck to my engine, although every
joint ached and every nerve was racked