Edward Dickinson Baker. 15
- ' The two great types of political and religious eloquence,
Demosthenes in antiquity, Bossuet among the moderns, think only of the interest of the cause confided to their genius, the sacred cause of country and that of religion, whilst at bottom, Phidias and Raphael work to make beau- tiful things. Let us hasten to say what the names of De- mosthenes and Bossuet command us to say, that true elo- quence, very different from that of rhetoric, disdains cer- tain means of success. It asks no more than to please, but Avithout SLuy sacrifice unworthy of it ; every foreign ornament degrades it. Its proper character is simplicity, earnestness. I do not mean affected earnestness, a designed and artful gravity, the worst of all deceptions; I mean true earnest- ness, that springs from sincere and profound conviction. This is what Socrates understood by true eloquence. ' ' It is difficult if not impossible to divorce the orator from the occasion. In fact, it is sometimes said that true elo- quence consists in the occasion more than in what is said. Dr. William Matthews, in his work entitled, ' ' Oratory and Orators, ' ' has said that ' ' the greatest speech made in Amer- ica this century was made by Daniel Webster in reply to Hayne. The greatest orator of this country— Patrick Henry, perhaps, excepted— we think was Henry Clay." Emerson has said that eloquence is "the appropriate or- gan of the highest personal energy." It must not be for- gotten that the spoken word of the orator loses its power and influence when reduced to writing. Dr. Matthews, illustrating this, says: "The picture from the great master's hand may improve with age; every year may add to the mellowness of its tints, the delicacy of its colors. The Cupid of Praxiteles, the Mercury of Thorwaldsen, are as perfect as when they came from the sculptor's chisel. The dome of Saint Peter's, the self -poised roof of King's Chapel, 'scooped into ten thousand cells,' the facade and sky-piercing spire of Stras- bourg Cathedral, are a perpetual memorial of the genius of their builders. Even music, so far as it is a creation of the composer, may live forever. The aria or cavatina may have successive resurrections from it^ dead signs. The delicious melodies of Schubert, and even Handel's 'seven-fold chorus
