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THE GREEN BAG
some clever writer "after the war," and need not be taken too seriously. Marshall and Breckinridge were kinsmen, and had been raised together, and in after life the orator was said to have been fond of arousing the ire of the great divine. Walking up to him one day and slapping him familiarly on the back "Tom" re marked; "Bob, you and I started to prac tice law together. You quit for the Bible and I for the bottle, and the world says I have stuck to my text closer than you have to yours." Despite the many stories told of the witty clashes between the two they were known to entertain for each other feelings of the highest regard. It has been said that Marshall himself, when a young man, was so overcome by the eloquence of a certain minister that he rose hurriedly and left the church, afterward explaining to his friends who inquired the reason of his strange con duct, that if he had remained he would, himself, have become a minister, whereas he had already determined to be a lawyer, statesman, and orator. Whatever may be thought of the story it contains one truth — his ambition to become a great orator. This ambition in one of his genius seems perfectly natural when we remember that from his boyhood he had listened to such orators as Clay, Barry, Bledsoe and Critten den, and had seen in what honor those men were held because of their eloquence. In that one object the life of Tom Marshall was a success, for it is doubtful, indeed, if his country or time can produce better or more eloquent speeches than those of the gifted Kentuckian. Men who had listened with wonder to Clay, Webster, Everett, and Crittenden, were simply amazed by Marshall. Many of them testify that they did not be lieve it possible for a human being to be so transcendently eloquent. The description given of his style as an orator by that accomplished and scholarly journalist, Paul R. Shipman (an Eastern man, by the way), who for a time was on
the editorial staff of the Louisville Journal, is so elegant and so correct that I quote it here in preference to attempting the descrip tion myself. "Nature in truth had denied him no gift essential to the orator, and no accident ser viceable to his gifts. Never had orator a fairer physique in which to wreak himself upon expression. He was six feet two inches in height, erect, symmetrical and lithe. His bearing was self-possessed and graceful, his voice clear, rotund, and pene trating, and his enunciation so distinct that his words all came forth clean-cut like coin fresh from the die. It is true his gestures were sometimes open to the charge of extrav agance, and his wit to that of buffoonery; but these blemishes from which not even Cicero was entirely exempt, were carried off by the prevailing grace and power of his manner. Though a highly cultivated man he was a natural orator. He never seemed so thoroughly at home as when on his legs. In speaking, whether on the platform, in the Senate, or at the Bar, his mental equi librium and his mental vitality were invin cible. Nothing from within or from with out could disturb the one or dash the other. Interruptions of all sorts only added fuel to the fire of his oratory. From the first sen tence to the last he was master of the situ ation, the whole effort being stamped with unity and instinct with grace. To borrow the phraseology of the drama there was no break in the action, no pause in the acting. Not a link was missing; not a minute lost. He would tell an anecdote while he was look ing for a citation, and throw off a flash of wit as he wiped his forehead. Even a glass of water he would take with rhetorical effect, dextrously weaving the act into the texture of his speech, or carelessly tossing it among the flowers of the border. When he was on the boards neither the stage nor the audience ever waited. He never hesi tated for a thought or a word; yet (such was the aptness and weight of his matter) no one ever thought of calling him fluent.
