CHAPTER XVI
CHARACTERISTICS: HIS PUBLIC SPEAKING
MORRIS was not what is called an orator or eloquent speaker. He was not reckoned among the front-rank speakers of the movement, though the high quality of the substance of his lectures, and the charm of his manner of speech, were generally recognised. In none of the biographical notices of him that I have seen is his platform speaking appraised among his chief accomplishments. His defect in oratory was not, needless to say, owing to any lack of intensity of feeling, or to any dearth of ideas, or command of language on his part. Nor can it be ascribed to the want of sufficient practice on the platform; for he must have addressed many hundreds of meetings in the course of his public career.
His lack of oratory belonged to the mould of his nature. This is easily discerned. His poetry no less than his prose writing showed that the absence in him of florid and emotional speech was a fundamental fact of his temperament and genius. Whether this characteristic is to be reckoned a merit or demerit in him is a matter of individual judgment. There are many who will consider it wholly to the good of his work and fame. For, as we all know, rhetoric and declamatory expression of all kinds have fallen nowadays into disrepute among almost all who pretend to art or literary culture. In this respect modern aesthetic feeling among the cultured classes is quite at variance with that of the ancient Greeks (as distinct from a few heretics like Plato), as it also is with modern popular taste. Rhetoric, or, at
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