gentleman conversing. Unconsciously and surely the ear and heart were
charmed. How was it done?--Ah! how did Mozart do it, how Raffael?

The secret of the rose's sweetness, of the bird's ecstacy, of the
sunset's glory--that is the secret of genius and of eloquence. What was
heard, what was seen, was the form of noble manhood, the courteous and
self-possest tone, the flow of modulated speech, sparkling with
matchless richness of illustration, with apt allusion and happy anecdote
and historic parallel, with wit and pitiless invective, with melodious
pathos, with stinging satire, with crackling epigram and limpid humor,
like the bright ripples that play around the sure and steady prow of the
resistless ship. Like an illuminated vase of odors, he glowed with
concentrated and perfumed fire. The divine energy of his conviction
utterly possest him, and his

"Pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in his cheek, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might almost say his body thought."

Was it Pericles swaying the Athenian multitude? Was it Apollo breathing
the music of the morning from his lips?--No, no! It was an American
patriot, a modern son of liberty, with a soul as firm and as true as was
ever consecrated to unselfish duty, pleading with the American
conscience for the chained and speechless victims of American
inhumanity.--_Eulogy of Wendell Phillips:_ GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.


_A Study in Powerful Delivery_

12. I thank you very cordially, both friends and opponents, if opponents