Page:Bench and bar of Colorado - 1917.djvu/14

 victories are won, not by accident, or by stirring words, or emotional appeals; not by arguments addressed to friendly minds and sympathetic listeners, as is the case, in many instances, in political warfare, on the stump or in the halls of legislation. Neither have such efforts been the result of deliberate and careful preparation in the library, like those of the statesman, who is allowed his own time, both to prepare and to deliver what he will say. Unlike all of these, the lawyer usually finds himself bound to make his greatest and best efforts amid, or at the close, perhaps, of a lengthy or exhaustive trial, in which he must attempt, at least, to apply great fundamental legal principles to a new state of facts—facts which are constantly varying from hour to hour, thus rendering the exercise of all his powers of discrimination and reasoning, in the highest degree, immediate and necessary. He is thus called upon to take sides, and give a reason for opinions that must be formed and enforced on the spur of the moment and without delay or deliberation, and this he must do, not only thus hastily and without the deliberation that is allowed in every other calling, but in the face of, not a listening and applauding multitude, but in the presence of half a dozen lawyers, all of whom are watching, like the ancient warrior watched, for some vulnerable place, even though it be in the heel of his argument, for an opportunity to assail him, and all this, perhaps, under the depression of feeling arising from the fact that he knows both court and counsel are against him, and, however able his argument, it will be remembered only by the one, while he attempts to demolish it by authority, if he can, or rail at it as illogical and inconclusive if he cannot, while the "court" will recall it only while the matter is under advisement. In efforts before a jury, and in appeals addressed to it, it is still worse; for then not only must he appear without preparation and at the end of a tedious and tiresome trial, but if, as is here supposed, he is a lawyer, and not a legal kite, he is restricted to a discussion of certain facts in evidence, and from which, as a lawyer, he will not seek to depart, and