Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/377

 had much love for set rhetorical display: his taste was for conversation—lively, ingenious, argumentative it might be, but still mainly in the colloquial key. A good instance of the way in which he passes by an opportunity for oratory is his brief notice of the speech made by Themistocles just before the battle of Salamis : "His theme was the contrast between all that is worthy and all that is base. He exhorted them to choose the better part in all that men's nature and condition permit; and then, having wound up his discourse, he ordered them to embark." The true rhetorician would have developed the topic which Herodotus barely indicates. It may be noticed, too, that the ornament