Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/36

24 gathering of thought required for the mastery of a science is not possible. Moreover, it is not improbable that his remarkable gift of speaking, which enabled him to make little tell for much, and to outshine men of vastly greater learning, deceived him as to the necessity for laborious study. The value of this faculty he appreciated well. He knew that oratory is an art, and in this art he trained himself with judgment and perseverance. For many years, as a young man, he made it a rule to read, if possible every day, in some historical or scientific book, and then to repeat what he had read in free, off-hand speech, “sometimes in a cornfield, at others in the forest, and not unfrequently in a distant barn with the horse and ox for auditors.” Thus he cultivated that facility and affluence of phrase, that resonance of language, as well as that freedom of gesture, which, aided by a voice of rare power and musical beauty, gave his oratory, even to the days of declining old age, so peculiar a charm.

Only a year and a half after his arrival at Lexington, in April, 1799, he had achieved a position sufficiently respected and secure to ask for and to obtain the hand of Lucretia Hart, the daughter of a man of high character and prominent standing in the state. She was not a brilliant, but a very estimable woman, and a most devoted wife to him. She became the mother of eleven children. His prosperity increased rapidly; so that soon he was able to purchase Ashland, an estate of some six