Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/306

 282 55KETCHES OF THE

doing injustice to the memory of that eminent man, to multiply extracts from this book, as specimens of his eloquence. The stenogi^apher who should be able to take down Mr. Henry^s speeches, word for word, must iiave other quahties, beside the perfect mastery of his art: he must have the perfect mastery of himself, and be able, for the moment, to play the mere automaton: for witliout such self-command, no man who had a hu- man heart in his bosom, could listen to his starthng exclamations, or hon^or-breathing tones, without keep- ing his eyes immoveably rivetted upon the speaker. His dominion over his hearers was so absolute, that it was idle to think of resisting him; you would as soon think of resisting the lightning of heaven. The very tone of voice, in which he would address the chairman, when he felt the inspiration of his genius rising — " Mr. Chairman!'^ — and the awful pause which followed this call — fixed upon him at once every eye in the assem- bly: and then Ms oivn rapt countenance! — those eyes which seemed to beam with light from another world, and under whose fiery glance the crest of the proudest adversary fell! his majestic attitudes, and that bold, strong, and varied action, which spoke forth with so much power, the energies of his own great spirit, ren- dered his person a spectacle so sublime and so awfully interesting, that to look in any other direction when the spell was upon him, was not to be expected from any man who had eyes to see and ears to hear. Little cause have we therefore to wonder or to complain, that a gen- tleman of Mr. Robertson's lively admiration of genius^ and of his quick and kindling sensibility, was some- times bedimmed by his own tears, and at others, torn from his task by those master flights, which rushed like

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