Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/94

68 began to become an encumbering burden to his eloquence. The mass of quoted sayings and historical illustrations, not seldom accumulated beyond measure and grotesquely grouped, sometimes threatened to suffocate the original thought and to oppress the hearer. But even then his words scarcely ever failed to chain the attention of the audience, and I have more than once seen the Senate attentively listening while he read from printed slips the most elaborate disquisition, which, if attempted by any one of his colleagues, would at once have emptied the floor and galleries. But there were always moments recalling to our mind the days of his freshest vigor, when he stood in the midst of the great struggle, lifting up the youth of the country with heart-stirring appeals, and with the lion-like thunder of his voice shaking the Senate chamber.

Still there was another source from which that fascination sprang. Behind all he said and did there stood a grand manhood, which never failed to make itself felt. What a figure he was, with his tall and stalwart frame, his manly face, topped with his shaggy locks, his noble bearing, the finest type of American Senatorship, the tallest oak of the forest! And how small they appeared by his side, the common run of politicians, who spend their days with the laying of pipe, and the setting up of pins, and the pulling of wires; who barter an office to secure this vote, and procure a contract to get that; who stand always with their ears to the wind to hear how the Administration sneezes, and what their constituents whisper, in mortal trepidation lest they fail in being all things to everybody! How he towered above them, he whose aims were always the highest and noblest; whose very presence made you forget the vulgarities of political life; who dared to differ with any man ever so powerful, any multitude ever so numerous; who regarded party