Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/182

170 of Washington, the ideas of Jefferson, made eloquence superfluous. True, it has its value: if a man have at command the electricity of truth, justice, love, the sentiments and great ideas thereof, it is a good thing to be able with Olympian hand to condense that electric fire into bolted eloquence; to thunder and lighten in the sky. But if a man have that electric truth, it matters little whether it is Moses that speaks, or only Aaron; whether or not Paul's bodily presence be weak and his speech contemptible: it is Moses' thought which thunders and lightens out of Sinai; it is Paul's idea that is powerful and builds up the church. Of true eloquence, the best thoughts put in the best words, and uttered in the best form, Mr. Adams had little, and that appeared mainly in the latter part of his life. Hundreds have more. What passes for eloquence is common in America, where the public mouth is always a-going. His early orations are poor in their substance and faulty in their form. His ability as an orator developed late; no proofs of it appear before he entered the House of Representatives, at a good old age. In his manner of speaking there was little dignity and no grace, though sometimes there was a terrible energy and fire. He was often a powerful speaker—by his facts and figures, by his knowledge, his fame, his age, and his position, but most of all by his independent character. He spoke worthily of great men, of Madison or Lafayette, kindling with his theme, and laying aside all littleness of a party. However, he was most earnest and most eloquent not when he stood up the champion of a neglected truth, not when he dwelt on great men now venerable to us all, but when he gathered his strength to attack a foe. Incensed, his sarcasm was terrific; colossal vanity, aspiring to be a Ghenghis Khan, at the touch of that Ithuriel spear shrank to the dimensions of Tom Thumb. His invective is his masterpiece of oratorio skill. It is sad to say this, and to remember that the greatest works of ancient or of modern rhetoric, from the thundering Philippics of Desmosthenes down to the sarcastic and crazy rattle of Lord Brougham, are all of the same character, are efforts against a personal foe! Men find hitherto the ablest acts and speech in the same cause,—not positive and creating, but critical and combative,—in war.