Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/202

 evidently, before venturing out, been carefully armed against the inclemencies of the weather. While the chairman made an eulogistic little speech presenting to those assembled their illustrious fellow-citizen, Mr. Everett stood behind him being peeled out of an endless variety of wraps—an operation performed by an attendant, which caused him to turn himself around several times. This spectacle of the unwinding of Mr. Everett started a pretty general titter among the audience, which at last was stopped by the applause following the close of the chairman's introductory speech. Mr. Everett's argument was the well-worn plea of patriotic apprehension. It was very finely expressed, every sentence of faultless finish, every gesture well pointed and appropriate. But there was a coldness of academic perfection about it all which lacked the robustness of true, deep aggressive feeling. The audience applauded many times, but, as far as I could judge, without any real burst of enthusiasm. When Mr. Everett sat down the general verdict seemed to be that, as usual, he had made a very fine speech, and that he was a most honorable and patriotic gentleman. The impression produced by Mr. Caleb Cushing was very different. While speaking he turned his left shoulder to the audience, looking at his hearers askance, and with a squint, too, as it seemed to me, but I may have been mistaken. There was something like a cynical sneer in his manner of bringing out his sentences, which made him look like Mephistopheles alive, and I do not remember ever to have heard a public speaker who stirred in me so decided a disinclination to believe what he said. In later years I met him repeatedly at dinner tables which he enlivened with his large information, his wit, and his fund of anecdote. But I could never quite overcome the impression he had made upon me at that meeting. I could always listen to him with interest, but never with spontaneous confidence.