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But, though we may not fairly judge of his political motives, we can readily reconstruct a picture of him as a man, and in doing so recall his one romance, which many will remember after they have forgotten his oratorical triumphs and his statecraft. Leon Gambetta was the true type of the southern Frenchman what his countrymen call a meridional.
Faithful in the exposure of unfaithfulness to freedom on the part of politicians and clergymen, they denounced neither the Constitution nor the Bible. Their devotion to the cause of abolition was pure; for its sake they suppressed the vanity of personal notoriety and of oratorical display.
My friends thought the more of this, because in those days I was accustomed to deliver all my speeches without any relaxation of effort, without any variety, at the very top of my voice, and with most abundant gesticulation. At first, when friends and physicians advised me to abandon advocacy for a while, I felt that I would sooner run any risk than relinquish the hope of oratorical distinction.
I find on the programme of the exercises of that day, which some old student preserved, that I was down for several original speeches, while the other boys had mainly recitations. Apparently my teachers had decided to develop any oratorical talent I might possess. I entered Yale in 1852 and graduated in 1856.
Although he is, at heart, only a very moderate Liberalist, this young man, with the very chic side whiskers, defends the most republican of "beards," if it can be called defending; for in spite of his fine oratorical efforts, his clients are regularly favored with the maximum of punishment.
Thus taken at intervals it formed an excellent tonic to assist towards an oratorical training. It was not an end in itself, but was a means for producing a finished rhetor. This is a degradation of the loftiest kind of poetry known to art, no doubt; but Seneca is not to blame for having begun it.
In 52 B.C. occurred the celebrated trial of Milo for the murder of Clodius, in which Cicero, who appeared for the defendant, was hampered by the presence of Pompey's armed retainers, and made but a poor speech; the magnificent and exhaustive oratorical display that we possess having been written after Milo's condemnation and sent to him in his exile at Marseilles, where he received it with sarcastic praise.
They were offering up their class as a sacrifice to the new God, Deo ignoto: the people. To tell the truth, they were not all equally sincere. Many of them were only able to see in the movement an opportunity of rising above their class by affecting to despise it. For the majority it was an intellectual pastime, an oratorical enthusiasm which they never took altogether seriously.
For many kinds of glory, however, Alexander cared little; unlike his father Philip, who prided himself on his oratorical powers, and used to record his victories in the chariot races at Olympia upon his coins.
But, though we may not fairly judge of his political motives, we can readily reconstruct a picture of him as a man, and in doing so recall his one romance, which many will remember after they have forgotten his oratorical triumphs and his statecraft. Leon Gambetta was the true type of the southern Frenchman what his countrymen call a meridional.
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