At last one fellow provoked the cheers and applause of
the audience by crying out--"Why didn't you put down the Rebellion
in sixty days as you said you would?" Beecher paused a moment
until they became still, in their eagerness to hear his reply,
and then hurled back--"We should if they had been Englishmen."
The fierce, untamed animal hesitated a moment between anger
and admiration, and then the English love of fair play and
pluck prevailed, and the crowd cheered him and let him go
on.
But any man who reads Beecher's delightful "Letters from the
White Mountains," or some of his sermons, and imagines his
great frame, and far-sounding voice, will get a conception
of his power to play on the feelings or men, of his humor,
and pathos, and intense conviction, and rapidity in passing
from one emotion to another, and will understand him.
I heard Rufus Choate a great many times. I heard nearly
all the speeches given in Brown's Life; and I heard him a
great many times at the Bar, both before juries and the full
Court. He is the only advocate I ever heard who had the
imperial power which would subdue an unwilling and hostile
jury.
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