He
showed that his client, or witness, or proposition, belonged
to a class of itself. He invested it with a distinct and
intense personality. He held up his fact or his principle
before the mind of the Court and the jury. He described
and pictured it. He brought out in clear relief what distinguished
it from any other fact or proposition whatever. If necessary,
he would almost have made a jury, before he was through, think
the Siamese twins did not look alike, and possibly that they
never could have been born of the same parents.
He had a voice without any gruff or any shrill tones. It
was like a sweet, yet powerful flute. He never strained it
or seemed to exert it to its fullest capacity. I do not know
any other public speaker whose style resembled his in the
least. Perhaps Jeremy Taylor was his model, if he had any
model. The phraseology with which he clothed some commonplace
or mean thought or fact, when he was compelled to use commonplace
arguments, or to tell some common story, kept his auditors
ever alert and expectant. An Irishman, who had killed his
wife, threw away the axe with which Choate claimed the deed
was done, when he heard somebody coming.
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