The sympathy
and concurrence of his time is, with his own mind, joint parent
of his work. He cannot follow nor frame ideals; his choice
is to be what his age would have him, what it requires in
order to be moved by him, or else not to be at all."
I heard six of Kossuth's very best speeches. He was a marvellous
orator. He seemed to have mastered the whole vocabulary of
English speech, and to have a rare gift of choosing words
that accurately expressed his meaning, and he used so to fashion
his sentences that they were melodious and delightful to the
ear. That is one great gift or oratory, as it is of poetry,
or indeed of a good prose style. Why it is that two words
or phrases which mean precisely the same thing to the intellect,
have so different an effect on the emotions, no man can tell.
To understand it, is to know the secret not only of reaching
the heart, but frequently of convincing the understanding
of man.
Kossuth made a great many speeches, sometimes five or six
in a day. He could have had no preparation but the few minutes
which he could snatch while waiting for dinner at some house
where he was a guest, or late at night, after a hard day's
work.
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