In another letter to Gilmer, Wirt again urges his son-in-law to imitate Marshall's style. In his early career Wirt had suffered in his own arguments from too much adornment which detracted from the real solidity and careful learning of his efforts at the bar. And when, finally, in his old age he had, through his own mistakes, learned the value of simplicity in statement and clear logic in argument, he counseled young Gilmer accordingly.
"In your arguments at the bar," he writes, "let argument strongly predominate. Sacrifice your flowers.... Avoid as you would the gates of death, the reputation for floridity.... Imitate ... Marshall's simple process of reasoning."[506]
Following the advice of his distinguished brother-in-law, Gilmer studied Marshall with the hungry zeal of ambitious youth. Thus it is that to Francis Gilmer we owe what is perhaps the truest analysis, made by a personal observer, of Marshall's method as advocate and orator.
"So perfect is his analysis," records Gilmer, "that he extracts the whole matter, the kernel of the inquiry, unbroken, undivided, clean and entire. In this process, such is the instinctive neatness and precision of his mind that no superfluous thought, or even word, ever presents itself and still he says everything that seems appropriate to the subject.
"This perfect exemption from any unnecessary encumbrance of matter or ornament, is in some degree the effect of an aversion for the labour of thinking. So great a mind, perhaps, like large bodies in the physical world, is with difficulty set in motion. That this is the case with Mr. Marshall's is manifest, from his mode of entering on an argument both in conversation and in publick debate.
"It is difficult to rouse his faculties; he begins with reluctance, hesitation, and vacancy of eye; presently his articulation becomes less broken, his eye more fixed, until finally, his voice is full, clear, and rapid, his manner bold, and his whole face lighted up, with the mingled fires of genius and passion; and he pours forth the unbroken stream of eloquence, in a current deep, majestick, smooth, and strong.
"He reminds one of some great bird, which flounders and flounces on the earth for a while before it acquires the impetus to sustain its soaring flight.
"The characteristick of his eloquence is an irresistible cogency, and a luminous simplicity in the order of his reasoning. His arguments are remarkable for their separate and independent strength, and for the solid, compact, impenetrable order in which they are arrayed.
"He certainly possesses in an eminent degree the power which had been ascribed to him, of mastering the most complicated subjects with facility, and when moving with his full momentum, even without the appearance of resistance."