There is no man in this list of greater ability or of higher quality of manhood than Evarts Greene. Mr. Greene was compelled by the illness of his wife to remain fast-bound in one spot, instead of going to some large city where his great talent would have commanded a very high place indeed in his profession as editor. When he edited the Worcester Spy, it was one of the most influential Republican newspapers in the country. The Spy got into pecuniary difficulties. Mr. Greene, with some reluctance, accepted the office of Postmaster, an office which, according to usage in such cases, was in my gift.
Just before Postmaster-General Wanamaker, whose executive ability no man will question, went out of office, he requested Mr. Greene to send to the Department an account of the improvements he had made and proposed in the post-office service. This was sent in a circular all over the country to other like post-offices.
Just before Mr. Greene died, President Roosevelt visited Worcester. In passing the post-office, where the persons employed in the service were collected, he stopped and said he was glad to see "what we have been accustomed to consider the record post-office." This, as may well be believed, gave Mr. Greene great satisfaction.
CHAPTER XXXV ORATORY AND SOME ORATORS I HAVE HEARD
The longer I live, the more highly I have come to value the gift of eloquence. Indeed, I am not sure that it is not the single gift most to be coveted by man. It is hard, perhaps impossible, to define, as poetry is impossible to define. To be a perfect and consummate orator is to possess the highest faculty given to man. He must be a great artist, and more. He must be a great actor, and more. He must be a master of the great things that interest mankind. What he says ought to have as permanent a place in literature as the highest poetry. He must be able to play at will on the mighty organ, his audience, of which human souls are the keys. He must have knowledge, wit, wisdom, fancy, imagination, courage, nobleness, sincerity, grace, a heart of fire. He must himself respond to every emotion as an AEolian harp to the breeze. He must have
An eye that tears can on a sudden fill
And lips that smile before the tears are gone.
He must have a noble personal presence. He must have, in perfection, the eye and the voice which are the only and natural avenues by which one human soul can enter into and subdue another. His speech must be filled with music, and possess its miraculous charm and spell,
Which the posting winds recall,
And suspend the river's fall.
He must have the quality which Burke manifested when Warren Hastings said, "I felt, as I listened to him, as if I were the most culpable being on earth"; and which made Philip say of Demosthenes, "Had I been there he would have persuaded me to take up arms against myself."
He has a present, practical purpose to accomplish. If he fail in that he fails utterly and altogether. His object is to convince the understanding, to persuade the will, to set aflame the heart of his audience or those who read what he says. He speaks for a present occasion. Eloquence is the feather that tips his arrow. If he miss the mark he is a failure, although his sentences may survive everything else in the permanent literature of the language in which he speaks. What he says must not only accomplish the purpose of the hour, but should be fit to be preserved for all time, or he can have no place in literature, and a small and ephemeral place in human memory.