We add to our criticism no drawbacks, as we like to give to transcendent merit unstinted praise, and have really no exceptions in mind, could we presume in such a case to express any. Looking on the features of Fuller's portrait, which makes the frontispiece of his work as here reproduced for us, we note a weight of prudence strangely blending with a buoyancy of prayer, well corresponding to the inseparable sagacity and ecstasy of his words, teaching us the consistency of immortal aspiration with an infallible good-sense,—a lesson never more important to be learned than now. To be an executive mystic, an energetic saint, is the very ideal of human excellence; and to go forward in the name of the Divinity is the meaning of the book we have here passed in review.
Speeches, Lectures, and Letters. By WENDELL PHILLIPS. Boston: James Redpath.
In vigor, in point, in command of language and felicity of phrase, in affluence and aptness of illustration, in barbed keenness and cling of sarcasm, in terror of invective, in moral weight and momentum, in copiousness and quality of thought, in aggressive boldness of statement, finally in equality to all audiences and readiness for all occasions, Wendell Phillips is certainly the first orator in America,—and that we esteem much the same as saying that he is first among those whose vernacular is the English tongue. That no speeches are made of equal value with his, that he has an intellectual superiority to all competitors in the forum, we do not assert; but his preeminence in pure oratorical genius may now be considered as established and unquestionable. Ajax has the strength, perhaps more than the strength, of Achilles; but Achilles adds to vigor of arm incomparable swiftness of foot. The mastiff is stout, brave, trusty, intelligent, but the hound outruns him; and this greyhound of modern oratory, deep-chested, light-limbed, supple, elastic, elegant, powerful, must be accredited with his own special superiorities. Or taking a cue from the tales of chivalry, we might say that he is the Sir Launcelot of the platform, in all but Sir Launcelot's sin; and woe to the knight against whom in full career he levels his lance!
And yet one is half ashamed to praise his gifts, so superbly does he himself cast those gifts behind him. He is not trying to be eloquent: he is trying to get a grand piece of justice done in the world. No engineer building a bridge, no ship-master in a storm at sea, was ever more simply intent on substantive results. It is not any "Oration for the Crown" that he stands here pronouncing: it is service, not distinction, at which he aims, and he will be crowned only in the gladness of a redeemed race. The story of his life is a tale of romance; he makes real the legends of chivalry. He might have sat at meat with Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, and looked with equal unabashed eyes into theirs; and a thousand years hence, some skeptic, reading the history of these days, will smile a light disdain, and say, "Very well for fiction; but real men are selfish beings, and serve themselves always to the sweetest and biggest loaf they can find."
We praise his gifts and his nobility, not always his opinions. He was once the apostle of a doctrine of disunion; he fervently believes in enforcing "total abstinence" by statute; he is the strenuous advocate of woman-suffrage. We have stood by the Union always; we have some faith in pure wine, notwithstanding the Maine Law; and believing that women have a right to vote, we believe also that they have a higher right to be excused from voting. We are unwilling to consume their delicate fitnesses in this rude labor. It is not economical. We do not believe in using silk for ships' top-sails, or China porcelain for wash-tubs. There are tasks for American women—tasks, we mean, of a social and public, not alone of a domestic nature—which only women can rightly perform, while their accomplishment was never more needed than here.
Mr. Phillips is no "faultless painter." He is given to snap-judgments. The minor element of considerateness should be more liberally present. He forgets that fast driving is not suitable to crowded streets; and through the densest thoroughfares the hoofs of his flying charger go ringing over the pavements, to the alarm of many and the damage of some. Softly, Bucephalus! A little gentle ambling through these social complications might sometimes be well.
Again, while he has the utmost of moral stability and constancy, and also great firmness of intellectual adhesion to main principles, there is in him a certain minor changefulness. He pours out a powerful light, but it flickers. Momentary partialities sway him,—to be balanced, indeed, by subsequent partialities, for his broad nature will not be permanently one-sided; but meantime his authority suffers. Mood, occasion, the latest event, govern overmuch the color of his statement; so that an unsympathetic auditor—and every partiality, by the law of the world, must push some one out of the ring of sympathy—may honestly deem him unfair, even wilfully unfair.
Finally, he relies too much upon sarcasm and personal invective as agents. He has a theory on this matter; and we feel sure that it is erroneous. Not that invective is to be forbidden. Not that personal criticism is always out of place, or always useless. We are among the "all men" whom Thoreau declared to be "enamored of the beauty of plain speech." We ask no man in public or private life to wear a satin glove upon his tongue. We believe, too, in the "noble wrath" of Tasso's heroes, When the heart must burn, let the words be fire. It is just where personal invective begins to be used as matter of theory and system that it begins to be used amiss. Let the rule be to spare it, if it can be spared, and to use it only under the strictest compelling of moral indignation. And were not Mr. Phillips among the most genial and sunny of human beings, really incapable of any malign passion, he would fool the reactive sting of this invective in his own bosom, and so become fearful of indulging it.
Still it must be said that he has the genius and function of a critic. He is the censor of our statesmanship. He is the pruner of our politics. Let his censure be broad and deliberate, that it may be weighty; let his pruning be with care and kindness, that it may be with benefit.
Systems of Military Bridges in Use by the United States Army, those adopted by the Great European Powers, and such as are employed in British India. With Directions for the Preservation, Destruction, and Reestablishment of Bridges. By Brigadier-General GEORGE W. CULLUM, Lieutenant-Colonel, Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army, Chief of Staff of the General-in-Chief, etc., etc. New York: D. Van Nostrand.