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.
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