Sometimes it has seemed to me that to enable one to appreciate with
accuracy, as a psychological speculation, the intrinsic and absolute
volume and texture of that brain,--the real rate and measure of those
abilities,--it was better not to see or hear him, unless you could see
or hear him frequently, and in various modes of exhibition; for
undoubtedly there was something in his countenance and bearing so
expressive of command,--something even in his conversational language
when saying "Parva summisse et modica temperate," so exquisitely
plausible, embodying the likeness at least of a rich truth, the forms at
least of a large generalization, in an epithet,--an antithesis,--a
pointed phrase,--a broad and peremptory thesis,--and something in his
grander forthputting, when roused by a great subject or occasion
exciting his reason and touching his moral sentiments and his heart, so
difficult to be resisted, approaching so near, going so far beyond, the
higher style of man, that although it left you a very good witness of
his power of influencing others, you were not in the best condition
immediately to pronounce on the quality or the source of the influence.
You saw the flash and heard the peal, and felt the admiration and fear;
but from what region it was launched, and by what divinity, and from
what Olympian seat, you could not certainly yet tell. To do that you
must, if you saw him at all, see him many times; compare him with
himself and with others; follow his dazzling career from his father's
house; observe from what competitors he won those laurels; study his
discourses,--study them by the side of those of other great men of this
country and time, and of other countries and times, conspicuous in the
same fields of mental achievement,--look through the crystal water of
the style down to the golden sands of the thought; analyze and contrast
intellectual power somewhat; consider what kind and what quantity of it
has been held by students of mind needful in order to great eminence in
the higher mathematics, or metaphysics, or reason of the law; what
capacity to analyze, through and through, to the primordial elements of
the truths of that science; yet what wisdom and sobriety, in order to
control the wantonness and shun the absurdities of a mere scholastic
logic, by systematizing ideas, and combining them, and repressing one by
another, thus producing, not a collection of intense and conflicting
paradoxes, but _a code_, scientifically coherent and practically
useful,--consider what description and what quantity of mind have been
held needful by students of mind in order to conspicuous eminence--long
maintained--in statesmanship; that great practical science, that great
philosophical art, whose ends are the existence, happiness, and honor of
a nation; whose truths are to be drawn from the widest survey of
man,--of social man,--of the particular race and particular community
for which a government is to be made or kept, or a policy to be
provided; "philosophy in action," demanding at once or affording place
for the highest speculative genius and the most skillful conduct of men
and of affairs; and finally consider what degree and kind of mental
power has been found to be required in order to influence the reason of
an audience and a nation by speech,--not magnetizing the mere nervous or
emotional nature by an effort of that nature, but operating on reason by
reason--a great reputation in forensic and deliberative eloquence,
maintained and advancing for a lifetime,--it is thus that we come to be
sure that his intellectual power was as real and as uniform as its very
happiest particular display had been imposing and remarkable.