When in
private conversation I spoke of the circumstance that it was my
good fortune to welcome him to the State on that anniversary, he said:
"Yes, it is a marked day; but unless my poor country is saved I shall
soon wither away and die."
His voice, whether in public speech or in private conversation,
commanded sympathy by its tones, even when his words were not
comprehended. In his oratory there was exaggeration in statement, a
characteristic that is common to orators, but not more strongly marked
in the speeches of Kossuth than in the speeches of those with whom he
might be compared.
His powers of imagination were not extraordinary, and of word painting
he has not left a single striking example,--not one passage that can be
used for recitation or declamation in the schools. His cause was too
pressing, his manner of life was too serious, for any indulgences in
speech. In every speech he had an object in view; and even when he was
without hope for Hungary in the near future, he yet announced and
advocated doctrines and truths on which he relied for the political
regeneration of Europe. He spoke to propositions,--clearly, concisely,
convincingly.
In one oratorical art Kossuth was a adept; he deprecated all honors to
himself, and with great tact he transferred them to his country and to
the cause that he represented:
"As to me, indeed, it would be curious if the names of the great men
who invented the plough and the alphabet, who changed the corn into
flour and the flour into bread, should be forgotten, and my name
remembered.
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