CHAPTER IX. PATRICK HENRY, THE INCARNATION OF REVOLUTIONARY ZEAL If there be one attribute of man supreme in dignity and worth it is that of oratory. The illusions of the eye, combined with the enchanting power of music, constitute an influence less potent upon the imagination and will, than the spirit-stirring appeals of "eloquence divine." Other charms are mostly drawn from the external world, but this emanates from the unseen spirit within; its splendors gleam through animated clay and proclaim the superior majesty of immortal mind. When men are exhilarated in the presence of excellence, when they are greatly moved by the power of cultivated speech, the imagination is more susceptible of receiving agreeable impressions, and the mind becomes insensibly imbued with the worth it in rapture admires When the heart and fancy are thus taken captive by those sentiments which are addressed to our sensibilities, the better to move our reason, the severe rules which we impose on the frigid logician, become generously expanded. The orator feels no longer wounded by hypercritical restraints; more latitude is granted for the expansion of his genius, and in the moment of fortunate |