An eye witness[5]
describes the crowded and most intelligent audience, and their
rapt attention to the speaker, as the grandest scene he ever
witnessed in the capitol. Among those whose eyes were riveted on
the speaker full two hours and a half, were Thurlow Weed and
Lieutenant Governor Raymond; the latter, at the conclusion of the
address, exclaimed to a friend, "I would give twenty thousand
dollars,
[5] Mr. Wm. H. Topp, of Albany.
<18>if I could deliver that address in that manner." Mr. Raymond
is a first class graduate of Dartmouth, a rising politician,
ranking foremost in the legislature; of course, his ideal of
oratory must be of the most polished and finished description.
The style of Mr. Douglass in writing, is to me an intellectual
puzzle. The strength, affluence and terseness may easily be
accounted for, because the style of a man is the man; but how are
we to account for that rare polish in his style of writing,
which, most critically examined, seems the result of careful
early culture among the best classics of our language; it equals
if it does not surpass the style of Hugh Miller, which was the
wonder of the British literary public, until he unraveled the
mystery in the most interesting of autobiographies.
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