One utterance--"Ottah"--the coinage of his own brain, seems
to be the attempt of his daring and unschooled genius to strike out
not only into new lines of thought, but even to find a mystic mode of
expression. This term is evidently a portion of a language wholly
differing from our own. It is at once a noun, adjective, and verb,
and, in the full flood of his eloquence, it changes from the one to
the other with astounding rapidity.
The extreme versatility of his genius renders it peculiarly difficult
to give any adequate idea of his oratory. He is equally bold in the
expression of his sentiments on any subject. Perhaps for convenience
in consideration we may roughly divide his oratory into wood-pile and
conversational eloquence.
Specimens of his genuine wood-pile eloquence, though by no means
uncommon, are yet not easily accessible to the biographical compiler.
Very few of his sayings have ever found their way into print, and when
thus presented they are of necessity shorn of much of their strength,
and deprived of the impressiveness which they derive from the orator's
gesticulation and delivery.
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