How widely
different in method and surroundings from the poet's exercise of the
creative faculty in the calm of thought and retirement, on a selected
topic and in selected hours of inspiration, was his entering, with
little notice or preparation, into a case involving complicated
questions of law and fact, with only a partial knowledge of the case
of his antagonist! met at point after point by unexpected evidence
and rulings of law, often involving such instantaneous decisions as
to change his whole combinations and method of attack; examining
witnesses with unerring skill, whom he was at once too chivalrous and
too wise to browbeat; arguing to the court unexpected questions of
law with full and available legal learning; carrying in his mind the
case, and the known or surmised plan of attack of his antagonist, and
shaping his own case to meet it; holding an exquisitely sensitive
physical and mental organization in such perfect control as never to
be irritated or disturbed; throwing his whole force on a given point,
and rising to a joyousness of power in meeting the great obstacles to
his success; and finally, with little or no respite for preparation,
weaving visibly, as it were, before the mental eye, from all these
elicited materials, his closing argument, which, as we have said, was
all the more effective, because profound reasoning and exquisite tact
and influence were involved in it as a work of art.
Pages:
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230