Laudator Temporis Acti

J.J. Ingalls, quoted in Daniel W. Wilder, Annals of Kansas (Topeka: Geo. W. Martin, Kansas Publishing House, 1875), p. 263 (May 10, 1861; on James H. Lane):

It would be hard to give a rational and satisfactory analysis of the causes of Gen. Lane's popularity as an orator. Destitute of all graces of the art, he possesses but few even of its essentials; he writhes himself into more contortions than Gabriel Ravel in a pantomime; his voice is a series of transitions from the broken scream of a maniac to the hoarse rasping gutturals of a Dutch butcher in the last gasp of inebriation; the construction of his sentences is loose and disjointed; his diction is a pudding of slang, profanity and solecism; and yet the electric shock of his extraordinary eloquence thrills like the blast of a trumpet; the magnetism of his manner, the fire of his glance, the studied earnestness of his utterance, find a sudden response in the will of his audience, and he sways them like a field of reeds shaken in the wind.