Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 1051

The bulk of his early reputation, however, came not from his poetry or his music, but from his excellence as an orator.

By 1834 the art of oratory had reached a very high level in the United States as a literary form.

The orator of this period, in order to earn a reputation, had to pay close attention to the formal composition of his speech, judging how it would appear in print as well as the effect it would have on the audience that heard it.