He monopolized, not because he
was ever unwilling to hear others, but because they did not care to
hear themselves when he was by. The subject made no difference; he
could talk on anything. I was once with him in the society of an
intelligent Quaker farmer, when the conversation fell on agriculture:
the farmer held his own ably for a time; but long after he was drained
dry, our wonderful companion still flowed on exhaustless, with
accounts of Nova Scotia ploughing and Tennessee hoeing, and all things
rural, ancient and modern, good and bad, till it seemed as if the one
amusing and interesting theme in the universe were the farm. But it
soon proved that this was only one among his thousand departments, and
his hearers felt, as was said of old Fuller, as if he had served his
time at every trade in town.
But it must now be owned that these astonishing results were bought by
some intellectual sacrifices which his nearer friends do not all
recognize, but which posterity will mourn. Such a rate of speed is
incompatible with the finest literary execution. A delicate literary
ear he might have had, perhaps, but he very seldom stopped to
cultivate or even indulge it. This neglect was not produced by his
frequent habit of extemporaneous speech alone; for it is a singular
fact, that Wendell Phillips, who rarely writes a line, yet contrives
to give to his hastiest efforts the air of elaborate preparation,
while Theodore Parker's most scholarly performances were still
stump-speeches.
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