In December, 1859, he made a number of speeches in Kansas and elsewhere in the West, and in February, 1860, he gave a memorable address in the Cooper Institute in New York before as consciously intellectual an audience as could be collected in that city, proceeding afterwards to speak in several cities of New England. His appearance at the Cooper Institute, in particular, was a critical venture, and he knew it. There was natural curiosity about this untutored man from the West. An exaggerated report of his wit prepared the way for probable disappointment. The surprise which awaited his hearers was of a different kind; they were prepared for a florid Western eloquence offensive to ears which were used to a less spontaneous turgidity; they heard instead a speech with no ornament at all, whose only beauty was that it was true and that the speaker felt it. The single flaw in the Cooper Institute speech has already been cited, the narrow view of Western respectability as to John Brown. For the rest, this speech, dry enough in a sense, is an incomparably masterly statement of the then political situation, reaching from its far back origin to the precise and definite question requiring decision at that moment. Mr. Choate, who as a young man was present, set down of late years his vivid recollection of that evening. "He appeared in every sense of the word like one of the plain people among whom he loved to be counted. At first sight there was nothing impressive or imposing about him; his clothes hung awkwardly on his giant frame; his face was of a dark pallor without the slightest tinge of colour; his seamed and rugged features bore the furrows of hardship and struggle; his deep-set eyes looked sad and anxious; his countenance in repose gave little evidence of the brilliant power which raised him from the lowest to the highest station among his countrymen; as he talked to me before the meeting he seemed ill at ease." We know, as a fact, that among his causes of apprehension, he was for the first time painfully conscious of those clothes. "When he spoke," proceeds Mr. Choate, "he was transformed; his eye kindled, his voice rang, his face shone and seemed to light up the whole assembly. For an hour and a half he held his audience in the hollow of his hand. His style of speech and manner of delivery were severely simple. What Lowell called 'the grand simplicities of the Bible,' with which he was so familiar, were reflected in his discourse. . . . It was marvellous to see how this untutored man, by mere self-discipline and the chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown all meretricious arts, and found his way to the grandeur and strength of absolute simplicity."