With these conditions practically realized, we might again have orators of the heroic mold. But the change would have to include the public also, for, on a second thought suggested by Whitman, to have great orators there must be great audiences too. Chapter VII THE SPACIOUSNESS OF OLD RHETORIC Few species of composition seem so antiquated, so little available for any practical purpose today, as the oratory in which the generation of our grandparents delighted. The type of discourse which they would ride miles in wagons to hear, or would regard as the special treat of some festive occasion, fills most people today with an acute sense of discomfort. Somehow, it makes them embarrassed. They become conscious of themselves, conscious of pretensions in it, and they think it well consigned to the museum. But its very ability to inspire antipathy, as distinguished from indifference, suggests the presence of something interesting. The student of rhetoric should accordingly sense here the chance for a discovery, and as he begins to listen for its revealing quality, the first thing he becomes aware of is a “spaciousness.” This is, of course, a broad impression, which requires its own analysis. As we listen more carefully, then, it seems that between the speech itself and the things it is meant to signify, something stands—perhaps it is only an empty space—but something is there to prevent immediate realizations and references. For an experience of the sensation, let us for a moment go back to 1850 and attune our ears to an address by Representative Andrew Ewing, on the subject of the sale of the public lands. We have afforded a refuge to the down-trodden nations of the Old World, and organized system of internal improvement and public education, which have no parallel in the history of mankind. Why should we not continue and enlarge the system which has so much contributed to these results? If our Pacific Coast should be lined with its hundred cities, extending from the northern boundary of Oregon down to San Diego; if the vast interior hills and valleys could be filled with lowing herds and fruitful fields of a thriving and industrious people; and if the busy hum of ten thousand workshops could be daily heard over the placid waters of the Pacific, would our government be poorer or our country less able to meet her obligations than at present?[146] Despite the allusions to geographical localities, does not the speaker seem to be speaking _in vacuo_? His words do not impinge upon a circumambient reality; his concepts seem not to have definite correspondences, but to be general, and as it were, mobile. “Spread-eagle” and “high-flown” are two modifiers with which people have sought to catch the quality of such speech.