unities, the provocatives, and the drawbacks which make the work
and mar the fame of the professional journalist. His intellectual
existence, after he left the quiet of West Roxbury, was from hand to
mouth. Needing above all men to concentrate himself, he was compelled
by his whole position to lead a profuse and miscellaneous life.

All popular orators must necessarily repeat themselves,--preachers
chiefly among orators, and Theodore Parker chiefly among preachers.
The mere frequency of production makes this inevitable,--a fact which
always makes every finely organized intellect, first or last, grow
weary of the pulpit. But in his case there were other compulsions.
Every Sunday a quarter part of his vast congregation consisted of
persons who had never, or scarcely ever, heard him before, and who
might never hear him again. Not one of those visitors must go away,
therefore, without hearing the great preacher define his position on
every point,--not theology alone, but all current events and permanent
principles, the Presidential nomination or message, the laws of trade,
the laws of Congress, woman's rights, woman's costume, Boston
slave-kidnappers, and Dr. Banbaby,--he must put it all in. His ample
discourse must be like an Oriental poem, which begins with the
creation of the universe, and includes all subsequent facts
incidentally. It is astonishing to look over his published sermons and
addresses, and see under how many different names the same stirring
speech has been reprinted;--new illustrations, new statistics, and all
remoulded with such freshness that the hearer had no suspicions, nor
the speaker either,--and yet the same essential thing. Sunday
discourse, lyceum lecture, convention speech, it made no difference,
he must cover all the points every time. No matter what theme might be
announced, the people got the whole latitude and longitude of Theodore
Parker, and that was precisely what they wanted. He broke down the
traditional non-committalism of the lecture-room, and oxygenated all
the lyceums of the land. He thus multiplied his audience very greatly,
while perhaps losing to some degree the power of close logic and of
addressing a specific statement to a special point. Yet it seemed as
if he could easily leave the lancet to others, grant him only the
hammer and the forge.

Ah, but the long centuries, where the reading of books is concerned,
set aside all considerations of quantity, of popularity, of immediat