speakers was most striking.
Curtis, short, compact, punctilious in attire, and exquisitely
cultured, with a soft, musical voice, was capable of the noblest
tenderness. Conkling, tall, erect, muscular, was the very embodiment
of physical vigour, while his large, well-poised head, his strong
nose, handsome eyes, well-cut mouth, and prominent chin, were
expressive of the utmost resolution. The two men also differed as much
in mind as in appearance. Curtis stood for all the force and feeling
that make for liberal progressive principles; Conkling, the product of
a war age, of masterly audacity and inflexible determination,
represented the conservative impulse, with a cynical indifference to
criticism and opposition.

The preface to his attack was brief. This was a State convention to
nominate candidates, he said in substance, and the National
Administration was not a candidate or in question. He repelled the
idea that it suggested or sanctioned such a proceeding, and although
broad hints had been heard that retribution would follow silence, any
one volunteering for such a purpose lacked discretion if not
sincerity. "Who are these men who, in newspapers or elsewhere, are
cracking their whips over me and playing schoolmaster to the party?
They are of various sorts and conditions. Some of them are the
man-milliners, the dilettante and carpet knights of politics, whose
efforts have been expended in denouncing and ridiculing and accusing
honest men.... Some of them are men who, when they could work
themselves into conventions, have attempted to belittle and befoul
Republican administrations and to parade their own thin veneering of
superior purity. Some of them are men who, by insisting that it is
corrupt and bad for men in office to take part in politics, are
striving now to prove that the Republican party has been unclean and
vicious all its life.... Some of these worthies masquerade as
reformers. Their vocation and ministry is to lament the sins of other
people. Their stock in trade is rancid, canting self-righteousness.
They are wolves in sheep's clothing. Their real object is office and
plunder. When Dr. Johnson defined patriotism as the last refuge of a
scoundrel, he was unconscious of the then undeveloped capabilities and
uses of the word reform.... Some of these new-found party overseers
who are at this moment laying down new and strange tenets for
Republicans, have deemed it their duty heretofore, upon no
provocation,