WORKERS AND TALKERS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1919, 15 August 1888, Page 3

WORKERS AND TALKERS.

Mr Froude says — and as he is making a general assertion not m detraction of any plaoe or person m particular, his words will be 'taken m like a sermon on the vices of the age — " Tbere are two classes of men who have pbyed, and still play., a prominent part In the world — those who accomplish great things, and those who talk and mage speeches abou 1 ; them. The doera of great things are for the most part silent. Those who buiid .up empireß or discover seorets of coleoce, those who paint great pictures or write great poems, are not often to be found ■pouting npon platforms. The alien!; men do the work. Tbe talking men cry out at whit Is done, because It is not done as they would have bad it, and after wards take possession of it as if it was. Even m polities' the names of oratorical statesmen are r»rely associated with the organic growth of enduring institutions. The most distinguished of them have; been conspicuous only as instruments of destruction." "Oratory," he says "is the spendthrift sister of the arts, which decks itaelf like a atrnmpet with tbe tags and ornaments which it steals from real superiority. The object of it is not truth, but anything which it can irake appear truth ; anything which it can persuade people to believe by calling on their passions to obscure their intelligence,"