SALUTE TO INGERSOLL
Holmes, John Haynes
Salute to Ingersoll THE LETTERS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, collected and edited by Eva Ingersoll Wakefield. Philosophical Library. 747 pp. $7.50. Reviewed by John Haynes Holmes INGERSOLL is...
...Mrs...
...Prefacing her collection with a long, intelligent, and not too eulogistic "biographical introduction," and interspersing her documents with informative notes and commentary, the editor has in this case done an excellent and much-needed piece of work...
...But this was itself a central part of his essential being, and expressed an utter devotion to ideals of life and thought which could not otherwise have been known...
...I heard him only once, in the old Boston Theater in Boston...
...I can recall, as though it were yesterday, the complete absorption of the audience...
...A second type was the literary May, 1951 37 or cultural lecture, as, for example, the immortal tribute to William Shakespeare...
...This was from start to finish a stream of eloquence which, for sheer power and beauty, has never been surpassed...
...It is this magnificent figure whom Mrs...
...Robert G. Ingersoll was a prince of men...
...First, there were his political addresses, spoken on behalf of the Republican Party, to which he was attached...
...This was no showman, or iconoclast, or notoriety-seeker...
...Here was a man who loved the best life had to offer, and himself added immeasurably to its store from his supreme gifts of being...
...His famous "plumed knight" speech, nominating James G. Blaine for the Presidency in the Cincinnati Convention of 1876, is the noblest example of his art...
...I can see now, in my mind's eye, Ingersoll's magnificent stage presence...
...To him must every bright sword of the spirit be lifted in salute...
...Rather was he an agnostic, calling into question the excesses and absurdities of the popular religions...
...To read this book is to be caught up, as it were, by some extraordinary afflatus of the spirit...
...Here he moved in the great tradition of Voltaire, Thomas Paine, and Theodore Parker...
...Wakefield has done us all an immense service in preparing and publishing this book...
...Like his predecessors, Ingersoll was no atheist...
...Judged by every test, Robert G. Ingersoll was supreme...
...Yet his speeches on this theme were masterpieces of polemic utterance, as witness his incomparable "Some Mistakes of Moses...
...All his letters are written with immense gusto, and those to his family with an abounding affection and sense of happiness...
...Wakefield, his granddaughter, brings to life again in the volume of Letters...
...This was an immense auditorium, seating some 3,000 people, and was crowded to the ceiling on this occasion...
...I can hear his musical voice, mounting to the remotest nook in the farthest corner of the building...
...He is known and admired as one of the great orators of all time...
...Of this large body of personal documents, the most interesting are those dealing with history and artistic themes, and the most touching his letters to his wife and other members of his family...
...Lastly, and in many ways most important, were his innumerable addresses in challenge of the superstitions and immoralities of orthodox Christianity...
...He spoke on behalf of honesty, and never in derogation of any sincere faith...
...Ingersoll was so truly a religious man, in the correct sense of the word, that many admirers have felt regret that he put so much activity into his furious assaults on the mythological theology of the Christian faith...
...Reviewed by John Haynes Holmes INGERSOLL is remembered as one of the great Americans of the last century...
...His speeches, or rather orations, were of three kinds...
...In its pages her distinguished grandfather lives again...
Vol. 15 • May 1951 • No. 5
