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OLD
MEMBERS OF THE CALHOUN AND KALAMAZOO
COUNTY BARS BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
I never had time, " says Senator Stuart, ''to read books when I was young, and since I began my profession I have been too busy to read outside of my practice. " He likes books that treat of scientific subjects, philosophy, logic, poetry and music. Of the latter he is passionately fond. Burns is his favorite poet. It has been said that he never made a speech in which he did not quote his favorite bard. Stuart's professional life has been a school in which he has been an apt and diligent pupil. He reads a book rapidly, if you would call it reading, glancing at the top of the page and running his eye down it, and he has gathered its whole meaning, without the labor of getting it line byline. He, as was said of S. S. Prentiss; "read two pages at a time, one with his right eye and one with his left; " and, like Prentiss, he was a lawyer of quick perceptions, of clear ideas upon any case in hand, while no one equalled
*The above is mostly from a sketch of Senator Stuart's life read by Dr. F. Pratt on the occasion of the golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Stuart, in Kalamazoo, November 3, 1885.
him "in the faculty of thinking on his legs. " He had a fine command of language, and a charm in delivery that sent each word with its distinct mes-age to his hearers. Speech has three parts, words, look and tone; to the parts of oratory, gesture must be added, and in Stuart's gesture was an art carried to its highest finish. There was talent in his manner of speaking; There was argument in his diction, in the clearness of his utterances, given with an impressiveness that stamped them on the memory. And the effect of his words and of his logic was improved by a natural arrangement, and the effect of his rhetoric by a natural style.
Michigan
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