Select Speeches of Kossuth

Select Speeches of Kossuth

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Title: Select Speeches of Kossuth
Author: Kossuth
Release Date: January 12, 2004 [EBook #10691]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SELECT SPEECHES OF KOSSUTH.
Condensed and abridged, _with Kossuth's express sanction_,
by Francis W. Newman.

PREFACE TO KOSSUTH'S SPEECHES.
Nothing appears in history similar to the enthusiasm roused by Kossuth
in nations foreign to him, except perhaps the kindling for the First
Crusade by the voice of Peter the Hermit. Then bishops, princes, and
people alike understood the danger which overshadowed Europe from
the Mohammedan powers; and by soundly directed, though fanatical

instinct, all Christendom rushed eastward, till the chivalry of the Seljuk
Turks was crippled on the fields of Palestine. Now also the multitudes
of Europe, uncorrupted by ambition, envy, or filthy lucre, forebode the
deadly struggle impending over us all from the conspiracy of crowned
heads. Seeing the apathy of their own rulers, and knowing, perhaps by
dim report, the deeds of Kossuth, they look to him as the Great Prophet
and Leader, by whom Policy is at length to be moulded into Justice;
and are ready to catch his inspiration before he has uttered a word.
Kossuth undoubtedly is a mighty Orator; but no one is better aware
than he, that the cogency of his arguments is due to the atrocity of our
common enemies, and the enthusiasm which he kindles to the
preparations of the people's heart.
His orations are a tropical forest, full of strength and majesty, tangled
in luxuriance, a wilderness of self-repetition. Utterly unsuited to form a
book without immense abridgment, they contain materials adapted
equally for immediate political service and for permanence as a work of
wisdom and of genius. To prepare them for the press is an arduous and
responsible duty: the best excuse which I can give for having assumed
it, is, that it has been to me a labour of love. My task I have felt to be
that of a judicious reporter, who cuts short what is of temporary interest,
condenses what is too amplified for his limits and for written style,
severely prunes down the repetitions which are inevitable where
numerous[*] audiences are addressed by the same man on the same
subject, yet amid all these necessary liberties retains not only the true
sentiments and arguments of the speaker, but his forms of thought and
all that is characteristic of his genius. Such an operation, rightly
performed, may, like a diminishing mirror, concentrate the brilliancy of
diffuse orations, and assist their efficacy on minds which would faint
under the effort of grasping the original.
[Footnote *: The number of speeches, great and small, spoken in his
American half-year, is reckoned to be above 500.]
It is true, the exuberance of Kossuth is often too Asiatic for English
taste, and that excision of words, which needful abridgment suggests,
will often seem to us a gain. Moreover, remembering that he is a
foreigner, and though marvellous in his mastery of our language, still
naturally often unable to seize the word, or select the construction
which he desired, I have not thought I should show honour to him by

retaining anything verbally unskilful. To a certain cautious extent, I
account myself to be a translator, as well as a reporter, and in
undertaking so delicate a duty, I am happy to announce that I have
received Kossuth's written approval and thanks. Mere quaintness of
expression I have by no means desired entirely to remove, where it
involved nothing grotesque, obscure, or monotonous. In several
passages where I imperfectly understood the thought, I have had the
advantage of Kossuth's personal explanations, which have enabled me
to clear up the defective report, or real obscurities of his words.
Nevertheless I have to confess my conviction, that nothing can wholly
compensate for the want of systematic revision by the author himself;
which his great occupations have made impossible. The mistakes in the
reports of the speeches are sometimes rather subtle, and have not
roused my suspicion. Of this I have been, made disagreeably sensible,
by several errata communicated to me by Kossuth in the first great
speech at New York, here marked as No. VII. (which have been
corrected in this edition.)
Nearly all the points on which attempts have been made to
misrepresent in England the cause of Hungary