And his oration at the graves, after the bugles had blown taps, kept the multitude in tears for half an hour.

John Barclay's address at the Opera House that afternoon--the address on "The Soldier and the Scholar"-- was so completely overshadowed by the colonel's oratorical flight that Jane teased her husband about the eclipse for a month, and never could make him laugh.

Moreover, the _Banner_ that week printed the colonel's oration in full and referred to John's address as "a few sensible remarks by Hon.

John Barclay on the duty of scholarship in times of peace." But here is the strange thing about it--those who read the colonel's oration were not moved by it; the charm of the voice and the spell of the tall, handsome, vigorous man and the emotion of the occasion were needed to make the colonel's oratory move one.

Still, opinions differ even about so palpable a proposition as the ephemeral nature of the colonel's oratory.