Hon. A . A . Taylor: "The Passing of the Sword"

              ?

Figure

HON. A. A. TAYLOR
THE PASSING OF THE SWORD


Hon. A. A. Taylor
The wide reputation of Hon. Alf. Taylor as a speaker rests solely upon transcendent merit, which has been demonstrated in his youth at Faneuil Hall, Cooper Union, Chickering Hall, and through his later years at the Tennessee Centennial and on many other notable occasions; before Universities, Colleges, Lyceums, in political campaigns, and on the floor of Congress.  His oratory needs no factitious aids or accessories of dress and ornamentation, for it is clothed in its own natural beauty, majesty and power.

He is a veritable Apollo of the elocutionary art, richly endowed with the native gold of genius.  His eloquence burns with a flame divine, enkindled by all the muses, and transforms whatever it touches into jewels.  His language is a limpid stream reflecting in its bosom highest heavens of thought and imagery.  He charms and captivates with his matchless rhetoric, and sways and convinces with his resistless logic.  He sweeps the harpstrings of the soul with the magic touch of a master, and stirs them to rhapsodies of responsive harmony.

His new Lecture, The Passing of the Sword, portrays humanity and its evolution and progress from a state of savagery and war to the highest attainable level of civilization, which is to bring about the end of war and the reign of universal peace as a result of the great movement inaugurated by the Czar of Russia.  It points out that war seems to have been a part of the Divine plan of our evolution, and that now, having fulfilled its mission, it must cease, and the sword must pass forever.  In short, the lecture is a splendid piece of pictured tapestry, whose warp is history and tradition, and whose woof, shimmering now and then with flashes of humor, is made up of threads of optimistic philosophy, wit, sunshine, pathos, faith, hope, love.

The Management.

The Passing of the Sword




COMMENTS OF THE PRESS

Dublin (Ga.) Courier-Dispatch (Editorial)
—All the difference we can discover between Governor Bob and Hon. Alf Taylor is that one is just a little bit more bald-headed than the other, though for the life of us we could not tell which is the more lacking in hair.  It is the same way as to their intellects.  When you are with Bob you think it is he, and when you see Alf you say it is he.  As far as we are concerned it is a toss-up for the difference.


Muskogee (I. T.) Phoenix.
—He has a magnificent command of language, a polished manner and every grace of an orator.  Nor has his brother a monopoly of the wit of the Taylor family, for Alf's humor outcropped frequently, and at times brought down the house.


The Bristol (Va.) Courier.
—Mr. Taylor's effort was entirely too grand and too wonderful to undertake to describe any of its manifold beauties.  There has been a disposition among some people to rate the genial ex-governor above his brother Alf as an entertainer, but to any one who heard the latter yesterday, it would doubtless be difficult to find a substance for such a comparison.  Alf was not in his element when he and Bob lectured from the same platform.  He has since found his proper latitude, and his realm is now quite as splendid and quite as agreeable as any of the golden glows of fancy in which his brother ever reveled to gratify the hearts of an audience.


Uniontown (Pa.) Genius.
—As an orator he is at least the equal of his brother.


Asheville (N. C.) Daily Citizen.
—It seemed that the most natural thing would have been to take the position of old Uncle Rufus, a servant in the Taylor family, of whom Bob told.  When I was a candidate, said the ex-Governor, Uncle Rufus was a Democrat.  When my brother was a candidate Uncle Rufus was a Republican.  When we were both candidates Uncle Rufus said: Ise on de fence; I ain't gwine to vote 'tween de chillun.'


Franklin (Ala.) Times
—The Hon. Alf Taylor's lecture was a scholarly production clothed in beautiful language and delivered with such grace and power that it thrilled and captivated his audience.


Temple (Texas) Haymaker.
—Speaking of a former lecture said: Hon. Alf Taylor, one of Tennessee's noted statesmen, has come and gone.  Under the auspices of the Star Y. M. C. A. management he addressed a large and generally appreciative audience Wednesday night.  The managers are indeed to be congratulated upon securing the services of such a talented and interesting speaker.  It was a treat rarely enjoyed by the people of Temple.  We hope that his democratic brother Bob may excel him when he comes to Temple.  If he does, he can regale himself in the gratifying consolation that he is the worthy champion of all that long list of stars who have entertained Temple audiences since the birth of the city.


Gate City (Va.) Herald (Editorial).
—Alf Taylor's thoughts are poetry and his language the rarest jewels.  The colors for his pictures are distilled from all that is beautiful and sublime.


The Big Stone Gap (Va.) Post.
—The people, thrilled in mind and heart and soul, held their breath while the speaker led them through fields and kingdoms of knowledge never known before.  Alf Taylor is the genius of the South.  His mind is as deep as the ocean and as high as the skies.  His voice is as musical as a forest stream and can never cease to thrill and to inspire.  The lecture, like the lecturer himself, is in the superlative degree of greatness.


Brady (Texas) Enterprise.
—Mr. Taylor spoke for an hour and fifteen minutes to an audience who drank in his every word.  Such a flow of poetic eloquence, such heights of impassioned oratory were never heard in the old town before.


Bristol (Tenn. Va.) Herald-Courier.
—The Hon.  Alf.  Taylor, former congressman


from the First Tennessee district, and brother of Senator Bob Taylor, has just made the initial delivery of his new lecture, The Passing of the Sword.  The lecture traces in detail the progress of man through centuries of strife to the coming era of universal peace.  The transcendent importance of the theme, as well as its brilliant presentation, held the audience spellbound throughout its delivery.  Mr. Taylor's keen faculty of humor was constantly in evidence; and his word-picturing was seen at its best.  The peroration was particularly dramatic and thrilling.


Johnson City (Tenn.) Staff.
—Hon. Alf Taylor's new lecture, The Passing of the Sword, was given its initial delivery before a large and representative audience in Milligan College Chapel Monday evening.  Mr. Taylor was introduced by President F. D. Kershner, who was a member of American Whig Hall at Princeton University, of which organization both Mr. Taylor and his father were also members.  It was the judgment of all who heard The Passing of the Sword, that it marks the climax in Mr. Taylor's work upon the platform.


Knoxville (Tenn.) Journal and Tribune
—Speaking of the new lecture, remarks: It is safe to say that no more powerful lecture will be heard upon the American platform the coming season.


Leetonia (O.) Reporter.
—Referring to a former lecture said: The opening number of the present season for the Leetonia lecture course, Wednesday evening, was without doubt the most auspicious commencement of any of the past five seasons.  The lecture, too, was the best of anything we have ever had in the lecture line.  Mr. Taylor presents thoughts for deep reflection and clothes them in rich language.  As a word painter he is certainly an artist—a genius.


Canton (Miss.) Times.
—Referring to a former lecture: Lectures as a rule to a promiscuous audience are apt to fall with much dullness upon many ears, and it requires a man of no common mould to hold an assembly in enwrapped attention from beginning to end of a discourse.  Alf Taylor did this in an eminent degree for more than an hour.  His eloquence, imagery, metaphor and simile were marked and sublime as they came bursting forth in an uninterrupted flow of speech.  He covered every period of the world, poetry, history, philosophy, human feeling and human interest.  Parties who have heard most all the prominent platform lectures and caterers to public entertainment rank Alf Taylor as the greatest now in the field not excepting his famous brother ex-Governor Bob Taylor.


Clifton (Tenn.) Mirror.
b—It is our good pleasure to know Mr. Taylor well.  He is par excellence the ideal husband, father and citizen.  Our readers will remember the war of roses, in which Alf and Bob Taylor were rival candidates for the Governorship of Tennessee.  Later Alf served the first Congressional district of Tennessee several times in Congress, and then broke the political record by voluntarily retiring from political life.  For many years he has led the life of a country gentleman on his fine farm on the historic Nolachucky river in upper East Tennessee, and has caught the life and color and eloquence of the earth and sky and mountains of the hesperides of the gods.  Here he drinks deep of Nature's Pierian Spring, and anon sallies forth and gives expression to the melodies he has caught and compounded of the chemistry of his brain and heart.  It is an unusual pleasure to us to know that this gentleman has been secured to fill the Savannah date, and we trust a good Clifton contingent will turn out to hea
r him.

F. D. Kershner, President of Milligan College of Tennessee.—Hon. Alf Taylor has every qualification of the ideal lecturer.  Genius, pathos, humor and eloquence blend in lavish profusion in his work, and give to his productions the witchery of music.  He is the embodiment of dramatic eloquence, combined with logical and rhetorical power.

For dates, Address: The Rice Bureau, Nashville, Tenn. or Ben. H. Taylor, Milligan, Tenn., via Johnson City



LYCEUMITE PRESS PRINTERS & ENGRAVERS CHICAGO