From the American Scholar: Edmund Burke

http://theamericanscholar.org/the-right-honourable-mr-burke/

ARTICLE - SUMMER 2012

The Right Honourable Mr. Burke

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Impassioned orator, eloquent statesman, esteemed writer—but who was Edmund Burke the man?

"Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about Burke the writer is that he apparently did not write his speeches out before he delivered them, but spoke impromptu, from the heart, and only afterward wrote out what he had said, from memory; there are no reports of him carrying or referring to notes as he spoke, no accounts of him outlining or writing his speeches (some of them as long as five hours) beforehand."