A not-unexpected pleasure, this work collects some of the Colonel's essays into a thin, easy to read volume. While many of these have been published in one place or another before, it is a treat to encounter them again as though for the first time. Recognizing favorite phrases, finding new rhetorical flourishes, and just dreaming about a world that appreciates great oratory. It's sad to think about what we lost when we quit going to lectures to hear the thundering of rhetoric by men trained in the art. Ingersoll makes our public intellectuals look like chopped liver. ( )