San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1879-01-04


repealed with such crushing energy.
He had long weighed and answered in
his own mind the arguments ofnullitica-
ton. He himself has left on record his
feelings, when he rose to reply. Not
until he took the floor and saw tho con-
course, and he felt the hush, did he
feel the slightest trepidation. Then for
an instant the responsibility of his po.
sition rushed upon and nearly un.
manned him. But after this first dizzy
moment was over, during which the sea
of faces whirled around him-after u
single recollection of how his brother had
fallen dead year before in similar
climax of excitement, he subdued, by a
strong effort, his trepidation. "My
feet" he says, "felt the floor again; they
seemed rooted like rocks, and all that l
had ever read, or thought, or acted in
literature, in history, in law, in politics
seemed to roll before me in glowing piano.
rama, and then it was easy, if wanted
a thunderbolt, to reach out and take it
as it went smoking by"
1t is well known that it was in fishing
for trout in Mansfield that Webster
composed the famous passage on the
surviving veterans of the battle, for his
Bunker Hill address. HE would pull
out a lusty specimen" says Starr King,
shouting venerable men, you have
come down to us from former genera
ton. Heaven has bounteously length
ened out your lives that you might be-
hold this joyous day. He would un.
hook them into his basket, declaiming
You are gathered to your fathers, and
live only to your country in her CRATE
full remembrance and your own bright
example, In his boat fishing for cod
he composed or rehearsed the passage
in it on Lafayette; when he hooked q
very large cod, and as he pulled his
nose above water, he exclaimed, 'Wel.
come! all hail! and thrice welcome, citi
zen of two hemispheres!"
One of his best witicisms was a reply
made to his landlady at Washington
Mrs. Seaton, who said to him one day
US he came home late from the cabinet
that he locked fatigued and worried
He had been revising President Harri
sons inaugural, which was brimful Of
pedantic illusions to Roman history, and
especially to the Roman preconsuls
which the old hero, in spite of Web
ster's protest, had been obstinatel,
bent on retaining. 81 really hope,
said Mrs. Seaton, chat nothing has
happened" "You would think some
thing had happened" Webster replied
''if you knew what L have done.
have killed seventeen Roman pro-con
suls as dead as smells, everyone Of
them"
Webster rarely attempted pathos
but when he did so never failed to un
seal the fountains of feeling. His cele
brated apostrophe to Massachusetts III
the speech of 1880 made hoary mer
weep like children, and when he CLOSED
his argument in the Dartmouth college
case so overpowering was the pathos
that even the grave judges of the su
preme court could not check their
tears. There was an air of sadness III
his nature which tinged nearly all his
utterances and was visible in his grave
severe and somewhat solemn face, fur
rowed and lined "hke the side of a hill
where the torrent hath been" The
countenance is that of u man on whom
''the burden of the unintelligible world
has weighed more heavily than on ordi
nary men.
| Corn as Fuel.