The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-01-19

leads him vhithersoever IL will. lie feels It
beating at his heart, rising to his throat. and de-
inandins disclosure. He thinks the Whole world
sees 1t in his face, reads il in his eyes ard almost
hears its workings in the very silence OF his
thoughts. 1t has become his master. 1t betrays
his discretion. it breaks down bis courage, 1t
conquers his prudence. When suspicious from
without begin to enbarrnss him and the net Of
circumstances 10 entangle him. the fatal secret
struggles with still greater violence to burst
forth II must be confessed; it will be confessed
iaere Is no refuge from confession but suicide
and suicide is confession.
Those are words spoken to men. not
written for them. 1t is a speech and moth
ing else and yet We feel all through IT the
literary value and quality which make il
imperishabie. Take another example When
Webster stood one summer morning on
the ramparts OF Quebec and heard the
sound of drums and the English troops
on parade. the thought of England's vast
world empire came strongly to his mind
The thought was very natural under the
circumstances. not at all remarkable nor
in the least original. Some years later.
in a speech in the Senate, he put his
thought Into words and this. as everyone
knows. is the way he did it:
power which has dotted over the surface Of
the whole globe with her possessions and mill
tary posts. whose morning drirmbe1t. following
the sun and keeping company with the hours,
broken strain Of the martial airs OF England
The sentence has followed the drumbeat
round the world and has been repeated in
En- gland and in the antipodes by men who
never heard of Webster and probably did
not know that this splendid description OF
the British Empire was due to an Ameri-
can. 1t is not the thought which has car
ried these words so far through time and
space. 1t Is the beauty Of the imagery
and the magic Of the style. Let me take
one more very simple example OF the
quality which distinguishes Webster's
speeches above those Of others, which
makes his words and serious thoughts live
on when others, equally weighty and seri-
Gus. perhaps. sleep or die. In his first
Bunker Hill Grafton he apostrOphzed the
monument, just as anyone else might have
tried to do. and this is what he said:
Let it rise. let it rise till it meet the sun in
his coming let the earliest light of morning gid
it, and parting da, hrger and play on its summit.
Here the thought is nothing. the style
everything. No one can repeat those
words and be deaf to their music or IN
sensible to the rhythm and beauty OF the
prose with the Saxon Words relieved just
sufficiently by the Latin derivatives. The
ease with which Ii is done may be due to
training, but the ability to do it comes
from natural gifts. which, as Goethe says.
we value more as We get older because
they cannot be stuck on Possibly to some
people it may seem very simple to utter
such a sentences IS have quoted. To hem
/ can only repeat what Scott says some
where about Swift's style. perhaps the
purest and strongest We have in the Ian
guage. .Swift's STYLE said Scott, seems
so simple that one would think any child
might write like him, and yet IL we try We
find to cur despair that it is impossible"
Such, then, were the qualities which In
their perfect combination put Webster