walked with a slow, uncertain step. His
low, deep intonations conveyed a solemn suggestion of the sepulchre.
His speech was brief, a recognition of the honour shown him, an
expression of his belief that the policy he had advocated and followed
was necessary to the country's preservation. Then he passed out to
Marshfield and the death-bed. What he said was not much, but it made
a strange impression of power, and here I am minded to tell an ancient
story. Sixty years ago, when I was ensconced in my smug youth, and
could "sit and grin," like young Dr. Holmes, at the queernesses of
the last leaves of those days, I heard a totterer whose ground was the
early decades of the last century, chirp as follows:

"This Daniel Webster of yours! Why, I can remember when he had a hard
push to have his ability acknowledged. We used to aver that he never
said anything, and that it was only his big way that carried the
crowd. I have in mind an old-time report of one of his deliverances:
'Mr. Chairman (_applause_), I did not graduate at this university
(_greater applause_), at this college (_tumultuous applause_),
I graduated at another college (_wild cheering with hats thrown
in the air_), I graduated at a college of my native State
(_convulsions of enthusiasm, during which the police spread
mattresses to catch those who leaped from the windows_).'"

That day in Faneuil Hall I felt his "big way" and it overpowered,
though the sentences were really few and commonplace. What must he
have been in his prime! What sentences in the whole history of oratory
have more swayed men than those he uttered! I recall that in 1861 we
young men of the North did not much argue the question of the right
of secession. The Constitution was obscure about it, and one easily
became befogged if he sought to weigh the right and the wrong of it.
But Webster had replied to Hayne. Those were the days when schoolboys
"spoke pieces," and in thousands of schoolhouses the favourite piece
was his matchless peroration. From its opening, "When my eyes shall
be turned to behold for the last time the sun in the heavens," to
the final outburst, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and
inseparable!" it was all as familiar to us as the sentences of the
Lord's Prayer, and scarcely less consecrated. No logical unravelling
of the tangle, but that burning expression of devotion to the Union,
lay behind the enthusiasm with which we sprang to arms. The ghost of
Webster hovered i