its new
career of freedom and of glory? What could he understand
of that feeling, full of the morning and of the springtime,
which heard the cannon boom and the bells ring, with stirring
and quickened pulse, in those exultant days? Surely there
never was a loftier stroke than that with which the New England
poet interpreted to his countrymen the feeling of that joyous
time--the feeling which is to waken again when the Fourth
of July comes round on many anniversaries:

Oh tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire;
One morn is in the mighty heaven,
And one in our desire.

It is often said that if a speech read well it is not a good
speech. There may be some truth in it. The reader cannot,
of course, get the impression which the speaker conveys by
look and tone and gesture. He lacks that marvellous influence
by which in a great assembly the emotion of every individual
soul is multiplied by the emotion of every other. The reader
can pause and dwell upon the thought. If there be a fallacy,
he is not hurried away to something else before he can detect
it. So, also, more careful and deliberate criticism will
discover offences of style and taste which pass unheeded in
a speech when uttered. But still the great oratoric triumphs
of literature and history stand the test of reading in the
closet, as well as of hearing in the assembly. Would not
Mark Anthony's speech over the dead body of Caesar, had it
been uttered, have moved the Roman populace as it moves the
spectator when the play is acted, or the solitary reader in
his closet? Does not Lord Chatham's "I rejoice that America
has resisted" read well? Do not Sheridan's great perorations,
and Burke's, in the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, read well?
Does not "Liberty and Union, Now and Forever!" read well?
Does not "Give me Liberty or Give me Death!" read well? Does
not Fisher Ames's speech for the treaty read well? Do not
Everett's finest passages read well?

There are examples of men of great original genius who have
risen to lofty oratory on some great occasion who had not
the advantage of familiarity with any great author. But they
are not only few in number, but the occasions are few when
they have risen to a great height. In general the orator,
whether at the Bar, or in the pulpit, or in public life, who
is to meet adequately the many demands upon his resources,
must get familiarity with the images and illustrations he
wants,