o minds capable of appreciating
his profound and inexorable logic.

Edward Everett seems to me, on the whole, our best example
of the orator, pure and simple. Webster was a great statesman,
a great lawyer, a great advocate, a great public teacher.
To all these his matchless oratory was but an instrument and
incident.

Choate was a great winner of cases, and as relaxation he
gave, in the brief vacations of an overworked professional
life (he once defined a lawyer's vacation as the time after he
has put a question to a witness while he is waiting for an
answer), a few wonderful literary and historical addresses.
He gave a brief period of brilliant but most unwilling service
in each House of Congress. He made some powerful political
speeches to popular audiences. But his heart was always in
the court-house. No gambler ever hankered for the feverish
delight of the gaming table as Choate did for that absorbing
game, half chance, half skill, where twelve human dice must
all turn up together one way, or there be no victory.

But Everett is always the orator. He was a clergyman a little
while. He was a Greek professor a little while. He was a
College President a little while. He was a Minister to England
a little while. He was Representative in Congress and Senator.
He was Governor of the Commonwealth. In these places he did
good service enough to make a high reputation for any other
man. Little of these things is remembered now. He was above
all things--I am tempted to say, above all men--the foremost
American orator in one class.

There is one function of the orator peculiar to our country,
and almost unknown elsewhere. That is the giving utterance
to the emotion of the people, whether of joy or sorrow, on
the occasions when its soul is deeply stirred--when some great
man dies, or there is a great victory or defeat, or some notable
anniversary is celebrated. This office was filled by other
men, on some few occasions by Daniel Webster himself, but
by no man better than by Everett. A Town, or City, or State
is very human. In sorrow it must utter its cry of pain; in
victory, its note of triumph. As events pass, it must pronounce
its judgement. Its constant purpose must be fixed and made
more steadfast by expression. It must give voice to its love
and its approbation and its condemnation. It must register
the high and low water mark of its tide, its rising and its
sinking in heat and cold. This offic