heir radiance over our land. It is, sir, as I
have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it."

Here his feelings mastered him; his eyes filled with tears, his lips
quivered, his voice was choked. In broken words of tenderness he spoke of
his attachment to the college, and his tones seemed filled with the
memories of home and boyhood; of early affections and youthful privations
and struggles.

"The court room," says Mr. Goodrich, to whom we owe this
description, "during these two or three minutes presented an
extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice Marshall, with his tall and
gaunt figure bent over as if to catch the slightest whisper, the
deep furrows of his cheek expanded with emotion and his eyes
suffused with tears; Mr. Justice Washington, at his side, with his
small and emaciated frame, and countenance more like marble than I
ever saw on any other human being,--leaning forward with an eager,
troubled look; and the remainder of the court at the two
extremities, pressing, as it were, to a single point, while the
audience below were wrapping themselves round in closer folds
beneath the bench, to catch each look and every movement of the
speaker's face....

"Mr. Webster had now recovered his composure, and, fixing his keen
eye on the Chief Justice, said in that deep tone with which he
sometimes thrilled the heart of an audience:--

"'Sir, I know not how others may feel' (glancing at the opponents
of the college before him), 'but for myself, when I see my Alma
Mater surrounded, like Caesar in the senate-house, by those who are
reiterating stab after stab, I would not, for this right hand, have
her turn to me, and say, _Et tu quoque, mi fili! And thou too, my
son!_'"

This outbreak of feeling was perfectly genuine. Apart from his personal
relations to the college, he had the true oratorical temperament, and no
man can be an orator in the highest sense unless he feels intensely, for
the moment at least, the truth and force of every word he utters. To move
others deeply he must be deeply moved himself. Yet at the same time Mr.
Webster's peroration, and, indeed, his whole speech, was a model of
consummate art. Great lawyer as he undoubtedly was, he felt on this
occasion that he could not rely on legal argument and pure reason alone.
Without appearing to go beyond the line of propriety, with