r on the waves of this debate refer to the point from which we
departed that we may at least be able to form some conjecture where we
now are. I ask for the reading of the resolutions."

Calm, resolute, impressive was this opening speech. There wanted no more
to enchain the attention. There was a spontaneous though silent
expression of eager attention as the orator concluded these opening
remarks. And while the clerk read the resolution many attempted the
impossibility of getting nearer the speaker. Every head was inclined
closer toward him, every ear turned in the direction of his voice--and
that deep, sudden, mysterious silence followed which always attends
fullness of emotion. From the sea of upturned faces before him the
orator beheld his thought, reflected as from a mirror. The varying
countenance, the suffused eye, the earnest smile and ever attentive look
assured him of the intense interest excited. If among his hearers there
were some who affected indifference at first to his glowing thoughts and
fervant periods, the difficult mask was soon laid aside and profound,
undisguised, devout attention followed.

In truth, all sooner or later, voluntarily, or in spite of themselves
were wholly carried away by the spell of such unexampled eloquence.
Those who had doubted Mr. Webster's power to cope with and overcome his
opponent were fully satisfied of their error before he had proceeded
far in this debate. Their fears soon took another direction. When they
heard his sentences of powerful thought towering in accumulated grandeur
one above the other as if the orator strove Titan-like to reach the very
heavens themselves, they were giddy with an apprehension that he would
break down in his flight. They dared not believe that genius,
learning--any intellectual endowment however uncommon, that was simply
mortal--could sustain itself long in a career seemingly so perilous.
They feared an Icarian fall. No one surely who was present, could ever
forget the awful burst of eloquence with which the orator apostrophized
the old Bay State which Mr. Hayne had so derided, or the tones of deep
pathos in which her defense was pronounced:--

"Mr. President: I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts. There
she is--behold her and judge for yourselves. There is her history, the
world knows it by heart. The past at least is secure. There is Boston,
and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, and there they will remain
forever. The bo