Edwin Gordon Lawrence

“ This is the singer whom this statue commemorates, the singer of songs immortal as love; pure as the dew of the morning, and sweet as its breath; songs with which the lover wooes his bride, and the mother soothes her child, and the heart of a people beats with patriotic exultation; songs that cheer human endeavors, and console human sorrow, and exalt human life. We cannot find out the secret of their power until we know why the rose is sweet, or the dew-drop pure, or the rainbow beautiful, we cannot know why the poet is the best benefactor of humanity. ”

“ Shall we not, while honoring the memory of this great champion of liberty, this feeling sympathizer with human sorrow, this earnest pleader for the exercise of human tenderness and heavenly charity, lay aside the concealments which serve only to perpetuate misunderstandings and distrust, and frankly confess that on both sides we most earnestly desire to be one—one not merely in political organization; one not merely in community of language, and literature, and traditions, and country; but more and better than all that, one also in feeling and in heart? ”

“ No monarchic throne presses these states together; no iron chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand upon a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last forever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden no man’s liberty; it has crushed no state. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. ”

“ If you wish to quit it, you must exert all your resolution, for none but conquerors have exchanged war for peace. To hope for safety in flight when you have turned away from the enemy the arms by which the body is defended is indeed madness. In battle those who are most afraid are always in most danger; but courage is equivalent to a rampart.
When I contemplate you, soldiers, and when I consider your past exploits, a strong hope of victory animates me. Your spirit, your age, your valor, give me confidence; to say nothing of necessity, which makes even cowards brave. ”

“ Withdrawing himself from public life when he pleases (and that is often) , he watches for the moment when you are tired of a constant speaker, or when some reverse of fortune has befallen you, or anything untoward has happened (and many are the casualties of human life) ; at such a crisis he springs up an orator, rising from his retreat like a wind; in full voice, with words and phrases collected, he rolls them out audibly and breathlessly, to no advantage or good purpose whatsoever, but to the detriment of some or other of his fellow-citizens and to the general disgrace. ”

“ An orator, the cause of all our misfortunes, who abandons his post in time of war and flies from the city, proclaims himself worthy of crowns and proclamations. Will you not drive such a man from your midst as the common scourge of Greece; or will you not rather seize upon and punish him as a piratical braggart who steers his course through our government by dint of phrases? ”

“ I ask you, Metellus, what is corrupting the course of justice, if this is not—to seek to frighten witnesses, and especially Sicilians, timid and oppressed men, not only by your own private influence, but by their fear of the consul, and by the power of two praetors? What could you do for an innocent man or for a relation, when for the sake of a most guilty one, entirely unconnected with you, you depart from your duty and your dignity, and allow what he is constantly saying to appear true to any one who is not acquainted with you? ”

“ A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. Does he lack organ or medium to impart his truths? He can still fall back on this elemental force of living them. This is a total act. Thinking is a partial act. Let the grandeur of justice shine in his affairs. Let the beauty of affection cheer his lowly roof. Those “far from fame,” who dwell and act with him, will feel the force of his constitution in the doings and passages of the day better than it can be measured by any public and designed display. Time shall teach him that the scholar loses no hour which the man lives. ”

“ It is the tone of voice in which a thought is uttered that gives the thought its power for good or evil, for pleasure or for pain, for success or failure. Words spoken in one manner will be devoid of meaning; spoken in another, they will be illumined with the light of reason. Words that are spoken as words will remain nothing but words, but those that are spoken as thoughts will disappear as words, and the ideas will step forward and be seen in the expressive countenance and heard in the tones of the voice. ”

“ Why, sir, our ancestors—our fathers and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living among us, with prolonged lives—would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if we, of this generation, would dishonor these ensigns of the power of the government and the harmony of that Union, which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude. What is to become of the army? What is to become of the navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is any one of the thirty states to defend itself? ”

“ It appears to me, O Athenians, that the men who praise your ancestors adopt a flattering language, not a course beneficial to the people whom they eulogize. For attempting to speak on subjects which no man can fully reach by words they carry away the reputation of clever speakers themselves, but cause the glory of those ancients to fall below its estimation in the minds of the hearers. For my part, I consider the highest praise of our ancestors to be the length of time which has elapsed during which no other men have been able to excel the pattern of their deeds. ”

“ I have always felt that it is not just either that one who has done wrong should be saved through eloquence, or that one who has done no wrong should be condemned through lack of eloquence. Unskilful speaking is but a sin of the tongue; but wrongful acts are sins of the soul. Now it is only natural that a man whose life is in danger should commit some indiscretion of speech; for he must be intent not only on what he says but on the outcome of the trial, since all that is still uncertain is controlled rather by chance than by providence. ”

“ But infinitely more magnificent is it when the human soul rays forth its subtler and swifter beams; when the light of the senses irradiates all outward things, revealing the beauty of their colors and the exquisite symmetry of their proportions and forms; when the light of reason penetrates to their invisible properties and laws, and displays all those hidden relations that make up all the sciences; when the light of conscience illuminates the moral world, separating truth from error, and virtue from vice. ”

“ Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone, it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. ”

“ As it rebounded from them, and showed their vast orbs all wheeling, circle beyond circle in their stupendous courses, the sons of God shouted for joy. The light sped onward, beyond Sirius, beyond the pole-star, beyond Orion and the Pleiades, and is still spreading onward into the abysses of space. But the light of the human soul flies swifter than the light of the sun, and outshines its meridian blaze. It can embrace not only the sun of our system, but all suns and galaxies of suns; ay! the soul is capable of knowing and enjoying Him who created the suns themselves ”

“ In the third place, an effective delivery is absolutely essential. There can no more be such a thing as an orator without a delivery than there can be a newspaper without paper or some other substance on which to print the news. A publisher might as well print a newspaper and then indifferently circulate it as for a man to fill his [p. 409] mind with great thoughts and ineffectively deliver them. Delivery is the soul of oratory; without it, there can be nothing but the form of speech; with it, there is the spirit that gives life to the words. ”

“ In the days of our forefathers, Titus Manlius Torquatus, during a war with the Gauls, ordered his own son to be put to death because he had fought with an enemy contrary to orders. That noble youth suffered for excess of bravery; and do you hesitate what sentence to pass on the most inhuman of traitors? Perhaps their former life is at variance with their present crime. Spare, then, the dignity of Lentulus, if he has ever spared his own honor or character, or had any regard for the gods or for men. ”

“ Let us keep before our country the lights of truth and justice that they may guide her from this threatening peril on to that upward and onward path leading to the holy of holies wherein sits enthroned the one true God—the God of Equality and of Love.
It is well to blend God, Home and Country, because the belief in all three makes the believer, man or woman, the patriot and the child of God. Take God out of the home and what have we? A shelter for the body, perhaps, but a wilderness for the spirit. Take God out of the country and what have we? ”

“ But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wronging others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it right, and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts rightly and justly should ever have cause to fear, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression. ”

“ But to what end, in the name of the eternal gods! was such eloquence directed? Was it intended to render you indignant at the conspiracy? A speech, no doubt, will inflame him whom so frightful and monstrous a reality has not provoked! Far from it: for to no man does evil, directly against himself, appear a light matter; many, on the contrary, have felt it more seriously than was right. ”

“ In looking over the public remains of his oratory, it is striking to remark how, even in that most sober and massive understanding and nature, you see gathered and expressed the characteristic sentiments and the passing time of our America. It is the strong old oak which ascends before you; yet our soil, our heaven, are attested in it as perfectly as if it were a flower that could grow in no other climate and in no other hour of the year or day. ”

“ Modulation, in a broad sense, is coloring the voice so as to make it explain by its tones the meaning of the spoken words. It consists principally of inflection and pitch, but the elements of emphasis also enter into it. By means of modulation action is given to the voice—it rises, it falls, it glides, it leaps, it bounds; all sounds are described—the moaning of the winds, the rush of waters, the tramp of marching armies; all emotions are expressed—the shout of joy, the cry of pain, the huzzah of victory. ”

“ After the rains had ceased and the waters had subsided, Noah feared to return to the land, but God dispelled that fear by placing a bow in the heavens as a covenant between Him and man that never again would He permit a deluge of water to visit the earth. After four years of civil war, after the land of America had been deluged with blood, we set our Nation’s flag against the cloud as a covenant between North and South that never again, in this dear country of ours, shall brother’s hand be raised in enmity against his brother. ”

“ Webster possessed the element of an impressive character, inspiring regard, trust and admiration, not unmingled with love. It had, I think, intrinsically a charm such as belongs only to a good, noble, and beautiful nature. In its combination with so much fame, so much force of will, and so much intellect, it filled and fascinated the imagination and heart. It was affectionate in childhood and youth, and it was more than ever so in the few last months of his long life. It is the universal testimony that he gave to his parents, in largest measure, honor, love, obedience ”

“ Who is he that will show his sympathy with crime that shows malice aforethought? Is there a man so bereft of sense that he will set Leocrates free and so place his own security at the mercy of men who would abandon him? that out of pity for Leocrates he will take no pity on himself, when his choice may mean death at the hands of the foe? that by extending clemency to a traitor he will lay himself open to the retribution of heaven? ”