Chapter 10 - Conversation

Examples | Simplicity | Examples | Sincerity | Aim And Purpose

The habitual use of language and manner of expression in daily conversation will greatly influence a speaker's style in public address. The difference in conversation, public speaking and reading is, briefly, as follows:

Conversation is dialogue and the simplest and most direct form of vocal expression. It is the beginning of speech culture and no effort should be spared to acquire ease and correctness in its use.

Public speaking is monologue and the utterance is necessarily more prolonged to suit the circumstances of space and number. Such an occasion demands increased defi-niteness and deliberation in style.

Reading differs from either of the foregoing styles, because of a certain formality of utterance required by the strangeness of the thought and its construction. The reader does not here utter his own thoughts but those of another, and in consequence the words and phraseology are not familiar to his lips.

In his admirable book on "The Art of Conversation,'' Mahaffy names as subjective conditions to conversation: 1. Physical (a) A sweet tone of voice; (b) Absence of local accent; (c) Absence of tricks and catch-words. 2. Mental (a) Knowledge which may be either special (great topics, the topic of the day), or general (books, men); (b) Quickness. 3. Moral: Modesty, simplicity, unselfishness, sympathy, and tact.

Conversation affords constant opportunity for improvement in speech. The student should criticize his own utterance and discriminate between pure and breathy tones, softness and harshness of voice, and correct and faulty enunciation. He should also cultivate intelligent variety in modulation and feeling. A good conversational style has a distinct charm and should be persistently cultivated.

Hamilton "Wright Mabie tells of a man of nervous organization who gained immense benefit by simply watching the modulations of his voice and persistently resisting the inclination to run into high tones. He had found not only relief for the vocal chords, but a steadiness and calmness of thought and feeling which made him conscious of the great blunder of wasting nervous strength by suffering the vocal chords to sympathize with an excited condition rather than keeping them under steady control.

Practise the following with ease, naturalness, and variety of good conversation, avoiding loudness:

EXAMPLES

1. Did you ever see a dandy fisherman? He has the correct suit on, his pole is a beauty from Conroy's, his line is of the best gut, his book is full of artificial flies, plenty of artificial flies, his fish-basket hangs behind him; and he is a fisherman. May be. Let us go to the stream. Standing with a knowing air, he throws his fly; but the fish do not rise at it; and he throws again, and again they do not rise. And all the while, a barefooted, coatless boy on the other side of the brook is catching fish as fast as he can pull them in. He has just a rough hook on a bit of string, and a worm for bait, but he gets the fish. HENRY WARD BEECHER.
   
   
2. As soon as Macaulay had finished his rough draft, he began to fill it in at the rate of six sides of foolscap every morning, written in so large a hand, and with such a multitude of erasures, that the whole six pages were, on an average, compressed into two pages of print. This portion he called his "Task"; and he was never quite easy unless he completed it daily. More he seldom sought to accomplish; for he had learned by long experience that this was as much as he could do at his best; and except when at his best he never would work at all. "Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay." G. O. TREVELYAN.
   
   
3. There was a certain elderly gentleman who lived in a court of the Temple, and was a great judge and lover of port wine. Every day he dined at his club and drank his bottle or two of port wine, and every night came home to the Temple and went to bed in his lonely chambers. This had gone on many years without variation, when one night he had a fit on coming home, and fell and cut his head deep, but partly recovered and groped about in the dark to find the door. When he was afterwards discovered, dead, it was clearly established by the marks of his hands about the room that he must have done so. Now, this chanced on the night of Christmas Eve, and over him lived a young fellow who had sisters and young country-friends, and who gave them a little party that night, in the course of which they played at Blindman's Buff. They played that game, for their greater sport, by the light of the fire only; and once, when they were all quietly rustling and stealing about, and the blindman was trying to pick out the prettiest sister (for which I am far from blaming him), somebody cried "Hark! The man below must be playing Blindman's Buff by himself to-night!" They listened, and they heard sounds of some one falling about and stumbling against furniture, and they all laughed at the conceit, and went on with their play, more light-hearted and merry than ever. Thus, those two so different games of life and death were played out together, blindfolded, in the two sets of chambers. DICKENS.
   
   
4. Only last week a teacher in one of the primary schools of Chicago reported to her principal that a certain little boy in her room was so hopelessly dull and perverse that she despaired of teaching him anything. The child would sit with open mouth and look at her as she would talk to the class, and five minutes afterward he could not or would not repeat three words of what had been said. She had scolded him, made him stand on the floor, kept him in after school, and even whipped him, but all in vain. The principal looked into the case, scratched his head, stroked his whiskers, coughed, and decided that the public school funds should not be wasted in trying to "learn imbeciles," and so reported to the parents. He advised them to send the boy to a Home for the Feeble Minded, sending the message by an older brother. So the parents took the child to the Home and asked that he be admitted. The Matron took the little boy on her lap, talked to him, read to him, showed him pictures and said to the astonished parents, "This child has fully as much intelligence as any of your other children, perhaps more but he is deaf." ELBERT HUBBARD.
   
   
5. Hamlet. Hold you the watch to-night?
   
   All. We do, my lord.
   Ham. Arcn'd, say you?
   All. Arm'd, my lord.
   Ham. From top to toe?
   All. My lord, from head to foot.
   Ham. Then saw you not his face ?
   Hor. O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.
   Ham. What, looked he frowningly?
   Hor. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
   Ham. Pale, or red?
   Hor. Nay, very pale.
   Ham. And fix'd his eyes upon you?
   Hor. Most constantly.
   Ham. I would I had been there.
   Hor. It would have much amaz'd you.
   Ham. Very like, very like: Stay'd it long?
   Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
   Ham. His beard was grizzl'd, no?
   Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life, a sable-silvered. Ham. I will watch to-night, perchance 'twill walk again. SHAKESPEAERE.
   
   
6. One hot day last summer, a young man dressed, in thin clothes, entered a Broadway car, and seating himself opposite a stout old gentleman, said, pleasantly:
   
   "Pretty warm, isn't it?"
   "What's pretty warm?"
   "Why, the weather."
   "What weather?"
   "Why this weather."
   "Well, how's this different from any other weather?"
   "Well, it is warmer."
   "How do you know it is?"
   "I suppose it is."
   "Isn't the weather the same everywhere?"
   "Why, no, no; it's warmer in some places and colder in others."
   "What makes it warmer in some places than it's colder in others?"
   "Why, the sun, the effect of the sun's heat."
   "Makes it colder in some places than it's warmer in others? Never heard of such a thing."
   "No, no, no. I didn't mean that. The sun makes it warmer."
   "Then what makes it colder?"
   "I believe it's the ice."
   "What ice?"
   "Why, the ice, the ice, the ice that was frozen by by by the frost."
   "Have you ever seen any ice that wasn't frozen?"
   "No, that is, I believe I have."
   "Then what are you talking about?"
   "I was just trying to talk about the weather."
   "And what do you know about it, what do you know about the weather?"
   "Well, I thought I knew something, but I see I don't and that's a fact."
   

"No, sir, I should say you didn't! Yet you come into this car and force yourself upon the attention of a stranger and begin to talk about the weather just as though you owned it, and I find you don't know a solitary thing about the matter you yourself selected for a topic of conversation. You don't know one thing about meteorological conditions, principles, or phenomena; you can't tell me why it is warm in August and cold in December; you don't know why icicles form faster in the sunlight than they do in the shade; you don't know why the earth grows colder as it comes nearer the sun; you can't tell why a man can be sun-struck in the shade; you can't tell me how a cyclone is formed nor how the trade winds blow; you couldn't find the calm-center of a storm if your life depended on it; you don't know what a sirocco is nor where the south-west monsoon blows; you don't know the average rain-fall in the United States for the past and current year; you don't know why the wind dries up the ground more quickly than a hot sun; you don't know why the dew falls at night and dries up in the day; you can't explain the formation of fog; you don't know one solitary thing about the weather and you are just like a thousand and one other people who always begin talking about the weather because they don't know anything else, when by the Aurora Borealis, they know less about the weather than they do about anything else in the world, sir!" "The Weather Fiend."           ANON.

SIMPLICITY

Simplicity is characteristic of all great art. In oratory it has taken the place of the bombast and artificial method of former times, while in dramatic art it has superseded the "old school" style of ranting and wild gesticulation.

Charles Wagner acknowledges the difficulty in adequately describing this quality and despairs of ever doing so in any worthy fashion. "All the strength of the world and all its beauty," he says, "all true joy, everything that consoles, that feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark paths, everything that makes us see across our poor lives a splendid goal and a boundless future, comes to us from people of simplicity, those who have made another object of their desires than the passing satisfaction of selfishness and vanity; and have understood that the art of living is to know how to give one's life."

Simplicity does not mean repression, but the intelligent use of all the forces of expression in sincere, direct, and spontaneous effort. If the student earnestly seeks the truth and his thinking is genuine, the expression will be free from affectation and unnaturalness.

The following examples are selected for this quality of simplicity:

EXAMPLES

A certain nobleman had a spacious garden which he left to the care of a faithful servant, whose delight it was to trail the creepers along the trellis, to water the seeds in time of drought, to support the stalks of the tender plants, and to do every work which could render the garden a paradise of flowers. One morning the servant rose with joy, expecting to tend his beloved flowers, and hoping to find his favorites increased in beauty. To his surprise, he found one of his choicest beauties rent from the stem. Full of grief and anger, he hurried to his fellow servants and demanded who had robbed him of his treasure. They had not done it, and he did not charge them with it, but he found no solace for his grief till one of them remarked, "My lord was walking in the garden this morning, and I saw him pluck the flower and carry it away." Then, truly, the gardener found he had no cause for his trouble. He felt that it was well his master had been pleased to take his own; and he went away smiling at his loss, because his lord had taken delight in the flowers. "Funeral Sermon." SPURGEON.

Be simple, unaffected; be honest in your speaking and writing. Never use a long word when a short one will do. Do not call a spade a well-known oblong instrument of manual industry; let a house be a house, not a residence; a place a place, not a locality, and so of the rest. Where a short word will do you always lose by using a long one. You lose in clearness, you lose in honest expression of your meaning; and in the estimation of all men who are competent to judge, you lose in reputation for ability. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

A spindle of hazelwood had I;
Into the mill-stream it fell one day The
water has brought it me back no more.

As he lay a-dying, the soldier spake:
"I am content!

Let my mother be told in the village there, And my bride in the hut be told, That they must pray with folded hands, With folded hands for me' The soldier is dead and with folded hands, His bride and his mother pray. On the field of battle they dug his grave, And red with his life-blood the earth was dyed, The earth they laid him in. The sun looked down on him there and spake: "I am content." And flowers bloomed thickly upon his grave, And were glad they blossomed there. And when the wind in the tree-tops roared, The soldier asked from the deep, dark grave:

"Did the banner flutter then?" "Not so, my hero," the wind replied, "The fight is done, but the banner won, Thy comrades of old have borne it hence, Have borne it in triumph hence." Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave 5 "I am content."

And again he heard the shepherds pass And the flocks go wand'ring by, And the soldier asked: "Is the sound I hear, The sound of the battle's roar?" And they all replied: "My hero, nay! Thou art dead and the fight is o'er, Our country joyful and free." Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave: "I am content." Then he heareth the lovers, laughing, pass, And the soldier asks once more: "Are these not the voices of them that love, That love and remember me?" "Not so, my hero," the lovers say, "We are those that remember not; For the spring has come and the earth has smiled, And the dead must be forgot." Then the soldier spake from the deep, dark grave: "I am content." A spindle of hazelwood had I;

Into the mill-stream it fell one day The water has brought it me back no more. "Bard of Dimbovitza."            Translated by CARMEN SYLVA.

He faced his audience with a tranquil mien, and a beaming aspect that was never dimmed. He spoke, and in the measured cadence of his quiet voice there was intense feeling, but no declamation, no passionate appeal, no superficial and feigned emotion. It was simple colloquy a gentleman conversing. How was it done? Ah! how did Mozart do it how Raphael? The secret of the rose's sweetness, of the bird's ecstasy, of the sunset's glory that is the secret of genius and eloquence. What was heard, what was seen, was the form of noble manhood, the courteous and self-possessed tone, the flow of modulated speech, sparkling with matchless richness of illustration, with apt allusion, and happy anecdote, and historic parallel, with wit and pitiless invective, with melodious pathos, with stinging satire, with crackling epigram, and limpid humor, like the bright ripples that play around the sure and steady prow of the resistless ship. Like an illuminated vase of odors, he glowed with concentrated and perfumed fire. The divine energy of his conviction utterly possessed him, and his "Pure and eloquent blood Spoke in his cheek, and so distinctly wrought, That one might almost say his body thought."

Was it Pericles swaying the Athenian multitude? Was it Apollo breathing the music of the morning from his lips? It was an American patriot, a modern son of liberty, with a soul as firm and as true as was ever consecrated to unselfish duty, pleading with the American conscience for the chained and speechless victims of American inhumanity. "Wendell Phillips." GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

Now Love is the remedy, the great sweetener of the mind and body. It produces harmony, and harmony is equilibrium health.

This must first be established in the mind through belief and trust in the Infinite Love, and Omnipresent Good, then the practise of love and self-forgetfulness toward others.

If we would attract love to ourselves, we must feel it for others, and make ourselves lovable; and that should be our whole concern, to love more and more, and think less and less of self; then we will grow sweet and wholesome, and fragrant as a flower. The blood will be pure and rich, and filled with vitality, and, in short, all things will become new, for the former things will have passed away. "Spiritual Realizations." FLORENCE WILLARD DAY.

And seeing the multitudes, he went up into the mountain: and when he had sat down, his disciples came unto him: and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying,

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you.
"St. Matthew, 5." THE BIBLE.

SINCERITY

If the speaker fulfils all the requirements of simplicity, there will be little question as to his sincerity. One is hardly possible without the other. Sincerity like simplicity demands honesty of mind and intention, as well as frankness and uprightness of character.

I venture to prophesy, there are those now living who will see this favored land amongst the most powerful on earth. . .. But, sir, you must have men; you cannot get along with out them     Do you ask how you are to get them?

Open your doors, sir, and they will come in! The population of the Old World is full to overflowing. That population is ground, too, by the oppressions of the governments under which they live. Sir, they are already standing on tiptoe upon their native shores, and looking to your coasts with a wistful and longing eye. They see here a land blessed with natural and political advantages, which are not equaled by those of any other country upon earth; a land on which a gracious Providence hath emptied a horn of abundance, a land over which Peace hath now stretched forth her white wings, and where content and plenty lie down at every door! Sir, they see something more attractive than all this. They see a land in which Liberty hath taken up her abode that Liberty whom they had considered as a fabled goddess, existing only in the fancies of the poets. They see her here a real divinity, her altars rising on every hand throughout these happy States; her glories chanted by three millions of tongues, and the whole region smiling under her blessed influence. Sir, let but this, our celestial goddess, Liberty, stretch forth her fair hand toward the people of the Old World, tell them to come and bid them welcome, and you will see them pouring in from the North, from the South, from the East, and from the West. Your wilder ness will be cleared and settled, your deserts will smile, your ranks will be filled, and you will soon be in a condition to defy the powers of any adversary. PATRICK HENRY.

Truth! Friendship! My country! Sacred objects, sentiments dear to my heart, accept my last sacrifice. My life was devoted to you, and you will render my death easy and glorious.

Just Heaven! enlighten this unfortunate people for whom I desired liberty .... Liberty! It is for noble minds, who despise death, and who know how upon occasions to give it to themselves. It is not for weak beings who enter into a composition with guilt, and cover selfishness and cowardice with the name of prudence. It is not for corrupt wretches who rise from the bed of debauchery, or from the mire of indigence, to feast their eyes on the blood that streams from the scaffold. It is the portion of a people who delight in humanity, practise justice, despise their flatterers, and respect the truth. While you are not such a people, oh, my fellow citizens, you will talk in vain of liberty. Instead of liberty you will have licentiousness, of which you will all fall victims in your turns. You will ask for bread; dead bodies will be given you; and you will at last bow down your necks to the yoke.

I have neither concealed my sentiments nor my opinions. I know that a Roman lady was sent to the scaffold for lamenting the death of her son. I know that in times of delusion and party-rage, he who dares avow himself the friend of the condemned or of the proscribed exposes himself to their fate. But I despise death; I never feared anything but guilt, and I will not purchase life at the expense of a base subterfuge. Woe to the times! woe to the people among whom doing homage to disregarded truth is attended with danger, and happy he who in such circumstances is bold enough to brave it! "Last Thoughts." MADAME RILAND.

I have little to recommend my opinions but long observation and much impartiality. They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life. They come from one almost the whole of whose public exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others; from one in whose breast no anger durable or vehement has ever been kindled, but by what he considered as tyranny; and who snatches from his share in the endeavors which are used by good men to discredit opulent oppression the hours he has employed on your affairs, and who, in so doing, persuades himself he has not departed from his usual offices. They come from one who desires honors, distinctions, and emoluments but little, and who expects them not at all; who has no contempt for fame, and no fear of obloquy; who shuns contention, though he will hazard an opinion; from one who wishes to preserve consistency by varying his means to secure the unity of his end; and, when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preserve its equipoise. "Reflections on the Revolution in France." EDMUND BURKE.

4. O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But, O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, fallen, cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths for you the shores
a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! this arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, you've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My Captain does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage is closed and done;

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! but I with mournful tread Walk the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead. "On Lincoln." WALT WHITMAN.

AIM AND PURPOSE

In all successful oratory there must be a clearly defined aim and purpose. The speaker should endeavor to find out where his special power lies and work in that direction, always remembering that the loftier the aim the greater the possible achievement. Beecher said: "Let no man who is a sneak try to be an orator." There must be intrinsic worth. A man must be and not seem. An audience can not long be deceived. The speaker will shortly be estimated at his true value. The development of the sympathetic nature should not be neglected. The transforming power of deep affection is described by Balzac, when he says of Père Goriot, "Père Goriot was stirred out of himself. Never till now had Eugene seen him thus lighted up by the passion of paternity. We may here remark on the infiltrating, transforming power of an over-mastering emotion. However coarse the fiber of the individual, let him be held by a strong and genuine affection, and he exhales, as it were, an essence which illuminates his features, inspires his gestures, and gives cadence to his voice."

And, since the thoughts and reasonings of an author have, as I have said, a personal character, no wonder that his style is not only the image of his subject, but of his mind. That pomp of language, that full and tuneful diction, that felicitousness in the choice and exquisiteness in the collocation of words, which to prosaic writers seem artificial, is nothing else but the mere habit and way of a lofty intellect. Aristotle, in his sketch of the magnanimous man, tells us that his voice is deep, his motions slow, and his stature commanding. In like manner, the elocution of a great intellect is great. His language expresses, not only his great thoughts, but his great self. Certainly he might use fewer words than he uses; but he fertilizes his simplest ideas, and germinates into a multitude of details, and prolongs the march of his sentences, and sweeps round to the full diapason of his har mony, rejoicing in his own vigor and richness of resource. CARDINAL "NEWMAN.

I have no light or knowledge not common to my country men. I do not prophesy. The present is all-absorbing to me, but I cannot bound my vision by the blood-stained trenches around Manila, where every red drop, whether from the veins of an American soldier or a misguided Filipino, is anguish to my heart; but by the broad range of future years, when that group of islands, under the impulse of the year just past, shall have become the gems and glories of those tropical seas; a land of plenty and of increasing possibilities; a people redeemed from savage in dolence and habits, devoted to the arts of peace, in touch with the commerce and trade of all nations, enjoying the blessings of free dom, of civil and religious liberty, of education and of homes, and whose children and children's children shall for ages hence bless the American Republic because it emancipated and redeemed their fatherland and set them in the pathway of the world's best civilization. "Our Duty to the Philippines." WILLIAM MCKINLEY.

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,
When you set your fancies free,
Will they pass to where by death, fools think, imprisoned Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, Pity me?
Oh, to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!
What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel Being who ?
One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, tho right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake.
No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time
Greet the unseen with a cheer! Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
"Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed, fight on, fare ever There as here!"
"Epilog." BROWNING.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative, force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet known what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you can not hope too much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different from all these. Not possibly will the soul, all rich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue are two organs of one nature. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again. "Self-reliance." EMERSON.

Grow old along with me! the best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand who saith, "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

Then, welcome each rebuff that turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!

Be our joys three parts pain: strive and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

So take and use Thy work, amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!

My times be in Thy hand! perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same! "Rabbi Ben Ezra." BROWNING.

And did I say, my friends, that I was unable to furnish an entirely satisfactory answer to the question, in what the true excellence of the character of Washington consists? Let me recall the word as unjust to myself and unjust to you. The answer is plain and simple enough; it is this, that all the great qualities of disposition and action, which so eminently fitted him for the service of his fellow men, were founded on the basis of a pure Christian morality, and derived their strength and energy from that vital source. He was great as he was good; and I believe, as I do in my existence, that it was an important part in the design of Providence in raising him up to be the leader of the revolutionary struggle, and afterwards the first President of the United States, to rebuke prosperous ambition and successful intrigue; to set before the people of America, in the morning of their national existence, a living example to prove that armies may be best conducted and governments most ably and honorably administered, by men of sound moral principle; to teach to gifted and aspiring individuals, and the parties they lead, that, tho a hundred crooked paths may conduct to a temporary success, the one plain and straight path of public and private virtue can alone lead to a pure and lasting fame and the blessings of posterity. "The Character of Washington." EDWARD EVERETT.

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