3. With conscience satisfied with the discharge of duty, no consequences can harm you. There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from, but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or for our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power, nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close, and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity, which lies yet farther onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us whenever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it.

"The Knapp Murder Trial."

WEBSTER.

4. But this I will avow, that I have scorned,
And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong!
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword,
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back,
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts
The gates of honor on me,-turning out

The Roman from his birthright; and, for what?
To fling your offices to every slave!

Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb,
And, having wound their loathsome track to the top,
Of this huge, mouldering monument of Rome,

Hang hissing at the nobler man below!

"Catiline's Defiance."

GEORGE CROLY.

EARNESTNESS

Earnestness is the natural language of sincerity and high purpose. It manifests itself in voice, look, and gesture. It is the result of deep conviction, sympathy, self-abandon

ment, and a heartfelt desire to share the truth with others. The act of standing before an audience should kindle the heart and imagination of any speaker, but we know from observation that this is not always the case. Frequently an audience is strange, cold, and unresponsive, but here the speaker must call to his aid the power of self-excitation. He must have faith in himself and in his message. The speaker should realize that he is, to quote Nathan Sheppard, "An animal galvanic battery on two legs!" The physical apparatus should be so trained as to promptly and correctly respond to every demand made upon it.

In true earnestness there is no place for violence or impulsiveness. All must be well considered. Exaggerated shaking of the head, rolling the eyes, twisting and contorting the body, meaningless gesture, all are to be studiously avoided. In the early stages of practising, where there is a lack of feeling, it may for a time be assumed. Sluggish emotions can in this way be aroused and subsequent efforts will become less and less difficult.

Nothing contributes more to the well-springs of genuine feeling than long and varied experience among all classes of people. To accustom oneself to sharing the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, of others, will cultivate the deepest feelings of the human heart.

1. Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever!

DANIEL WEBSTER.

2. But thou, O Florence, take the offered mercy. See! the cross is held out to you; come and be healed. Which among the nations of Italy has had a token like unto yours? The tyrant is driven out from among you; the men who held a bribe in their left hand and a rod in their right, are gone forth, and no blood has been spilled. And now put away every other abomination from among you, and you shall be strong in the strength of the living God. Wash yourself from the black pitch of your vices, which have made you even as the heathens; put away the envy and hatred that have made your city as a nest of wolves. And there shall no harm happen to you; and the passage of armies shall be to you as the flight of birds, and rebellious Pisa shall be given to you again, and famine and pestilence shall be far from your gates, and you shall be as a beacon among the nations. But, mark! while you suffer the accursed thing to lie in the camp, you shall be afflicted and tormented, even tho a remnant among you may be saved.

Savonarola in "Romola."

GEORGE ELIOT.

3. Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation— or any nation so conceived and so dedicated-can long endure.

We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who have given their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our power to add or to detract. The world will very little note nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here, to the unfinished work they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that

cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

At the Dedication of Gettysburg Cemetery.

LINCOLN.

4. Straightway Virginius led the maid a little space aside,

To where the reeking shambles stood, piled up with horn and hide.

Hard by, a butcher on a block had laid his whittle down,

Virginius caught the whittle up, and hid it in his gown.

And then his eyes grew very dim, and his throat began to swell, And in a hoarse, changed voice he spake, "Farewell, sweet child, farewell!

The house that was the happiest within the Roman walls,The house that envied not the wealth of Capua's marble halls, Now, for the brightness of thy smile, must have eternal gloom, And for the music of thy voice, the silence of the tomb.

"The time is come. The tyrant points his eager hand this way; See how his eyes gloat on thy grief, like a kite's upon the prey; With all his wit he little deems that, spurned, betrayed, bereft, Thy father hath, in his despair, one fearful refuge left;

He little deems that, in this hand, I clutch what still can save Thy gentle youth from taunts and blows, the portion of the slave;

Yea, and from nameless evil, that passeth taunt and blow,Foul outrage, which thou knowest not,-which thou shalt never

know.

Then clasp me round the neck once more, and give me one more kiss;

And now, mine own dear little girl, there is no way but this!" With that he lifted high the steel, and smote her in the side, And in her blood she sank to earth, and with one sob she died. Then, for a little moment, all the people held their breath; And through the crowded forum was stillness as of death;

And in another moment broke forth from one and all

A cry as if the Volscians were coming o'er the wall;
Till, with white lips and bloodshot eyes, Virginius tottered nigh,
And stood before the judgment seat, and held the knife on high:
"O dwellers in the nether gloom, avengers of the slain,
By this dear blood I cry to you, do right between us twain;
And e'en as Appius Claudius has dealt by me and mine,
Deal you by Appius Claudius and all the Claudian line!"
So spake the slayer of his child; then where the body lay,
Pausing, he cast one haggard glance, and turned and went his

way.

Then up sprang Appius Claudius: "Stop him, alive or dead! Ten thousand pounds of copper to the man who brings his head!"

He looked upon his clients, but none would work his will;
He looked upon his lictors, but they trembled and stood still.
And as Virginius through the press his way in silence cleft,
Ever the mighty multitude fell back to right and left;
And he hath passed in safety unto his woful home,

And there ta'en horse, to tell the camp what deeds are done in
Rome.
"Virginius."

MACAULAY.

5. The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces; help us to play the man, let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonored; and grant us in the end the gift of sleep.

"A Morning Prayer."

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

THE EMOTIONS

It is neither desirable nor possible to lay down arbitrary rules for expressing emotion, since people express their feelings according to individual temperament and circum