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Show A Famous Speech B "T HE great Daniel Webster sometimes drank H ' more brandy than was good for him. On H such occasions he could stand squarely on his M feet and carry on his face a look as profound as H all the ages, but he could not long keep his H mind concentrated on a subject and his language H took on an extraordinary range. m About the year 1840 he was invited to make M the address at the state fair in Rochester, N. Y., M and accepted the invitation. M When the hour for speaking arrived he was M introduced and spoke, in substance, as follows M "Ladies and Gentlemen: I hold it a distill m guished honor to be invited to address you. It M is with extreme pleasure that I mark the many H and splendid improvements which you have made H since my last visit to your beautiful city. Your H blocks of stately buildings, tho marvelous acque- fl duct that spans your majestic Genesee river, H which I am told has falls one hundred and fifty R feet high. M "Ladles and gentlemen, Greece was the cradle D in which genius and real art and eloquence was H first rocked; she had her Epamlnandes, her Hi Demosthenes, her Themistocles, but Greece H in all her glory never had a waterfall one hun- H dred and fifty feet high. H Rome, that sat upon her seven hills and from H her throne of beauty ruled the" world; Rome had H her Scipio. her Caesar and her Cicero, but Rome H in all her sovereign majesty never had a water- H fall one hundred and fifty feet high. H Great Britain, whose young queen rules an H empire beside which imperial Rome at the height H of her power held but a second place; Victoria, K wIiobo empire is so vast that its morning drum H beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours circles the world with tho music of tho martial airs of, England, Queen, Victoria in all the pride and Bplendor and power of hot- realm never had a waterfall one hundred and fifty feet high." That finished the speech and nearly finished the audience. But had Webster been born later and had the speech been sot down for Salt Lake City and the year about 1918, he would have added a paragraph para-graph something like this "Egypt, where the light of civilization first shone out upon tho world; Egypt, where man first traced out tho processions of the stars, divided di-vided time into days and hours; learned to carve his name on pyramid and column, and first turned to the gods in prayer; Egypt, that had her shepherd shep-herd kings and Pharaohs; tamed horses and organized or-ganized armies; Egypt, that was the first light to the world, never had a colonnade of fifty-two monoliths, each thirty feet in length, four feet in diameter, and polishd to throw back the glint of the sunbeams in a splendor all their own." |
