What did the Englishman know of the Fourth of July emotion
which stirred all Americans in the days when the country
had just escaped destruction, and was entering upon its new
career of freedom and of glory? What could he understand
of that feeling, full of the morning and of the springtime,
which heard the cannon boom and the bells ring, with stirring
and quickened pulse, in those exultant days? Surely there
never was a loftier stroke than that with which the New England
poet interpreted to his countrymen the feeling of that joyous
time--the feeling which is to waken again when the Fourth
of July comes round on many anniversaries:
Oh tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire;
One morn is in the mighty heaven,
And one in our desire.
It is often said that if a speech read well it is not a good
speech. There may be some truth in it. The reader cannot,
of course, get the impression which the speaker conveys by
look and tone and gesture. He lacks that marvellous influence
by which in a great assembly the emotion of every individual
soul is multiplied by the emotion of every other.
Pages:
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340