This office was filled by other
men, on some few occasions by Daniel Webster himself, but
by no man better than by Everett. A Town, or City, or State
is very human. In sorrow it must utter its cry of pain; in
victory, its note of triumph. As events pass, it must pronounce
its judgement. Its constant purpose must be fixed and made
more steadfast by expression. It must give voice to its love
and its approbation and its condemnation. It must register
the high and low water mark of its tide, its rising and its
sinking in heat and cold. This office Edward Everett, for
nearly fifty years, performed for Massachusetts and for the
whole country. In his orations is preserved and recorded
everything of the emotion of the great hours of our people's
history. The camera of his delicate photography has preserved
for future generations what passed in the soul of his own
in the times that tried the souls of men.
I do not know where he got his exquisite elocution. He went
abroad in his youth, and there were good trainers abroad,
then. He must have studied thoroughly the speeches of Cicero
and the Greek orators.
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