Public Speaking: Principles and Practice Part 5

_Marullus_. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome, To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements, To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, Your infants in your arms, and there have sat The live-long day, with patient expectation To see great Pompey pa.s.s the streets of Rome; And when you saw his chariot but appear, Have you not made an universal shout, That Tiber trembled underneath her banks, To hear the replication of your sounds, Made in her concave sh.o.r.es?

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?

Be gone!

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the G.o.ds to intermit the plague That needs must light on this ingrat.i.tude.

THE RECESSIONAL

From "Collected Verse," with the permission of A. P. Watt and Son, London, and Doubleday, Page and Company, New York, publishers

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

G.o.d of our fathers, known of old-- Lord of our far-flung battle-line-- Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine-- Lord G.o.d of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget.

The tumult and the shouting dies-- The captains and the kings depart-- Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord G.o.d of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget.

Far-called our navies melt away-- On dune and headland sinks the fire, Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget.

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe-- Such boasting as the Gentiles use Or lesser breeds without the Law-- Lord G.o.d of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget--lest we forget.

For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard-- All valiant dust that builds on dust, And guarding calls not Thee to guard-- For frantic boast and foolish word, Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord.

THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY

From Webster's Reply to Hayne, in the United States Senate. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, publishers of "The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster"

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Ma.s.sachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives in the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it; if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure,--it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin.

THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS

Delivered in the House of Lords, February 13, 1788

BY EDMUND BURKE

My Lords, I do not mean to go further than just to remind your Lordships of this,--that Mr. Hastings's government was one whole system of oppression, of robbery of individuals, of spoliation of the public, and of suppression of the whole system of the English government, in order to vest in the worst of the natives all the power that could possibly exist in any government; in order to defeat the ends which all governments ought, in common, to have in view. In the name of the Commons of England, I charge all this villainy upon Warren Hastings, in this last moment of my application to you.

Therefore, it is with confidence that, ordered by the Commons of Great Britain, I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors.

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament a.s.sembled, whose parliamentary trust he has abused.

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonored.

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has subverted.

I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose property he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate.

I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both s.e.xes. And I impeach him in the name and by the virtue of those eternal laws of justice, which ought equally to pervade every age, condition, rank, and situation, in the world.

BUNKER HILL

From the oration at the laying of the corner stone of the monument, June 17, 1825. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, publishers of "The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster"

By DANIEL WEBSTER

This uncounted mult.i.tude before me and around me proves the feeling which the occasion has excited. These thousands of human faces, glowing with sympathy and joy, and from the impulses of a common grat.i.tude turned reverently to heaven in this s.p.a.cious temple of the firmament, proclaim that the day, the place, and the purpose of our a.s.sembling have made a deep impression on our hearts.

If, indeed, there be anything in local a.s.sociation fit to affect the mind of man, we need not strive to repress the emotions which agitate us here. We are among the sepulchers of our fathers. We are on ground distinguished by their valor, their constancy, and the shedding of their blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals, nor to draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our humble purpose had never been conceived, if we ourselves had never been born, the 17th of June, 1775, would have been a day on which all subsequent history would have poured its light, and the eminence where we stand a point of attraction to the eyes of successive generations. But we are Americans. We live in what may be called the early age of this great continent; and we know that our posterity, through all time, are here to enjoy and suffer the allotments of humanity. We see before us a probable train of great events; we know that our own fortunes have been happily cast, and it is natural, therefore, that we should be moved by the contemplation of occurrences which have guided our destiny before many of us were born, and settled the condition in which we should pa.s.s that portion of our existence which G.o.d allows to man on earth.

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

In dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa., Nov. 19, 1863

BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on 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 battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave 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 poor power to add or detract. The world will 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 which they who fought here have thus far so n.o.bly advanced. 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 gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under G.o.d, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

VOCAL FLEXIBILITY

CaeSAR, THE FIGHTER

From "The Courtship of Miles Standish," by permission of, and by Special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers of this author's works

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

"A wonderful man was this Caesar!

You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but here is a fellow Who could both write and fight, and in both was equally skillful!"

Straightway answered and spake John Alden, the comely, the youthful: "Yes, he was equally skilled, as you say, with his pen and his weapons.