Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v2.djvu/107

Conclusion 9i turning wilderness into farms and villages — ^these form the backgrotmd of the oratory and the pubUc tasks of the day. If no single piece of the very highest value in literature came out of the m61ee, we cannot wonder. And yet in the restless years there were men to be classed well up among the world's orators — for their themes were inspiring and a multitude was ready to hang upon their words. And in addition to all this product of earnest political strife and fervid declamation, is the fact, surprising, almost disconcerting, that the years produced jurists and publicists of erudition who quietly and methodically, amid all the hurry and change, framed the basic laws for a new nation, or, grasping essentids of older systems, gave them new life and form.