Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v2.djvu/117

Webster's Literary Quality loi extricate them from the limbo of forgotten speeches, they might sound as well as Webster's words. But listen to them again, read them, and it wiU be found that Webster's sentences have a quality which all the others lack. Literature is inter- woven with Webster's rhetoric, and it is this that preserves what he said from the forgetfulness which has overwhelmed others who in public speech have said the same things but just a little differently and without the magic literary touch. Let us take one more example from his early days. In 1826, speaking in the House upon the Monroe Doctrine, Webster said: I look on the message of December, 1823, as forming a bright page in our history. I will neither help to erase it or tear it out; nor shall it be by any act of mine blurred or blotted. It did honor to the sagacity of the government and I will not diminish that hon- or. It elevated the hopes and gratified the patriotism of the people. Over those hopes I will not bring a mildew; nor will I put that gratified patriotism to shame. Rhetorically this passage is aU that could be desired. The j sentences are short, effective, possessing both balance and precision. But when we come to the last we find the Uteraryyj touch. It is only one word, "mildew," but that single word i is imaginative and strikes us at once. Leave it out and change the sentence slightly; the rhetoric remains excellent as before, 1 but the whole effect is altered. Let us take one or two other familiar passages from the later speeches when the style was perfected and when the liter- ary quality had become a second nature. As Webster stood one summer morning on the ramparts of Quebec, and heard the sound of drums and saw the English troops on parade, the thought of England's vast world empire came strongly to his mind. The thought was very natural under the circumstances, not at all remarkable nor in the least original. Some years later, in a speech in the Senate, he put his thought into words, and this, as everyone knows, is the way he did it: A power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drumbeat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the