Model Speeches for Practise by Grenville Kleiser (english books to improve english txt) đź“•
I am very glad to be able to thank Lord Coleridge for having, I be
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Here of all places in the world we may best hope to find the peace we seek for. It seems as if nothing were left undisturbed in New England except here and there an old graveyard, and these dear old College buildings, with the trees in which they are embowered. The old State House is filled with those that sell oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money. The Hancock house, the umbilical scar of the cord that held our city to the past, is vanishing like a dimple from the water.
But Massachusetts, venerable old Massachusetts, stands as firm as ever; Hollis, this very year a centenarian, is waiting with its honest red face in a glow of cordiality to welcome its hundredth set of inmates; Holden Chapel, with the skulls of its Doric frieze and the unpunishable cherub over its portals, looks serenely to the sunsets; Harvard, within whose ancient walls we are gathered, and whose morning bell has murdered sleep for so many generations of drowsy adolescents, is at its post, ready to startle the new-fledged freshmen from their first uneasy slumbers. All these venerable edifices stand as they did when we were boys,—when our grandfathers were boys. Let not the rash hand of innovation violate their sanctities, for the cement that knits these walls is no vulgar mortar, but is tempered with associations and memories which are stronger than the parts they bind together!
We meet on this auspicious morning forgetting all our lesser differences. As we enter these consecrated precincts, the livery of our special tribe in creed and in politics is taken from us at the door, and we put on the court dress of our gracious Queen's own ordering, the academic robe, such as we wore in those bygone years scattered along the seven last decades. We are not forgetful of the honors which our fellow students have won since they received their college "parts,"—their orations, dissertations, disquisitions, colloquies, and Greek dialogs. But to-day we have no rank; we are all first scholars. The hero in his laurels sits next to the divine rustling in the dry garlands of his doctorate. The poet in his crown of bays, the critic, in his wreath of ivy, clasp each other's hands, members of the same happy family. This is the birthday feast for every one of us whose forehead has been sprinkled from the font inscribed "Christo et Ecclesioe." We have no badges but our diplomas, no distinctions but our years of graduation. This is the republic carried into the university; all of us are born equal into this great fraternity.
Welcome, then, welcome, all of you, dear brothers, to this our joyous meeting! We must, we will call it joyous, tho it comes with many saddening thoughts. Our last triennial meeting was a festival in a double sense, for the same day that brought us together at our family gathering gave a new head to our ancient household of the university. As I look to-day in vain for his stately presence and kindly smile, I am reminded of the touching words spoken by an early president of the university in the remembrance of a loss not unlike our own. It was at the commencement exercises of the year 1678 that the Reverend President Urian Oakes thus mourned for his friend Thomas Shepard, the minister of Charlestown, an overseer of the college: "Dici non potest quam me perorantem, in comitiis, conspectus ejus, multo jucundissimus, recrearit et refecerit. At non comparet hodie Shepardus in his comitiis; oculos huc illuc torqueo; quocumque tamen inciderint, Platonem meum intanta virorum illustrium frequentia requirunt; nusquam amicum et pernecessarium meum in hac solenni panegyric, inter nosce Reverendos Theologos, Academiae Curatores, reperire aut oculis vestigare possum." Almost two hundred years have gone by since these words were uttered by the fourth president of the college, which I repeat as no unfitting tribute to the memory of the twentieth, the rare and fully ripened scholar who was suddenly ravished from us as some richly freighted argosy that just reaches her harbor and sinks under a cloudless sky with all her precious treasures.
But the great conflict through which we are passing has made sorrow too frequent a guest for us to linger on an occasion like this over every beloved name which the day recalls to our memory. Many of the children whom our mother had trained to arts have given the freshness of their youth or the strength of their manhood to arms. How strangely frequent in our recent record is the sign interpreted by the words "E vivis cesserunt stelligeri!" It seems as if the red war-planet had replaced the peaceful star, and these pages blushed like a rubric with the long list of the martyr-children of our university. I can not speak their eulogy, for there are no phrases in my vocabulary fit to enshrine the memory of the Christian warrior,—of him—
Yet again, O brothers! this is not the hour for sorrow. Month after month until the months became years we have cried to those who stood upon our walls: "Watchmen, what of the night?" They have answered again and again, "The dawn is breaking,—it will soon be day." But the night has gathered round us darker than before. At last—glory be to God in the highest!—at last we ask no more tidings of the watchmen, for over both horizons east and west bursts forth in one overflowing tide of radiance the ruddy light of victory!
We have no parties here to-day, but is there one breast that does not throb with joy as the banners of the conquering Republic follow her retreating foes to the banks of the angry Potomac? Is there one heart that does not thrill in answer to the drum-beat that rings all over the world as the army of the west, on the morning of the nation's birth, swarms over the silent, sullen earthworks of captured Vicksburg,—to the reveille that calls up our Northern regiments this morning inside the fatal abatis of Port Hudson? We are scholars, we are graduates, we are alumni, we are a band of brothers, but beside all, above all, we are American citizens. And now that hope dawns upon our land—nay, bursts upon it in a flood of glory,—shall we not feel its splendors reflected upon our peaceful gathering, peaceful in spite of those disturbances which the strong hand of our citizen-soldiery has already strangled?
Welcome then, thrice welcome, scholarly soldiers who have fought for your and our rights and honor! Welcome, soldierly scholars who are ready to fight whenever your country calls for your services! Welcome, ye who preach courage as well as meekness, remembering that the Prince of Peace came also bringing a sword! Welcome, ye who make and who interpret the statutes which are meant to guard our liberties in peace, but not to aid our foes in war! Welcome, ye whose healing ministry soothes the anguish of the suffering and the dying with every aid of art and the tender accents of compassion! Welcome, ye who are training the generous youths to whom our country looks as its future guardians! Welcome, ye quiet scholars who in your lonely studies are unconsciously shaping the thought which law shall forge into its shield and war shall wield as its thunder-bolt!
And to you, Mr. President, called from one place of trust and honor to rule over the concerns of this our ancient and venerated institution, to you we offer our most cordial welcome with all our hopes and prayers for your long and happy administration.
I give you, brothers, "The association of the Alumni"; the children of our common mother recognize the man of her choice as their new father, and would like to hear him address a few words to his numerous family.
[1] Delivered at an Alumni Dinner, Cambridge, July 16, 1863.
GOOD WILL TO AMERICA[2] BY SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTGentlemen:—Small as are the pretensions which, on any account, I can have to present myself to the attention of this remarkable assemblage, I have had no hesitation in answering the call which is just been made upon me by discharging a duty which is no less gratifying to me than I know it will be agreeable to you—that of proposing that the thanks of this meeting be offered to the chairman for his presidence over us to-day. Every one who admires Mr. Garrison for the qualities on account of which we have met to do him honor on this occasion, must feel that there is a singular appropriateness in the selection of the person who has presided here to-day. No one can fail to perceive a striking similarity—I might almost say a real parallelism of greatness—in the careers of these two eminent persons. Both are men who, by the great qualities of their minds, and the uncompromising spirit of justice which has animated them, have signally advanced the cause of truth and vindicated the rights of humanity. Both have been fortunate enough in the span of their own lifetime to have seen their efforts in the promotion of great ends crowned by triumphs as great as they could have desired, and far greater than they could have hoped. There is no cause with which the name of Mr. Bright has been associated which has not sooner or later won its way to victory.
I shall not go over the ground which has been so well dealt with by those who have preceded me. But tho there have been many abler interpreters of your wishes and aspirations to-day than I can hope to be, may I be permitted to join my voice to those which have been raised up in favor of the perpetual amity of England and America. It seems to me that with nations, as well as with individuals, greatness of character depends chiefly on the degree in which they are capable of rising above thee low, narrow, paltry interests of the present, and of looking forward with hope and with faith into the distance of a great futurity. And where, I will ask, is the future of our race to be found? I may extend the question—where is to be found the future of mankind? Who that can forecast the fortunes of the ages to come will not answer—it is in that great nation which has sprung from our loins, which is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. The stratifications of history are full of the skeletons of ruined kingdoms and of races that are no more. Where are Assyria and Egypt, the civilization of Greece,
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