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COMPARISON AND CONTRAST.
(See Tone Drills Nos. 14 and 45.)

[These styles of expression have no distinct tone. They usually demand Assertion tinged with Admiration or Depreciation. Some times Comparison calls for the tone of Concession.]

Conservatism and Reform.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Conservatism stands on man's incontestable limitations; Reform on his indisputable infinitude; Conservatism on circumstance; Liberalism on power; one goes to make an adroit member of the social frame; the other to postpone all things to the man himself; Conservatism is debonair and social; Reform is individual and imperious. We are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter we stand by the old; reformers in the morning, conservers at night. Reform is affirmative, Conservatism negative; Conservatism goes for comfort, Reform for truth. Conservatism is more candid to behold another's worth; Reform more disposed to maintain and increase its own. Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory. Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry.

It makes a great difference to your figure and to your thought, whether your foot is advancing or receding. Conservatism never puts the foot forward; in the hour when it does that, it is no establishment, but Reform. Conservatism tends to universal seeming, and treachery, believes a negative fate; believes that men's temper governs them; that for me, it avails not to trust in principles; they will fail me; I must bend a little; it distrusts nature; it thinks that there is a general law without a particular application—law for all that does not include anyone. Reform in its antagonism inclines to asinine resistance, to kick with hoofs; it runs to egotism and bloated self-conceit; it runs to a bodiless pretension, to

unnatural refining and elevation, which ends in hypocrisy and sensual reaction.

And so whilst we do not go beyond general statements, it may be safely affirmed of these two metaphysical antagonists, that each is a good half, but an impossible whole. Each exposes the abuses of the other, but in a true society, in a true man, both must combine. Nature does not give the crown of its approbation, namely, Beauty, to any action, or emblem, or actor, but to one which combines both these elements; not to the rock which resists the waves from age to age, nor to the wave which lashes incessantly the rock; but the superior beauty is with the oak, which stands with its hundred arms against the storms of a century, and grows every year like a sapling; or the river which, ever flowing, yet is found in the same bed from age to age; or, greatest of all, the man who has subsisted for years amid the changes of nature, yet has distanced himself so that when you remember what he was, and see what he is, you say, What strides !

Anglo-Saxon and American Civilizations.

WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN.

Civil and religious liberty, universal education and right to participate directly or through representatives chosen by himself, in all the affairs of government—these give to the American citizen an opportunity and an inspiration which can be found nowhere else. Standing upon the vantage ground already gained, the American people can aspire to a grander destiny than has opened before any other race.

Anglo-Saxon civilization has taught the individual to take care of himself; American civilization, proclaiming the equality of all before the law, will teach him that his own highest good requires the observance of the commandment: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Anglo-Saxon civilization has, by force of arms, applied the art of government to

other races for the benefit of the Anglo-Saxons; American civilization will, by the influence of example, excite in other races a desire for self-government and a determination to secure it. Anglo-Saxon civilization has carried its flag to every clime and defended it with forts and garrisons; American civilization will imprint its flag upon the hearts of all who long for freedom. To American civilization, all hail!

"Time's noblest offspring is the last.”

Shylock on Tubal's News.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Shy. How now, Tubal! what news from Genoa? hast thou found my daughter?

Tub. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.

Shy. Why, there, there, there, there! a diamond gone, cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our nation till now; I never felt it till now: two thousand ducats in that; and other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of them? Why, so and I know not what's spent in the search: why, thou loss upon loss! the thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge: nor no ill luck stirring but what lights on my shoulders; no sighs but of my breathing; no tears but of my shedding.

Tub. Yes, other men have ill luck too: Antonio, as I heard in Genoa,—

Shy What, what, what? ill luck, ill luck?

Tub. Hath an argosy cast away, coming from Tripolis.

Shy.

I thank God, I thank God! Is't true, is't true?

Tub. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck

Shy. I thank thee, good Tubal: good news, good news! ha,

ha! where? in Genoa?

Tub. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, in one night fourscore ducats.

Shy. Thou stick'st a dagger in me: I shall never see my gold again fourscore ducats at a sitting! fourscore ducats! Tub. There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company to Venice, that swear he cannot choose but break. Shy. I am very glad of it; I'll plague him; I'll torture him: I am glad of it.

Tub. One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey.

Shy. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor: I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys. Tub. But Antonio is certainly undone.

Shy. Nay, that's true, that's very true: Go, Tubal, fee me an officer, bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I will. Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal. -Merchant of Venice, iii., 1.

TONE OF CHALLENGE.

(See Tone Drill No. 40.)

[The tone of Challenge manifests an aggressive self-confidence. It says, "I am not afraid to cope with you.

Come on."]

Matches and Over-matches.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

Matches and over-matches' Those terms are more applicable elsewhere than here, and fitter for other assemblies

than this.

Sir, the gentleman seems to forget where and what we are. This is a Senate; a Senate of equals; of men of individual honor and personal character, and of absolute independence. We know no masters; we acknowledge no dictators. This is a Hall for mutual consultation and discussion, not an arena for the exhibition of champions. I offer myself, Sir, as a match for no man; I throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet,

But, then, Sir, since the honorable member has put the question, in a manner that calls for an answer, I will give him an answer; and I tell him, that, holding myself to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know nothing in the arm of his friend from Missouri, either alone, or when aided by the arm of his friend from South Carolina, that need deter even me from espousing whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating whenever I may choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see fit to say, on the floor of the Senate.

Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation or compliment, I should dissent from nothing which the honorable member might say of his friend. Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my own. But, when put to me as matter of taunt, I throw it back, and say to the gentleman that he could possibly say nothing less likely than such a comparison to wound my pride of personal character. The anger of its tone rescued the remark from intentional irony, which, otherwise, probably, would have been its general acceptation.

But, Sir, if it be imagined that, by this mutual quotation and commendation; if it be supposed that by casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each his part,—to one, the attack; to another, the cry of onset; or, if it be thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory, any laurels are to be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that any or all these things shall shake any purpose of mine,

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