and the small great; but I esteem this to be its perfection,—when the orator sees through all masks to the eternal scale of truth, in such sort that he can hold up before the eyes of men the fact of today steadily to that standard, thereby making the great great and the small small,—which is the true way to astonish and to reform mankind.
All the first orators of the world have been grave men, relying on this reality. One thought the philosophers of Demosthenes's own time found running through all his orations,—this, namely, that "virtue secures its own success." "To stand on one's own feet" Heeren finds the keynote to the discourses of Demosthenes, as of Chatham.
Eloquence, like every other art, rests on laws the most exact and determinate. It is the best speech of the best soul. It may well stand as the exponent of all that is grand and immortal in the mind. If it do not so become an instrument, but aspires to be somewhat of itself, and to glitter for show, it is false and weak. In its right exercise, it is an elastic, unexhausted power,—who has sounded, who has estimated it?—expanding with the expansion of our interests and affections. Its great masters, whilst they valued every help to its attainment, and thought no pains too great which contributed in any manner to further it, and, resembling the Arabian warrior of fame, who wore seventeen weapons in his belt, and in personal combat used them all occasionally,—yet undervalued all means, never permitted any talent, neither voice, rhythm, poetic power, anecdote, sarcasm, to appear for show, but were grave men, who preferred their integrity to their talent, and esteemed that object for which they toiled, whether the prosperity of their country, or the laws, or a reformation, or liberty of speech or of the press, or letters, or morals, as above the whole world, and themselves also.
THE KINLOCH ESTATE, AND HOW IT WAS SETTLED.
[Concluded.]
CHAPTER XII.
The disappearance of Lucy Ransom did not long remain a secret; it rang through the town, and was accompanied by all sorts of rumors. Some thought she had eloped; but the prevailing opinion was, that she had been tempted into a fatal error, and then, in the frenzy of remorse and shame, had destroyed herself, in order to hide her disgrace from the world. Slight hints were now recalled by many of the poor girl's acquaintance,—hints of love, unrequited and hopeless,—of base and unfeeling treachery,—of remediless sorrow, appealing to the deepest sympathy, and not the less because her heart found utterance in rude and homely phrases. This idea of self-destruction gained the more currency because no one had seen the least trace of the girl after the twilight of the preceding night, and it was deemed improbable that she could have made her way on foot the whole distance to the railway-station without being seen by some one. And when it was reported that a boy had found a shawl not far from the dam, the public became so much aroused that it was determined to make a thorough search. The pond and canal were dragged, and the bank of the river carefully explored for miles below the town. The search was kept up far into the night, the leaders being provided with pitch-pine torches. At every bend, or eddy, or sand-bar, or fallen tree, where
