Has changed his slow scythe for the two-edged sword, And is about to take, instead of sand, The dust from sepulchres to fill his hour-glass! Go not thou forth to-morrow! Lioni. Wherefore not? What means this menace? Bert. Do not seek its meaning, But do as I implore thee; stir not forth, Whate'er be stirring; though the roar of crowds The groans of men the clash of arms the sound Of rolling drum, shrill trump, and hollow bell, Peal in one wide alărum! Go not forth Until the tocsin 's silent, nor even then Till I return! Lioni. Again, what does this mean? Bert. Again I tell thee, ask not; but by all by all - but if not, thou art lost! Lioni. I am, indeed, already lost in wonder; Surely thou ravest! What have I to dread? Who are my foes? Or if there be such, why Art thou leagued with them! thou! or if so leagued, Why comest thou to tell me at this hour, And not before? Bert. I cannot answer this. Wilt thou go forth despite of this true warning? Lioni. I was not born to shrink from idle threats, The cause of which I know not: at the hour Bert. Say not so; Once more, art thou determined to go forth? Lioni. I am. Nor is there aught which shall impede me! Bert. Then Heaven have mercy on thy soul! Farewell! Lioni. Stay,- there is more in this than my own safety, Which makes me call thee back; we must not part thus: Bertram, I have known thee long. Bert. From childhood, sir, You have been my protector: in the days Its cold prerogative, we played together; Our sports, our smiles, our tears, were mingled oft; My father was your father's client, I His son's scarce less than foster-brother; years Ah me! the difference 'twixt those hours and this! As suits your station, the more humble Bertram Still Has proved to me, the poor plebeian Bertram. Would that thy fellow-Senators were like thee! Lioni. Why, what hast thou to say against the Senate? Bert. Nothing. Lioni. I know that there are angry spirits And turbulent mutterers of stifled treason, I have lost sight of thee, but thou wert wont Bert. Rather shame and sorrow light Which sweeps the soul deliriously from life! Li. Some villains have been tampering with thee, Bertram; This is not thy old language, nor own thoughts; Some wretch has made thee drunk with disaffection: But thou must not be lost so; thou wert good And kind, and art not fit for such base acts As vice and villainy would put thee to: Confess, confide in me: thou know'st my nature; That I should deem thee dangerous, and keep The house like a sick girl? Bert. Nay, question me no further; minutes fly, And thou art lost! Thou! my sole benefactor, The only being who was constant to me Through every change. Yet, make me not a traitor ! Let me save thee, — but spare my honor! Lioni. Where -- Can lie the honor in a league of murder? Bert. A league is still a compact, and more binding Lioni. And who will strike the steel to mine? I could have wound my soul up to all things Nay, more, the life of lives, the liberty once, once more, go forth. I do adjure thee, pass not o'er thy threshold ! I will disclose destroy O, what a villain I become for thee! Lioni. Say, rather thy friend's savior and the state's! Speak pause not Thy safety and thy welfare; wealth such as The state accords her worthiest servant; nay, Nobility itself I guarantee thee, So that thou art sincere and penitent. Bert. I have thought again: it must not be I love thee Thou knowest it that I stand here is the proof, Not least, though last; but having done my duty By thee, I now must do it by my country! IN HISTORY, MILITARY, TERRITORY, heed remarks, § 29; in DURABLE, DURING, GLORIOUS, VICTORIOUS, heed § 11 and § 28; AMOUNT, COUNT, FOUND, § 27; MONTHS, § 19. See in Index, COMBAT, COUNSELING or COUNSELLING, CRIMEAN, EUROPEAN, FRONTIER, HUMOR, OBLIGED, RUSSIA, LABOULAYE. Delivery. The style of this piece being calmly argumentative, it should be read with judicial deliberation, in a middle pitch, with pure tone, moderate time and force, and a frequent use of the falling slide. See §§ 48, 49. 1. THE United States is a republic. It is the freest government and at the same time the mildest and happiest that the earth has ever seen. On what depends this prosperity of the Americans? It is that they are alone upon an immense territory; they have never been obliged to concen'trate power and weaken liberty in order to resist the ambition and the jealousy of their neighbors. 2. The United States had no large permanent army, no military marine; the immense sums that Europeans spend to keep off or to sustain war, the Americans employed in opening schools and giving to all citizens, poor or well off, that education and instruction which make the moral greatness and true riches of a people. Their foreign policy was contained in a single maxim: "Never to mix in the quarrels of Europe, on the single condition that Europe should not mingle in their affairs and should respect the freedom of the sea." 3. Thanks to these wise principles, which Washington had bequeathed to them in his immortal testament, the United States have enjoyed, during eighty years, a peace which has been only once disturbed, in 1812, when they were compelled to resist England, in support of the rights of neutrals. It is by thousands of millions that we must count the sums that during seventy years we of France have employed in maintaining our liberty or our preponderance in Europe; such millions the United States have employed in social improvements of every kind. Here is the secret of their prodigious success; their isolation has made their prosperity. 4. Suppose now that a separation should be made, and that the new Confederation should embrace all the Slave States; the North would lose in a day its power and its institutions. The republic would be struck to the heart. There would be in America two nations face to face; two people, rivals, and always upon the eve of combat. Peace, in fact, would not destroy enmities; the remembrances of past grandeur, of the destroyed Union, would not be effaced; the victorious South would certainly be no less the friend of slavery, no less a lover of domination. The enemies of slavery, masters of their own policy, would not certainly be quieted by the separation. |