persing a crowd. No crowd could withstand his delirious vocabulary an hour. A convivial soul, unconsciously pouring over with the strangest fun, he was a bewildered theorist and a precarious politician. In his profession alone could one depend on him. There he was steady, intelligible, reliable, decidedly successful. At one time he was proprietor of the Waterford Chronicle and vehemently insisted on Repeal. His editor was an eccentric and fruitful genius, used a copious pen, and used it boldly. Though he died very dismally, and few followed him to the grave, poor Quarry Barron will not be forgotten in and around Waterford for many a year to come. His speeches, less startling in their imagery than those of Nash, were more solid in their matter and subtle in their wit. He died a Repealer. His employer, the incongruous attorney, the proprietor of the Chronicle, lives happily as a Whig in improved business as Queen's prosecutor at Quarter Sessions. Unworthy of an epitaph commemorative of patriotism, I trust he shall have one reminding the readers of his tombstone, that with all his vagaries in public life his good-fellowship in private was consistent, whilst the sobriety of the attorney made ample amends for the madness of the poet. -MEAGHER: Waterford. Subjects Sketch from life without tasteless exaggeration: A street band A newsboy. A stray dog. A tyrannical cook. A friend of younger days. The first actor you saw. 5. Few things in this vale of tears are more worthy of a pen of fire than an English boat-race is, as seen by the runners, of whom I have often been one. But this race I am bound to indicate, not describe; I mean to show how it appeared to two ladies seated on the Henley side of the Thames, nearly opposite the winning post. These fair novices then looked all down the river, and could just discern two whitish streaks on the water, one on each side of the little fairy isle; and a great black patch on the Berkshire bank. The threatening streaks were the two racing boats: the black patch was about a hundred Cambridge and Oxford men, ready to run and hallo with the boats all the way. Others less fresh and enduring, but equally clamorous, stood in knots at various distances, ripe for a shorter spell and run when the boats should come up to them. There was a long uneasy suspense. At last a puff of smoke issued from a pistol down at the island; two oars seemed to splash into the water from each white streak; and the black patch was moving; so were the threatening streaks. Presently was heard a faint, continuous, distant murmur, and the streaks began to get larger, and larger, and larger; and the eight splashing oars looked four instead of two. Every head was now turned down the river. Groups hung craning over it like nodding bulrushes. Next the runners were swelled by the stragglers they picked up; so were their voices; and on came the splashing oars and roaring lungs. Now the colors of the racing Jerseys peeped distinct. The oarsmen's heads and bodies came swinging back like one, and the oars seemed to lash the water savagely, like a connected row of swords, and the spray squirted at each vicious stroke. The boats leaped and darted side by side, and, looking at them in front, nobody could say which was ahead. On they came nearer and nearer, with hundreds of voices vociferating, "Go it, Cambridge!" "Well pulled, Oxford!" "You are gaining, hurrah!" "Well pulled, Trinity!" "Hurrah!" "Oxford!" "Cambridge!" "Now is your time, Hardie, pick her up!" "Oh, well pulled, six!" "Well pulled, stroke!" "Up, up!" "Lift her a bit!" "Cambridge!" "Oxford!" "Hurrah!" At that moment the boats, foreshortened no longer, shot out to treble the length they had looked hitherto, and came broadside past our fair spectators, the elastic rowers stretched like greyhounds in a chase, darting forward at each stroke so boldly they seemed flying out of the boats, and surging back as superbly, an eightfold human wave: their nostrils all open, the lips of some pale and glutinous; their white teeth all clinched grimly, their young eyes all glowing, their supple bodies swelling, the muscles writhing beneath their Jerseys and the sinews starting on each bare, brown arm, their shrill coxswains shouting imperiously at the young giants, and working to and fro with them, like jockeys at the finish; nine souls and bodies flung whole into each magnificent effort; water foaming and flying, row-locks ringing, crowd running, tumbling, and howling like mad; and Cambridge a boat's nose ahead. They had scarcely passed our two spectators, when Oxford put on a furious spurt and got fully even with the leading boat. There was a louder roar than ever from the bank. Cambridge spurted desperately in turn and stole these few feet back; and so they went fighting every inch of water. Bang! A cannon on the bank sent its smoke over both competitors; it dispersed in a moment, and the boats were seen pulling slowly toward the bridge, Cambridge with four oars, Oxford with six, as if that gun had winged them both. The race was over. But who had won our party could not see and must wait to learn. Note how details assume definite shape and multiply as the boats near the spectators. Subjects Have a similar growth in detail, telling of : The midnight express. The bombing airplanes. A riot. A fire engine. An election campaign. 6. It was fête-day in Tahiti. I sat, at sunrise, by the tideless margin of a South Sea lagoon, bristling with coral and glittering with gem-like fish; in either hand I held a mango and banana. Ĭ raised the mango to my lips. What a marvel it was! A plump vegetable egg, full of delusion, and stuffed with a horny seed nearly as large as itself. It had a fragrance as of oils and syrups; it purged sweet-scented and resinous gums. Its hide was, perhaps, too tough for convenience, but its inner lusciousness tempted me to persevere in the consumption of it. With much difficulty I broke the skin. Honey of Hymettus! It seemed as though the very marrow of the tropics were about to intoxicate my palate. Alas, for the hopes of youthful inexperience! What was so fair to see proved but a meagre mouthful of saturated wool! that colossal and horny seed asserted itself everywhere. The more I strove to handle it with caution, the more slippery and unmanageable it became. It shot into my beard, it leaped lightly into my shirt-bosom, and skated over the palms of both hands. Small rivulets of liquor trickled down my sleeves, making disagreeable puddles at both elbows. My fingers were webbed together in a glutinous mass. My whole front was in a shocking state of smear. My teeth grew weary of combing out the beguiling threads of the fruit. The thing seemed, to my imagination, a small, flat head, covered with short, blond hair, profusely saturated with some sweet sort of ointment, that I had despaired of feasting on; and I was not sorry when the slippery stone sprang out of my grasp, and peppered itself with sea-sand. I knew that there still remained to me a morsel that was of itself fit food for the gods. I poised aloft, with satisfaction, the rareripe banana, beautiful to the eye as a nugget of the purest gold. The pliant petals were pouting at the top of the fruit. I readily turned them back, forming an unique and convenient gilded salver for the column of flaky manna that was, as yet, swathed in lace like folds. These gaudy ribbons fell from it almost of their own accord, and hung in fleecy festoons about it. Here was a repast of singularly appropriate mould, being about the size of a respectable mouth, and containing just enough mouthfuls to satisfy temporarily the appetite. Not a morsel of it but was full of mellowness and sweet flavor and fragrance. Not an atom of it was wasted; for, no sooner had I thrown aside the cool, clean, fresh-like case, than it was made way with by a fowl, that had, no doubt, been patiently awaiting that abundant feast. Mangoes and bananas! Their very names smack of shady gardens, that know no harsher premonition of death than the indolent and natural decay of all things. The nostril is excited with the thought of them; the palate grows moist and yearns for them; and the soul feasts itself, for a moment, with a memory of mangoes and bananas past, whose perfection was but another proof of immortality, since it is impossible ever to forget them individually. Mangoes and bananas! the prime favorites at Nature's most bountiful board; the realization of a dream of the orchards of the Hesperides; alike excellent, yet so vastly dissimilar in their excellence, it seems almost incredible that the same beneficent Providence can have created the two fruits. STODDARD: South-Sea Idylls. Subjects Give more briefly with entirely new features a like vivid sketch of: Pork and beans, or other combinations of food. Sugar cane and cotton. Coal and iron. Peaches and cream. Wheat and corn. Maple sugar and honey. Army and navy. CHAPTER XIII SPEECH 88. A speech is a formal expression of one's thought by word of mouth. Conversation, even if one-sided, is informal. In lectures and school debates the purpose of the speech is to establish the truth of a proposition in the minds of the hearers (conviction); in other speeches the purpose is to excite the hearers to a resolution and to action (persuasion). An essay is something written for any one, but a speech is spoken by a definite person to a definite audience. An essay may suppose an imaginary hearer; a speech is addressed to an actual hearer, who should be directly talked to. Presumptuous to assert the freedom of the press on American ground! Is the assertion of such freedom before the age? So much before the age as to leave one no right to make it because it displeases the community? Who invents this libel on his country? It is this very thing which entitles Lovejoy to greater praise. The disputed right which provoked the Revolution - taxation without representation is far beneath that for which he died. (Here there was a strong and general expression of disapprobation.) One word, gentlemen. As much as thought is better than money, so much is the cause in which Lovejoy died, nobler than a mere question of taxes. James Otis thundered in this Hall when the King did but touch his pocket. Imagine, if you can, his indignant eloquence, had England offered to put a gag upon his lips. (Great applause.) -PHILLIPS: Lovejoy. Exclamations, questions, imperatives, the terms of spoken language like "one word more," ," "imagine"; the second person; the audience responding; the emphatic sentence; the emotional words, "thundered," "put a gag"; all these are traits of the speech. Take them away and there is an essay, something like this |