rance, as he had been for the
opposite in his youth. He possessed many pleasing traits of character, but
his morals were not commendable; he was a gambler and a spendthrift. Yet
he exercised a powerful influence on the politics of his times. This
extract is from a speech delivered during a truce in the long war between
England and France.
###

"But we must pause," says the honorable gentleman. What! must the bowels
of Great Britain be torn out, her best blood spilt, her treasures wasted,
that you may make an experiment? Put yourselves--Oh! that you would put
yourselves on the field of battle, and learn to judge of the sort of
horrors you excite. In former wars, a man might at least have some
feeling, some interest, that served to balance in his mind the impressions
which a scene of carnage and death must inflict.

But if a man were present now at the field of slaughter, and were to
inquire for what they were fighting--"Fighting!", would be the answer;
"they are not fighting; they are pausing." "Why is that man expiring? Why
is that other writhing with agony? What means this implacable fury?" The
answer must be, "You are quite wrong, sir, you deceive yourself,--they are
not fighting,--do not disturb them,--they are merely pausing! This man is
not expiring with agony,--that man is not dead,--he is only pausing! Bless
you, sir, they are not angry with one another; they have now no cause of
quarrel; but their country thinks that there should be a pause. All that
you see is nothing like fighting,--there is no harm, nor cruelty, nor
bloodshed in it; it is nothing more than a political pause. It is merely
to try an experiment--to see whether Bonaparte will not behave himself
better than heretofore; and, in the meantime, we have agreed to a pause,
in pure friendship!"

And is this the way that you are to show yourselves the advocates of
order? You take up a system calculated to uncivilize the world, to destroy
order, to trample on religion, to stifle in the heart not merely the
generosity of noble sentiment, but the affections of social nature; and in
the prosecution of this system, you spread terror and devastation all
around you.

Note.--In this lesson, the influence of a negative in determining the
rising inflection, is noticeable. See Rule V, p. 24.

XVI. MY EXPERIENCE IN ELOCUTION. (104)

John Neal. 1793-1876, a brilliant but eccentric American writer, was born
in Portland, Maine. He went into business, when