ese simple strokes that the highest power belongs,
when a weak human hand touches, point by point, the eternal beams and
rafters on which the whole structure of Nature and society is laid. In
this tossing sea of delusion, we feel with our feet the adamant; in
this dominion of chance, we find a principle of permanence. For I do
not accept that definition of Isocrates, that the office of his art is
to make the great small 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 no