crushed him down. You
would hold him back from prizes before which Olympian laurels fade,
for a fate before which a Helot slave might cower. His country in the
agony of her death-struggle calls to him for succor. All the blood in
all the ages, poured out for liberty, poured out for him, cries unto
him from the ground. All that life has of noble, of heroic, beckons
him forward. Death itself wears for him a golden crown. Ever since
the world swung free from God's hand, men have died,--obeying the blind
fiat of Nature; but only once in a generation comes the sacrificial
year, the year of jubilee, when men march lovingly to meet their fate
and die for a nation's life. Holding back, we transmit to those that
shall come after us a blackened waste. The little one that lies in his
cradle will be accursed for our sakes. Every child will be base-born,
springing from ignoble blood. We inherited a fair fame, and bays from
a glorious battle; but for him is no background, no stand-point. His
country will be a burden on his shoulders, a blush upon his cheek, a
chain about his feet. There is no career for the future, but a weary
effort, a long, a painful, a heavy-hearted struggle to lift the land
out of its slough of degradation and set it once more upon a dry place.

Therefore let us have done at once and forever paltry considerations,
with talk of despondency and darkness. Let compromise, submission, and
every form of dishonorable peace be not so much as named among us.
Tolerate no coward's voice or pen or eye. Wherever the serpent's head
is raised, strike it down. Measure every man by the standard of
manhood. Measure country's price by country's worth, and country's
worth by country's integrity. Let a cold, clear breeze sweep down from
the mountains of life, and drive out these miasmas that befog and
beguile the unwary. Around every hearthstone let sunshine gleam. In
every home let fatherland have its altar and its fortress. From every
household let words of cheer and resolve and high-heartiness ring out,
till the whole land is shining and resonant in the bloom of its
awakening spring.

A SPASM OF SENSE

The conjunction of amiability and sense in the same individual renders
that individual's position in a world like us very disagreeable.
Amiability without sense, or sense without amiability, runs along
smoothly enough. The former takes things as they are. It receives all
glitter as pure gold, and doe