e Indian perish from the land."

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 53: By Edward Everett, an American statesman and orator
(1794-1865).]

EXPRESSION: This selection and also the selections on pages 202,
209, and 231 are fine examples of American oratory, such as was
practiced by the statesmen and public speakers of the earlier years
of our republic. Learn all that you can about Patrick Henry, Daniel
Webster, Edward Everett, Theodore Parker, and other eminent
orators. Before attempting to read this selection aloud, read it
silently and try to understand every statement or allusion
contained in it. Call to mind all that you have learned in your
histories or elsewhere concerning the Indians and their treatment
by the American colonists. Now read with energy and feeling each
paragraph of this extract from Mr. Everett's oration. Try to make
your hearers understand and appreciate the feelings which are
expressed.

NATIONAL RETRIBUTION[54]

Do you know how empires find their end?

Yes. The great states eat up the little. As with fish, so with nations.

Come with me! Let us bring up the awful shadows of empires buried long
ago, and learn a lesson from the tomb.

Come, old Assyria, with the Ninevitish dove upon thy emerald crown! What
laid thee low?

Assyria answers: "I fell by my own injustice. Thereby Nineveh and
Babylon came with me to the ground."

O queenly Persia, flame of the nations! Wherefore art thou so fallen?
thou who trod the people under thee, bridged the Hellespont with ships,
and poured thy temple-wasting millions on the western world?

Persia answers: "Because I trod the people under me, because I bridged
the Hellespont with ships, and poured my temple-wasting millions on the
western world, I fell by my own misdeeds!"

And thou, muselike Grecian queen, fairest of all thy classic sisterhood
of states, enchanting yet the world with thy sweet witchery, speaking in
art, and most seductive in song, why liest thou there with thy beauteous
yet dishonored brow reposing on thy broken harp?

Greece answers: "I loved the loveliness of flesh, embalmed in Parian
stone. I loved the loveliness of thought, and treasured that more than
Parian speech. But the beauty of justice, the loveliness of love, I trod
down to earth. Lo! therefore have I become as those barbarian states,
and one of them."

O manly, majestic Rome, with thy sevenfold mural crown all