is stricken down in the presence of the sentiments; their majesty is
felt by the most obdurate. It is observable, that, as soon as one acts
for large masses, the moral element will and must be allowed for, will
and must work; and the men least accustomed to appeal to these
sentiments invariably recall them when they address nations. Napoleon,
even, must accept and use it as he can.

It is only to these 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,