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The 6th Reader, Consisting of Extracts in Prose and Verse, With Biographical and Critical Notices of the Authors
The 6th Reader Consisting of Extracts in Prose and Verse With Biographical and Critical Notices of the Authors Author:George Stillman Hillard General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1876 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: I despair of giving you any idea of the effect by this short sentence, ualess you could perfectly conceive the whole manner of the man, aa well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before, did I completely under- 5 stand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher, his blindness constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton; and, associating with his performance the melancholy grandeur of 10 their genius, you are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody; you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the congregation were raised; and then, the few minutes of portentous, death- 15 like silence which reigned throughout the house: the preacher, removing his white handkerchief from his aged face, (even yet wet from the recent torrent of his tears,) and slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence, " Socrates died like a philosopher " 20 -- then pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both, clasped together, with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his " sightless balls " to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice -- " but Jesus Christ -- like a God!" If he had been indeed and in 25 truth an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine. XV. -- EXCUSES FOR A NEGLECT OF RELIGION. BUCKMINSTER. [joseph Stevens Bockminster was born May 26,1784, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire; was graduated at Harvard College in 1800, and w...« less