P. Trent, a
Virginian by birth, and a critic who has the southern point of view:
"_Uncle Tom's Cabin_ is alive with emotion, and the book that is alive with
emotion after the lapse of fifty years is a great book. The critic of today
cannot do better than to imitate George Sand when she reviewed the story on
its first appearance--waive its faults and affirm its almost unrivaled
emotional sincerity and strength."
ORATORY.--The orators of this period made their strongest speeches on
questions connected with human liberty and the preservation of the Union.
Most public speeches die with the success or the failure of the reforms
that they champion or the causes that they plead. A little more than half a
century ago, schoolboys declaimed the speeches of EDWARD EVERETT
(1794-1865), CHARLES SUMNER (1811-1874), and WENDELL PHILLIPS (1811-1884),
all born in Massachusetts, and all graduates of Harvard. But even the best
speeches of these men are gradually being forgotten, although a stray
sentence or paragraph may still occasionally be heard, such as Wendell
Phillips's reply to those who hissed his antislavery sentiments, "Truth
dropped into the pit of hell would make a noise just like that," or Edward
Everett's apostrophe to "that one solitary adventurous vessel, the
_Mayflower_ of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future
state and bound across the unknown sea.
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