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قراءة كتاب The Turning of Griggsby Being a Story of Keeping up with Dan'l Webster
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The Turning of Griggsby Being a Story of Keeping up with Dan'l Webster
THE TURNING OF GRIGGSBY
Being a Story of Keeping up with Dan'l Webster
By Irving Bacheller
Illustrated By Reginald Birch
Harper & Brothers Publishers New York And London
MCMXIII
THE TURNING OF GRIGGSBY
CHAPTER I
IT was a wonderful thing to see the way he rose and stepped forward, and stood before the people, and their cheering was like the shout of winds in a forest." So spake our old schoolmaster, Appleton Hall, as he told us of Daniel Webster and the famous Bunker Hill address.
His black eyes glowed as he went on: "There was something grand in the look of the man, for he was tall and strong-built, and stood straight as an arrow, and his soul was in his face. A godlike and solemn face it was, like that of St. Paul, as I think of him after reading the twelfth chapter of Romans. He had a wonderful authority in his face, and what a silence it commanded after that first greeting had passed, and before he had opened his mouth to speak. My eyes grew dim as I looked at him. He wore a blue coat, with bright brass buttons on it, and a buff waistcoat, and his great black-crested, swarthy head was nobly poised above his white linen. His dark eyes were deep set under massive brows. Now comes the first sentence of that immortal speech. His voice is like a deep-toned bell as he speaks with great deliberation the opening words: 'This uncounted multitude before me and around me proves the feeling which the occasion has excited.'
"Near him, and looking into his face, were two hundred veterans of the Revolution, some in their old uniforms, many crippled by wounds and bent by infirmities.
"It was a mighty thing to hear when he looked into their faces and said: 'Venerable men, you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bountifully lengthened out your lives that you might behold this joyous day.'
"Well I remember how, when he had ceased, the people were still for half a moment dreading to break the spell. Suddenly they were like a sea in a wind, although many held their places and were loath to go, and lingered awhile talking of the speech, and I among them. And I saw the vast crowd slowly break and go drifting away by thousands, and I fancied that some of the men held their heads a bit higher, and that certain of those near me were trying the Websterian tone. Since then that tone and that manner have become as familiar as the flag. At the inn I heard much talk of the great man—idle words which one may hear to this day and be none the wiser, but possibly much the worse for it.
"Some said that he always took a tumbler of brandy before he made a speech; but I observed that these gossipers had the odor of rum about them. There was, too, a relish of Me and Dan'l in all their talk. However, the tradition has come down to us, and had its effect in the life of this village, and of others like it. However well you may do, young men, there will be those seeking ever to pull you down to their level, and if they cannot move your character they will attack your reputation."
I have often thought of these words of the schoolmaster. They showed me some of the curious monkey traits of man. Through them I began to know Griggsby, to which I had lately come. I suddenly discovered that I was living in the Websterian age, and a high-headed, reverberating time it was.
But, first, let me introduce myself. People have always called me "Havelock, of Stillwater," though I am plain Uriel Havelock. I have little in my purse, but there are treasures in my memory, and I am trying here to give them to the world with all my joyous thoughts about them and never a feeling of ill will.
I write of that time when the fame of Webster was on every lip, although his soul had passed some twenty years before. All through the North, from the Atlantic to far frontiers beyond the Mississippi, men in beaver hats and tall collars were playing Daniel Webster. They dressed as he had dressed, and had his grand manners, while their diaphragms were often sorely strained in an effort to deliver his deep, resounding tones. The peace of most farms and villages was disturbed by Websterian shouts of ready-made patriotism from the lips of sires and sons.
Webster was a demi-god, in the imagination of the people, with a voice of thunder and an eye to threaten and command. Countless anecdotes celebrated his wit, his eloquence, and his supposed capacity for stimulants. He was not the only man of that period who suffered from the inventive talent of his successors. Powers of indulgence