Page:Modern Eloquence - Volume 1.djvu/92

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:—I have attended many New England dinners [laughter], I have eaten very few. [Laughter.] I think I have never attended one in which there has been such good speaking as to-night, and so much of it [laughter] ; and as I bear in memory a sentence from the Book with which I am supposed to be familiar [laughter], that "a full soul loatheth a feast," I do not propose to stuff you at this late period with a long speech [laughter], for I have been myself a sufferer under like circumstances. [Laughter.] It does seem a pity, and would to you if you had ever been speech-makers, to cut out an elaborate speech with weeks of toil in order that it may be extemporized admirably [laughter], and then to find yourself drifted so late into the evening that everybody is tired of speeches. What must a man under such circumstances do? As he abhors novelty, he cannot make a new one, and he goes on to make his old speech, and it falls still-born upon the ears of the listeners. I do not propose, therefore, to give you the benefit of all that eloquence that I have stored up for you to-night. [Laughter.] I merely say that if you had only heard the speech that I was going to deliver, you would pity me for the speech that I am now delivering. [Laughter.] One of the most precious elements of religious liberty is the right of a sensible man not to speak [laughter], or even to make a poor speech.