they have hitherto so hopelessly mismanaged, you must expect to go on from had to worse; you must expect to lose the little prestige which you retain; you must expect to find in other portions of the world the results of the lower consideration that you occupy in the eyes of mankind; you must expect to be drawn, on, degree by degree, step by step, under the cover of plausible excuses, under the cover of highly philanthropic sentiments, to irreparable disasters, and to disgrace that it will be impossible to efface.  Lord Salisbury.

From “Speech on the Abandonment of General Gordon.”

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You will pardon me, gentlemen, if I say I think that we have need of a more rigorous scholastic rule; such an asceticism, I mean, as only the hardihood and devotion of the scholar himself can enforce.  We live in the sun and on the surface—­a thin, plausible, superficial existence, and talk of muse and prophet, of art and creation.  But out of our shallow and frivolous way of life, how can greatness ever grow?  Come now, let us go and be dumb.  Let us sit with our hands on our mouths, a long, austere, Pythagorean lustrum.  Let us live in corners and do chores, and suffer, and weep, and drudge, with eyes and hearts that love the Lord.  Silence, seclusion, austerity, may pierce deep into the grandeur and secret of our being, and so living bring up out of secular darkness the sublimities of the moral constitution.  How mean to go blazing, a gaudy butterfly, in fashionable or political saloons, the fool of society, the fool of notoriety, a topic for newspapers, a piece of the street, and forfeiting the real prerogative of the russet coat, the privacy, and the true and warm heart of the citizen!  Emerson.

From “Literary Ethics.”

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Sir, we are assembled to commemorate the establishment of great public principles of liberty, and to do honor to the distinguished dead.  The occasion is too severe for eulogy to the living.  But, sir, your interesting relation to this country, the peculiar circumstances which surround you and surround us, call on me to express the happiness which we derive from your presence and aid in this solemn commemoration.  Webster.

From “Laying the Cornerstone of Bunker Hill Monument.”

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All experience teaches that the requirements and impartial practise of the principles of civil and religious liberty can not speedily be acquired by the inhabitants, left to their own way, under a protectorate by this nation.  The experience of this nation in governing and endeavoring to civilize the Indians teaches this.  For about a century this nation exercised a protectorate over the tribes and allowed the natives of the country to manage their tribal and other relations in their own way.  The advancement in civilization, was very slow and hardly perceptible.  During the comparatively few years that Congress has by direct legislation controlled their relations to each other and to the reservations the advancement in civilization has been tenfold more rapid.  This is in accord with all experience.  The un-taught can not become acquainted with the difficult problems of government and of individual rights and their due enforcement without skilful guides.  Jonathan Ross.