Let the penalty for infringement in
the one case be to read the last President's Message, and in the other
to look at the Webster statue one hour a day, for a term not so long as
to violate the spirit of the law forbidding cruel and unusual
punishments.
Perhaps it is too much to expect of our legislators that they should
pass so self-denying an ordinance. They might, perhaps, make all oratory
but their own penal, and then (who knows?) the reports of their debates
might be read by the few unhappy persons who were demoniacally possessed
by a passion for that kind of thing, as girls are sometimes said to be
by an appetite for slate-pencils. _Vita brevis, lingua longa_. I protest
that among law-givers I respect Numa, who declared, that, of all the
Camenae, Tacita was most worthy of reverence. The ancient Greeks also
(though they left too much oratory behind them) had some good notions,
especially if we consider that they had not, like modern Europe, the
advantage of communication with America. Now the Greeks had a Muse of
Beginning, and the wonder is, considering how easy it is to talk and how
hard to say anything, that they did not hit upon that other and more
excellent Muse of Leaving-off.
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