" Those who go deeper than the surface will
perhaps surmise that Harvard has had better material to work upon than
some colleges; not perhaps material of finer abilities, but material
that has been more under the influence of sweetness and light.
Possibly her graduates are as superior at making dinner speeches as
are her trustees in choosing professors.
A gentleman must make the happy dinner-speech, for only he can
perceive the proprieties of the situation. He will neither improve the
occasion to give the corporation advice as to the management of the
college, nor try to point out to a company of Unitarians the superior
advantages of the orthodox faith, nor exhibit to invited guests the
rags of his alma mater's poverty. He may, perhaps, avoid the
commonplace by so doing, but he will certainly transgress the rules of
propriety. The commonplace at a dinner, repeated every year under so
nearly similar conditions, cannot be avoided, but can be transformed
by the art of the master.
What could be more difficult than the duty of presiding at the dinner
of the New England Society and rehearsing the threadbare story of the
landing of the Pilgrims and dilating upon it in such a way as to
entertain New Englanders, who ever since their childhood have heard
the declamations of Webster, Everett, Winthrop, and the rest, about
that heroic band? Yet by a mixture of shrewd wit and eloquence Mr.
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