* * * * *
Instantly under such an influence you ascend above the smoke and stir of
this small local strife; you tread upon the high places of the earth and
of history; you think and feel as an American for America; her power,
her eminence, her consideration, her honor, are yours; your competitors,
like hers, are kings; your home, like hers, is the world; your path,
like hers, is on the highway of empires; our charge, her charge, is of
generations and ages; your record, her record, is of treaties, battles,
voyages, beneath all the constellations; her image, one, immortal,
golden, rises on your eye as our western star at evening rises on the
traveler from his home; no lowering cloud, no angry river, no lingering
spring, no broken crevasse, no inundated city or plantation, no tracts
of sand, arid and burning, on that surface, but all blended and softened
into one beam of kindred rays, the image, harbinger, and promise of
love, hope, and a brighter day! RUFUS CHOATE.