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[236]
Deacon was nearly crazed by it. The men in the store began exclaiming and commenting upon it. “What a loss!”
says one. “Why, the Deacon will well-nigh break down under it,” says another.
And so they went on, speculating one after another, and the conversation drifted on in all sorts of conjectures.
At last, a quiet man, who sat spitting in the fire, looked up, and asked, “Did he hit the owl?”
[Tumultuous applause.] That man was made for the sturdy reformer, of one idea, whom Mr. Seward described.
No matter what the name of the thing be; no matter what the sounding phrase is, what tub be thrown to the whale, always ask the politician and the divine, “Did he hit that owl?”
Is liberty safe?
Is man sacred?
They say, Sir, I am a fanatic, and so I am. But, Sir, none of us have yet risen high enough.
Afar off, I see Carver and Bradford, and I mean to get up to them.
[Loud cheers.]
Lee and Shepard, 1891.
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