accompanied and received, and advanced to the front, his large frame,
if I remember right, dressed in the blue coat with brass buttons and
buff vest usual to him on public occasions, which hung loosely
about the attenuated limbs and body. The face had all the majesty I
expected, the dome above, the deep eyes looking from the caverns, the
strong nose and chin, but it was the front of a dying lion. His colour
was heavily sallow, and he walked with a slow, uncertain step. His
low, deep intonations conveyed a solemn suggestion of the sepulchre.
His speech was brief, a recognition of the honour shown him, an
expression of his belief that the policy he had advocated and followed
was necessary to the country's preservation. Then he passed out to
Marshfield and the death-bed. What he said was not much, but it made
a strange impression of power, and here I am minded to tell an ancient
story. Sixty years ago, when I was ensconced in my smug youth, and
could "sit and grin," like young Dr. Holmes, at the queernesses of
the last leaves of those days, I heard a totterer whose ground was the
early decades of the last century, chirp as follows:

"This Daniel Webster of yours! Why, I can remember when he had a hard
push to have his ability acknowledged. We used to aver that he never
said anything, and that it was only his big way that carried the
crowd. I have in mind an old-time report of one of his deliverances:
'Mr. Chairman (_applause_), I did not graduate at this university
(_greater applause_), at this college (_tumultuous applause_),
I graduated at another college (_wild cheering with hats thrown
in the air_), I graduated at a college of my native State
(_convulsions of enthusiasm, during which the police spread
mattresses to catch those who leaped from the windows_).'"

That day in Faneuil Hall I felt his "big way" and it overpowered,