that he hated. In his attacks on Webster, Emerson trembles to his inmost
fibre with antagonism. He is savage, destructive, personal, bent on
death.

This exhibition of Emerson as a fighting animal is magnificent, and
explains his life. There is no other instance of his ferocity. No other
nature but Webster's ever so moved him; but it was time to be moved, and
Webster was a man of his size. Had these two great men of New England
been matched in training as they were matched in endowment, and had they
then faced each other in debate, they would not have been found to
differ so greatly in power. Their natures were electrically repellent,
but from which did the greater force radiate? Their education differed
so radically that it is impossible to compare them, but if you translate
the Phi Beta Kappa address into politics, you have something stronger
than Webster,--something that recalls Chatham; and Emerson would have
had this advantage,--that he was not afraid. As it was, he left his
library and took the stump. Mr. Cabot has given us extracts from his
speeches:--

"The tameness is indeed complete; all are involved in one hot haste
of terror,--presidents of colleges and professors, saints and
brokers, lawyers and manufacturers; not a liberal recollection, not
so much as a snatch of an old song for freedom, dares intrude on
their passive obedience.... Mr. Webster, perhaps, is only following
the laws of his blood and constitution. I suppose his pledges were
not quite natural to him. He is a man who lives by his memory; a man
of the past, not a man of faith and of hope. All the drops of his
blood have eyes that look downward, and his finely developed
understanding only works truly and with all its force when it stands
for animal good; that is, for property. He looks at the Union as an