American orations that will live in history--Patrick Henry's at
Williamsburg, Abraham Lincoln's at Gettysburg and Wendell Philips' at
Faneuil Hall? A thousand martyrs to liberty lent eloquence to Henry's
lips; the hills of Gettysburg, all billowy with our noble dead, exhaled
the memories that anointed Lincoln's lips; while Lovejoy's spirit,
newly martyred at Alton, poured over Wendell Phillips' nature the full
tides of speech divine. Vicarious suffering explains each of these
immortal scenes.

Long, too, the scroll of humble heroes whose vicarious services have
exalted our common life. Recognizing this principle, Cicero built a
monument to his slave, a Greek, who daily read aloud to his master,
took notes of his conversation, wrote out his speeches and so lent the
orator increased influence and power. Scott also makes one of his
characters bestow a gift upon an aged servant. For, said the warrior,
no master can ever fully recompense the nurse who cares for his
children, or the maid who supplies their wants. To-day each giant of
the industrial realm is compassed about with a small army of men who
stand waiting to carry out his slightest behests, relieve him of
details, halve his burdens, while at the same time doubling his joys
and rewards. Lifted up in the sight of the entire community the great
man stands on a lofty pedestal builded out of helpers and aids. And
though here and now the honors and successes all go to the one giant,
and his assistants are seemingly obscure and unrecognized, hereafter
and there honors will be evenly distributed, and then how will the
great man's position shrink and shrivel!

Here also are the parents who loved books and hungered for beauty, yet
in youth were denied education and went all their life through
concealing a secret hunger and ambition, but who determined that their