A great character, founded on the living rock of principle is, in fact, not a solitary phenomenon, to be at once perceived, limited, and described. It is a dispensation of Providence, designed to have not merely an immediate, but a continuous, progressive, and never-ending agency. It survives the man who possessed it; survives his age,--and perhaps, his country, his language.
Edward EverettIn Italy, on the breaking up of the Roman Empire, society might be said to be resolved into its original elements, - into hostile atoms, whose only movement was that of mutual repulsion.
Edward EverettDoes it seem all but incredible to you that intelligence should travel for two thousand miles, along those slender copper lines, far down in the all but fathomless Atlantic; never before penetrated โฆ save when some foundering vessel has plunged with her hapless company to the eternal silence and darkness of the abyss? Does it seem โฆ but a miracle โฆ that the thoughts of living men โฆ should burn over the cold, green bones of men and women, whose hearts, once as warm as ours, burst as the eternal gulfs closed and roared over them centuries ago?
Edward Everett