Let it be
included in the brief by all means." This is highly characteristic of one
of Mr. Webster's strongest attributes. He always saw with an unerring
glance "_the_ point" of a case or a debate. A great surgeon will detect the
precise spot where the knife should enter when disease hides it from other
eyes, and often with apparent carelessness will make the necessary incision
at the exact place when a deflection of a hair's breadth or a tremor of the
hand would bring death to the patient. Mr. Webster had the same
intellectual dexterity, the mingled result of nature and art. As the tiger
is said to have a sure instinct for the throat of his victim, so Mr.
Webster always seized on the vital point of a question. Other men would
debate and argue for days, perhaps, and then Mr. Webster would take up the
matter, and grasp at once the central and essential element which had been
there all along, pushed hither and thither, but which had escaped all eyes
but his own. He had preeminently
"The calm eye that seeks
'Midst all the huddling silver little worth
The one thin piece that comes, pure gold.
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