The description of the feelings of
the murderer has a touch of the creative power, but, taken in conjunction
with the wonderful picture of the deed itself, the whole exhibits the
highest imaginative excellence, and displays the possession of an
extraordinary dramatic force such as Mr. Webster rarely exerted. It has the
same power of exciting a kind of horror and of making us shudder with a
creeping, nameless terror as the scene after the murder of Duncan, when
Macbeth rushes out from the chamber of death, crying, "I have done the
deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?" I have studied this famous exordium
with extreme care, and I have sought diligently in the works of all the
great modern orators, and of some of the ancient as well, for similar
passages of higher merit. My quest has been in vain. Mr. Webster's
description of the White murder, and of the ghastly haunting sense of guilt
which pursued the assassin, has never been surpassed in dramatic force by
any speaker, whether in debate or before a jury. Perhaps the most
celebrated descriptive passage in the literature of modern eloquence is the
picture drawn by Burke of the descent of Hyder Ali upon the plains of the
Carnatic, but even that certainly falls short of the opening of Webster's
speech in simple force as well as in dramatic power.
Pages:
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257