"No, thank Heaven," replied Harry fervently. "Don't you think that South Carolina has enough orators now? What on earth do all your people find to talk about?"
Langdon laughed with the utmost good nature.
"We fire the human heart," he replied. "'Words, words, empty words,' it is not so. Words in themselves are often deeds, because the deeds start from them or are caused by them. The world has been run with words. All great actions result from them. Now, if we should have a big war, it would be said long afterward that it was caused by words, words spoken at Charleston and Boston, though, of course, the things they say at Boston are wrong, while those said at Charleston are right."
Harry laughed in his turn.
"It's quite certain," he said, "that you'll have no lack of words yourself. I imagine that the sign over your future office will read, 'Thomas Langdon, wholesale dealer in words. Any amount of any quality supplied on demand.'"
"Not a bad idea," said Langdon. "You mean that as satire, but I'll do it. It's no small accomplishment to be a good dictionary. But my thoughts turn back to war. You think I never look beyond today, but I believe the North will come up against us. And you'll have to go into it with all your might, Harry. You are of fighting stock. Your father was in the thick of it in Mexico. Remember the lines:
"We were not many, we who stood
Before the iron sleet that day;
Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if he but could
Have been with us at Monterey."
"I remember them," said Harry, much stirred. "I have heard my father quote them. He was at Monterey and he says that the Mexicans fought well. I was at Frankfort, the capital of our state, myself with him, when they unveiled the monument to our Kentucky dead and I heard them read O'Hara's poem which he wrote for that day. I tell you, Langdon, it makes my blood jump every time I hear it."
He recited in a sort of low chant:
"The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are past.