Then let it come; I have no dread
Of what is called for by the instinct of mankind.
[Cries of “Good!”]
Friends, that is what Lowell wrote in 1856. It is what we could put on our banners now in 1912.
And I appeal to the Massachusetts of Lowell’s time, to the Massachusetts that believed in the Bigelow papers, to the Massachusetts that sent young Lowell and Shaw, that sent Hallowell and so many of your people to the front in the Civil War.
I appeal to that Massachusetts to stand loyal now to the memories of Massachusetts’ great past.
And now just wait—only two more lines of poetry. One of the curious traits of many of our good friends who are at the moment our opponents is that they are entirely willing to pay heed to the loftiest democratic sentiments if you will only keep them as sentiments and not try to reduce them to prose.
EMERSON AND THE PEOPLE.
I think I could get every worthy citizen of the Back Bay who at present feels the deepest distrust of us to applaud with tepid decorum [laughter] the following two lines of Emerson, provided only that I merely read them, in the course of a lecture on Emerson, and did not ask to translate them into action. [Laughter and applause.] The lines are: