purity; come, youth, in thy prime; come, manhood, in thy strength; come, age, in

thy ripe wisdom; come, citizen; come, soldier; let us strew the roses and lilies

of June around his tomb, for he, like them, exhaled in his life Nature's

beneficence, and the grave has consecrated that life and given it to us all; let

us crown his tomb with the oak, the emblem of his strength, and with the laurel

the emblem of his glory, and let these guns, whose voices he knew of old, awake

the echoes of the mountains, that nature herself may join in his solemn requiem.

Come, for here he rests, and

 

On this green bank, by this fair stream, We set to-day a votive stone, That

memory may his deeds redeem? When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

 

--JOHN WARWICK DANIEL, on the unveiling of Lee's statue at Washington and Lee

University, Lexington, Virginia, 1883.

 

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

 

1. Why should humor find a place in after-dinner speaking?

 

2. Briefly give your impressions of any notable after-dinner address that you

have heard.

 

3. Briefly outline an imaginary occasion of any sort and give three subjects

appropriate for addresses.