Excerpt from The Orator's Touchstone The second conviction is, that the accomplishment of public speaking, instead of waving as a proud and attractive plume in the coronet of any peculiar class or profession, will soon become an universal attribute of the American people. Our faith in the justness of the first conviction, is founded on the fact that the instance is exceeding rare in which history, with her impartial pen, has recorded, or tradition, with its authentic voice, has reported, an example of any person failing to grasp the palm of eloquence, who aspired to it with a perseverance which never faltered, and who was endowed by nature with powers of a respectable grade. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.