Recitations for the Social Circle

But let us consider this accomplishment as detached from public business, and from its wonderful efficacy in popular assemblies, at the bar, and in the senate; can anything be more agreeable, or more endearing in private life, than elegant language? For the great characteristic of our nature, and what eminently distinguishes us from brutes, is the faculty of social conversation, the power of expressing our thoughts and sentiments by words. To excel mankind, therefore, in the exercise of that very talent which gives them the preference to the brute creation, is what everybody must not only admire, but look upon as the just object of the most indefatigable pursuit.