Silent like the grave, and yet
melodious like the song of immortality upon the lips of cherubim, . . .
and thus it speaks: 'The day I commemorate is the rod with which the
hand of the Lord has opened the well of liberty. Its waters will flow;
every new drop of martyr blood will increase the tide; it will overflow
or break through. Bow, and adore, and hope.'" In the course of his
remarks he mentioned Gridley, Pollard, Knowlton and Warren, but he
appears not to have heard of Putnam and Prescott.
At Lexington he said he was inclined to smile at the controversy with
Concord, declaring that it was immaterial whether the fire of the
British was first returned at Lexington or Concord; that its was
immaterial whether those who fell at Lexington were "butchered martyrs,
or victims of a battle-field."
Kossuth was presented to Amariah Preston, aged ninety-four years, and
to Abijah Harrington, aged ninety-one years, veterans of the
Revolutionary war, and to Jonathan Harrington, then ninety-four years
of age, and the only survivor in Lexington of the action of April 19,
1775.
At Concord, Emerson said to the exile: "There is nothing accidental in
your attitude. We have seen that you are organically in that cause you
plead. The man of freedom, you are also the man of fate. You do not
elect, but you are elected by God and your genius to your task.
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