The speeches that will find place in the selection suggested above will not enrapture the reader with the proud diction, learning, ornateness, and exquisite finish of Webster, but he will find them everywhere to be proofs of the dictum of Faust: "Es trägt Verstand and rechter Sinn Mit wenig Kunst sich selber vor; Und wenn's euch Ernst ist, was zu sagen, Ist's nöthig, Worten nachzujagen?"[57] He will also note that many of the wisest and most eloquent passages are almost the extreme of choice, but chaste and severe, expression. Here read aloud the passage as to Washington quoted above from the speech of March 4, 1850, and you will hardly dissent. America owes it to Calhoun to publish a cheap edition of his best speeches, and also of his "Dissertation on Government." A word as to the "Dissertation" and the "Discourse on the Constitution of the United States." The project of these two books lay close to his heart for many years. He intended them as his last admonitions to the people of the great republic. Doubtless the special object of his retirement was to finish them, but he had to return to the senate. What we have of the books was written in the little leisure which he snatched from the pressure of public duties, domestic affairs, and ill-health. The resoluteness with which, in the midst of these difficulties, he worked at the self-imposed task proves a lofty and unselfish love. He did not finish them to his satisfaction. Darwin did not do that with his epoch-making "Origin of Species," for he found there was no need to do so. I believe that, as the essentials of the belonging part of evolution are all to be found in the "Origin of Species," so all the essentials of Calhoun's great doctrine of government are fully set forth in his two books. To me the "Dissertation" seems complete. I note with pleasure that, though slowly, it is steadily climbing to the lofty height which is its due place in the world's estimation. And the "Discourse"--of which he did not live to finish the final draft--surely leads all the productions of the State sovereignty school. The providence which opposed his wishes was kind to his country, to the world, and to himself in calling him from his desk; for it allowed him to get Texas and Oregon for us, to give mankind his Oregon speech, and his last, and thus to finish his good work and make his fame full.