He
had taxed his memory and his intellect with various tasks, which,
as he feared, would not adjust themselves one with another. He had
learned the headings of his speech,--so that one heading might follow
the other, and nothing be forgotten. And he had learned verbatim the
words which he intended to utter under each heading,--with a hope
that if any one compact part should be destroyed or injured in its
compactness by treachery of memory, or by the course of the debate,
each other compact part might be there in its entirety, ready for
use;--or at least so many of the compact parts as treachery of
memory and the accidents of the debate might leave to him; so
that his speech might be like a vessel, watertight in its various
compartments, that would float by the buoyancy of its stern and bow,
even though the hold should be waterlogged. But this use of his
composed words, even though he should be able to carry it through,
would not complete his work;--for it would be his duty to answer in
some sort those who had gone before him, and in order to do this he
must be able to insert, without any prearrangement of words or ideas,
little intercalatory parts between those compact masses of argument
with which he had been occupying himself for many laborious hours.
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