Nevertheless, there was not a man or woman present who did not declare that it was the greatest speech ever heard in Plattville; and they really thought so--to such lengths are loyalty and friendship sometimes carried in Carlow and Amo and Gaines.
He looked down upon the attentive, earnest faces and into the kindly eyes of the Hoosier country people, and, as he spoke, the thought kept recurring to him that this was the place he had dreaded to come back to; that these were the people he had wished to leave--these, who gave him everything they had to give--and this made it difficult to keep his tones steady and his throat clear.
Helen stood so far from the steps (nor could she be induced to penetrate further, though they would have made way for her) that only fragments reached her, but what she heard she remembered: "I have come home...

Ordinarily a man needs to fall sick by the wayside or to be set upon by thieves, in order to realize that nine-tenths of the world is Samaritan, and the other tenth only too busy or too ignorant to be.

Down here he realizes it with no necessity of illness or wounds to bring it out; and if he does get hurt, you send him to Congress....

There will be no other in Washington so proud of what he stands for as I shall be.

To represent you is to stand for realities--fearlessness, honor, kindness....