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Mr. Dooley expressed the value of repetition and suggestion when he wrote: “I belave annything at all, if ye only tell it to me often enough.”

In public speaking and conversation there are many ideas which must be repeated over and over again before they obtain the proper maximum effect.

This has already been illustrated in the climax of Senator Thurston’s oration, “A Plea for Cuba,” where the repetition of the word “force” added greatly to the emphasis of the idea.

Of this character is Webster’s celebrated sentence, the climax of his great speech on “American Institutions.”

“Our government can stand trial, it can stand assault, it can stand adversity, it can stand persecutions, it can stand everything but the weakness of our own strength, it can stand everything but disorganization, disunion and nullification.”

The reiteration of the same word gives strength and consistency to the above sentence, and the word “stand” repeated again and again, comes at last to be like the blows of a hammer, riveting attention to the subject.

The following letter written by General Putnam to Sir Henry Clinton in 1777, is a wonderful example of terseness and repetition:

Edmund Palmer, an officer in the enemy’s service, was taken as a spy lurking within our lines. He has been tried as a spy, condemned as a spy, and shall be executed as a spy, and the flag is ordered to depart immediately.

Israel Putnam.

P. S.—He has accordingly been executed.

The last paragraph of the first inaugural of President Lincoln, wherein is concentrated faith, hope, love and charity for all, expressive of the great heart of the greatest of Americans, will fitly close this chapter.

It was the fourth of March, 1861. The South was already arrayed in arms against the government. Though saddened and depressed by the situation of brother arrayed against brother, Lincoln never faltered or relaxed his faith in the ultimate triumph of right and union, and closing in the following prophetic words that have no equal in our literature:

“I am loath to close. We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriotic grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of Union, when again touched, as they surely will be, by the better angels of our nature.”