Its effects can be felt; it influences our actions; it controls and possesses us; but to define it, or tell what it is, or how it produces these effects, is as far beyond our power as to imprison the sunbeam.
Stevenson explores the elusive nature of influence, comparing it to the intangible quality of a sunbeam.
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More from Adlai Stevenson
We strive in vain to look beyond the heights.
We are here to erect this statue to his memory because of the unnumbered blessings to America and to the people of every race and clime which have followed his discovery.
From the establishment of the Government the question of human slavery was the one perilous question,--the one constant menace to national unity, until its final extinction amid the flames of war.
What page in our history tells of deeds so fraught with blessings to the generations of men as the discovery of America?