You will read of "applause" and "laughter,"
but you will little realize the eloquent blood flaming up the
speaker's cheek, the kindling of his eye, or the inexpressible
voice and look when the drolleries were coming out. When he spoke
of clap-trap books exciting astonishment 'in the minds of foolish
persons,' the evident halting at the word '_fools_,' and the smoothing
of his hair, as if he must be decorous, which preceded the change
to 'foolish persons,' were exceedingly comical. As for the flaming
bursts, they took shape in grand tones, whose impression was made
deeper, not by raising, but by lowering the voice. Your correspondent
here declares that he should hold it worth his coming all the way
from London in the rain in the Sunday night train were it only to have
heard Carlyle say, "There is a nobler ambition than the gaining of all
California, or the getting of all the suffrages that are on the planet
just now!"' In the first few minutes of the address there was some
hesitation, and much of the shrinking that one might expect in a
secluded scholar; but these very soon cleared away, and during the
larger part, and to the close of the oration, it was evident that he
was receiving a sympathetic influence from his listeners, which he
did not fail to return tenfold.
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