And what support had Lord Spencer
against all these foes--before him, around him--on all sides of him? On
the benches immediately behind him there was a small band of men--not
forty all told--looking strangely deserted, skeleton-like, even abashed
in all their loneliness and isolation. These were the friends--few but
faithful--amid all the hundreds, who alone had a word of cheer for Lord
Spencer in a long and trying speech he had to address to his
irreconcilable foes. But if there was any tremor in him as he stood up
in surroundings so trying, I was unable to detect it. Indeed, at the
moment he rose, there was something very fine and very impressive in his
figure. He is, as most people know, a man of unusual height; hard
exercise and the ride across country have kept him from having any of
that tendency to _embonpoint_ which destroys in middle age so many a
fine figure. On the contrary, there is not a superfluous ounce of flesh
on that tall, alert figure; it is the figure of a trained athlete rather
than the figure one would associate with a nobleman in the end of a
self-indulgent and ever-eating and over-drinking century. The features,
strong yet gentle, though far from regular, have considerable
distinction, and the flowing red beard makes the face stand out in any
assembly.
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