but capable of the most
accomplished and subtle variety--which for the first moment sent a
shudder of memory through Marcella.

Then she found herself listening with as much trepidation and anxiety as
though some personal interest and reputation depended for her, too, on
the success of the speech. Her mind was first invaded by a strong, an
_irritable_ sense of the difficulty of the audience. How was it possible
for any one, unless he had been trained to it for years, to make any
effect upon such a crowd!--so irresponsive, individualist, unfused--so
lacking, as it seemed to the raw spectator, in the qualities and
excitements that properly belong to multitude! Half the men down below,
under their hats, seemed to her asleep; the rest indifferent. And were
those languid, indistinguishable murmurs what the newspapers call
"_cheers_"?

But the voice below flowed on; point after point came briskly out; the
atmosphere warmed; and presently this first impression passed into one
wholly different--nay, at the opposite pole. Gradually the girl's ardent
sense--informed, perhaps, more richly than most women's with the
memories of history and literature, for in her impatient way she had
been at all times a quick, omnivorous reader--awoke to the peculiar
conditions, the special thrill, attaching to the place and its
performers. The philosopher derides it; the man of letters out of the
House talks of it with a smile as a "Ship of Fools"; both, when occasion
offers, passionately desire a seat in it; each would give his right hand
to succeed in it.

Why? Because here after all is power--here is the central machine. Here
are the men who, both by their qualities and their defects, are to have
for their span of life the leading--or the wrecking?--of this great
fate-bearing force, this "weary Titan" we call our country. Here things
are not only debated, but done--lamely or badly, perhaps, but still
_done_--which will affect our children's children; which link us to the
Past; which carry us on safely or dangerously to a Future only the gods
know. And in this passage, this chequered, doubtful passage from
thinking to doing, an infinite savour and passion of life is somehow
disengaged. It penetrates through the boredom, through all the failure,
public and personal; it enwraps the spectacle and the actors; it carries
and supports patriot and adventurer alike.

Ideas, perceptions of this kind--the first chill over--stole upon and
conquered Ma