to for a couple of months or more. The
small schoolroom was filled by forms on which the people sat, and a
small reading-desk, with a tumbler of water on it, at the further end,
waited for me. When I took my seat, the couple of hundred eyes struck
into me a certain awe. I discovered in a moment why the orator of the
hustings is so deferential to the mob. You may despise every
individual member of your audience, but these despised individuals, in
their capacity of a collective body, overpower you. I addressed the
people with the most unfeigned respect. When I began, too, I found
what a dreadful thing it is to hear your own voice inhabiting the
silence. You are related to your voice, and yet divorced from it. It
is you, and yet a thing apart. All the time it is going on, you can be
critical as to its tone, volume, cadence, and other qualities, as if it
was the voice of a stranger. Gradually, however, I got accustomed to
my voice, and the respect which I entertained for my hearers so far
relaxed that I was at last able to look them in the face. I saw the
doctor and the clergyman smile encouragingly, and my half-witted
gardener looking up at me with open mouth, and the atrabilious
confectioner clap his hands, which made me take refuge in my paper
again. I got to the end of my task without any remarkable incident, if
I except the doctor's once calling out "hear" loudly, which brought the
heart into my mouth, and blurred half a sentence. When I sat down,
there were the usual sounds of approbation, and the confectioner
returned thanks, in the name of the audience.

ON VAGABONDS

Call it oddity, eccentricity, humour, or what you please, it is evident
that the special flavour of mind or manner which, independently of
fortune, station, or profession, sets a man apart and makes him
distinguishable from his fellows, and which gives the charm of
picturesqueness to society, is fast disappearing from amongst us. A
man may count the odd people of his acquaintance on his fingers; and it
is observable that these odd people are generally well stricken in
years. They belong more to the past generation than to the present.
Our young men are terribly alike. For these many years back, the young
gentlemen I have had the fortune to encounter are clever, knowing,
selfish, disagreeable; the young ladies are of one pattern, like minted
sovereigns of the same reign,--excellent gold, I have no doubt, but
each bearing the same