cation
Act had not long been passed, for it was the spring of '72 when Ishmael
began to take an active part in its administration in the West. He was
still a young man, but the happenings and circumstances of his life had
made for thoughtfulness, and association with his firebrand
brother-in-law was turning that thought into more definite channels than
formerly. Ishmael was becoming less a philosophic dreamer, and he began
to feel within himself the stirring of desire to do things. Not that he
had ever been idle, but his own little corner of the world and the
definite work he had had to do in it had hitherto filled the practical
part of life for him. Now that Cloom was so far set upon the upward way
as to allow him more liberty, bigger though not dearer ideas began to
germinate within him.

The years his youth had seen were stirring enough; the excitements and
scandals of the Crimean War, the chief topic during the time just before
he went to St. Renny, had been followed, in his first year there, by the
tragedy of the Mutiny and the wild stories that had filled the land at
the time. Then, even in Cornwall, the question of the liberation of
slaves had been a burning one, and that, combined with the sad tales of
distress caused in the North and Midlands, had made the American war a
live matter. Ever since he had heard Russell and Gladstone fighting for
the doomed Reform Bill of '66--heard, above all, Bright's magic flow of
words--the political world had held a reality for him it never had
before. Ever since he too had been swept with the crowds to Hyde Park on
that memorable day when the people of England had shown their will so
plainly he had felt within him a rising sense of the necessity of
reforms. Not till he met his brother-in-law, Dan, had it really become
clear to him that there lay his own path.... Up till then, after the
fashion of the young who have not been directly incited either by
upbringing or an exceptional temperament to deeds bigger than
themselves, he had been very engrossed with the personal life of himself
and those he knew. Whenever he had projected beyond that--as he did in a
degree incomprehensible to his family--it had been into the intangible
regions of the spirit.

Now, with the first fine rapture of youth already faded, but its
enthusiasm left burning for scope, with his emotional capacities
exhausted for a long time to come and his mind sickened of the intimate
matters of life, now he was r