ration can
hardly produce an orator; and if, by some mysterious throw-back, an
orator actually is produced, he falls very flat. There was in my
college at Oxford a little 'Essay Society,' to which I found myself
belonging. We used to meet every Thursday evening in the room of this
or that member; and, when coffee had been handed round, one of us read
an essay--a calm little mild essay on one of those vast themes that no
undergraduate can resist. After this, we had a calm little mild
discussion 'It seems to me that the reader of the paper has hardly laid
enough stress on...' One of these evenings I can recall most
distinctly. A certain freshman had been elected. The man who was to
have read an essay had fallen ill, and the freshman had been asked to
step into the breach. This he did, with an essay on 'The Ideals of
Mazzini,' and with strange and terrific effect. During the exordium we
raised our eyebrows. Presently we were staring open-mouthed. Where were
we? In what wild dream were we drifting? To this day I can recite the
peroration. Mazzini is dead. But his spirit lives, and can never be
crushed. And his motto--the motto that he planted on the gallant banner
of the Italian Republic, and sealed with his life's blood, remains, and
shall remain, till, through the eternal ages, the universal air
re-echoes to the inspired shout--'GOD AND THE PEOPLE!'

The freshman had begun to read his essay in a loud, declamatory style;
but gradually, knowing with an orator's instinct, I suppose, that his
audience was not 'with' him, he had quieted down, and become rather
nervous--too nervous to skip, as I am sure he wished to skip, the
especially conflagrant passages. But, as the end hove in sight, his
confidence was renewed. A wave of emotion rose to sweep him ashore upon
its crest. He gave the peroration for all it was worth. Mazzini is
dead. I can hear now the hushed tone in which he spoke those words; the
pause that followed them; and the gradual rising of his voice to a
culmination at the words 'inspired shout'; and then another pause
before that husky whisper 'GOD AND THE PEOPLE.' There was no
discussion. We were petrified. We sat like stones; and presently, like
shadows, we drifted out into the evening air. The little society met
once or twice again; but any activity it still had was but the faint
convulsion of a murdered thing. Old wine had been poured into a new
bottle, with the usual result. Broken even so, belike, would be the