"Above all things, Liberty!" The political creed of Shelley may be
comprised in a few words; it was, in truth, that of most men, and in a
peculiar manner of young men, during the freshness and early springs of
revolutions. He held that not only is the greatest possible amount of
civil liberty to be preferred to all other blessings, but that this
advantage is all-sufficient, and comprehends within itself every other
desirable object. The former position is as unquestionably true as the
latter is undoubtedly false. It is no small praise, however, to a very
young man, to say that on a subject so remote from the comprehension of
youth his opinions were at least half right. Twenty years ago the young
men at our Universities were satisfied with upholding the political
doctrines of which they approved by private discussions. They did not
venture to form clubs of brothers and to move resolutions, except a small
number of enthusiasts of doubtful sanity, who alone sought to usurp by
crude and premature efforts the offices of a matured understanding and of
manly experience.
Although our fellow-collegians were willing to learn before they took upon
themselves the heavy and thankless charge of instructing others, there was
no lack of beardless politicians amongst us. Of these, some were more
strenuous supporters of the popular cause in our little circles than
others; but all were abundantly liberal. A Brutus or a Gracchus would have
found many to surpass him, and few, indeed, to fall short in theoretical
devotion to the interests of equal freedom. I can scarcely recollect a
single exception amongst my numerous acquaintances. All, I think were
worthy of the best ages of Greece or of Rome; all were true, loyal
citizens, brave and free. How, indeed, could it be otherwise? Liberty is
the morning-star of youth; and those who enjoy the inappreciable blessing
of a classical education, are taught betimes to lisp its praises. They are
nurtured in the writings of its votaries, and they even learn their native
tongue, as it were, at secondhand, and reflected in the glorious pages of
the authors, who in the ancient languages and in strains of a noble
eloquence, that will never fail to astonish succeeding generations,
proclaim unceasingly, with every variety of powerful and energetic phrase,
"Above all things, Liberty!" The praises of liberty were the favourite
topic of our earliest verses, whether they flowed with natural ease, or
were elaborated painfully out of the resources of art; and the tyrant was
set up as an object of scorn, to be pelted with the first ink of our
themes. How, then, can an educated youth be other than free?
Shelley was entirely devoted to the lovely theory of freedom; but he was
also eminently averse at that time from engaging in the far less beautiful
practices, wherein are found the actual and operative energies of
liberty. I was maintaining against him one day at my rooms the superiority
of the ethical sciences over the physical. In the course of the debate he
cried with shrill vehemence--for as his aspect presented to the eye much
of the elegance of the peacock, so, in like manner, he cruelly lacerated
the ear with its discordant tones--"You talk of the pre-eminence of moral
philosophy? Do you comprehend politics under that name? and will you tell
me, as others do, and as Plato, I believe, teaches, that of this
philosophy the political department is the highest and the most
important?" Without expecting an answer, he continued: "A certain
nobleman" (and he named him) "advised me to turn my thoughts towards
politics immediately. 'You cannot direct your attention that way too early
in this country,' said the Duke. 'They are the proper career for a young
man of ability and of your station in life. That course is the most
advantageous, because it is a monopoly. A little success in that line goes
far, since the number of competitors is limited; and of those who are
admitted to the contest, the greater part are altogether devoid of talent
or too indolent to exert themselves. So many are excluded, that, of the
few who are permitted to enter, it is difficult to find any that are not
utterly unfit for the ordinary service of the state. It is not so in the
church, it is not so at the bar; there all may offer themselves. The
number of rivals in those professions is far greater, and they are,
besides, of a more formidable kind. In letters, your chance of success is
still worse. There, none can win gold and all may try to gain reputation;
it is a struggle for glory--the competition is infinite, there are no
bounds--that is a spacious field indeed, a sea without shores!' The Duke
talked thus to me many times and strongly urged me to give myself up to
politics without delay, but he did not persuade me. With how unconquerable
an aversion do I shrink from political articles in newspapers and reviews?
I have heard people talk politics by the hour, and how I hated it and
them! I went with my father several times to the House of Commons, and
what creatures did I see there! What faces! what an expression of
countenance! what wretched beings!" Here he clasped his hands, and raised
his voice to a painful pitch, with fervid dislike. "Good God! what men did
we meet about the House, in the lobbies and passages; and my father was so
civil to all of them, to animals that I regarded with unmitigated disgust!
A friend of mine, an Eton man, told me that his father once invited some
corporation to dine at his house, and that he was present. When dinner was
over, and the gentlemen nearly drunk, they started up, he said, and swore
they would all kiss his sisters. His father laughed and did not forbid
them, and the wretches would have done it; but his sisters heard of the
infamous proposal, and ran upstairs, and locked themselves in their
bedrooms. I asked him if he would not have knocked them down if they had
attempted such an outrage in his presence. It seems to me that a man of
spirit ought to have killed them if they had effected their purpose." The
sceptical philosopher sat for several minutes in silence, his cheeks
glowing with intense indignation.
"Never did a more finished gentleman than Shelley step across a
drawing-room!" Lord Byron exclaimed; and on reading the remark in Mr
Moore's _Memoirs_ I was struck forcibly by its justice, and wondered for a
moment that, since it was so obvious, it had never been made before.
Perhaps this excellence was blended so intimately with his entire nature,
and it seemed to constitute a part of his identity, and being essential
and necessary was therefore never noticed. I observed his eminence in this
respect before I had sat beside him many minutes at our first meeting in
the hall of University College. Since that day I have had the happiness to
associate with some of the best specimens of gentlemen; but with all due
deference for those admirable persons (may my candour and my preference be
pardoned), I can affirm that Shelley was almost the only example I have
yet found that was never wanting, even in the most minute particular, of
the infinite and various observances of pure, entire and perfect
gentility. Trifling, indeed, and unimportant, were the aberrations of some
whom I could name; but in him, during a long and most unusual familiarity,
I discovered no flaw, no tarnish; the metal was sterling, and the polish
absolute. I have also seen him, although rarely, "stepping across a
drawing-room," and then his deportment, as Lord Byron testifies, was
unexceptionable. Such attendances, however, were pain and grief to him,
and his inward discomfort was not hard to be discerned.
An acute observer, whose experience of life was infinite, and who had been
long and largely conversant with the best society in each of the principal
capitals of Europe, had met Shelley, of whom he was a sincere admirer,
several times in public. He remarked one evening, at a large party where
Shelley was present, his extreme discomfort, and added, "It is but too
plain that there is something radically wrong in the constitution of our
assemblies, since such a man finds not pleasure, nor even ease, in them."
His speculations concerning the cause were ingenious, and would possibly
be not altogether devoid of interest; but they are wholly unconnected with
the object of these scanty reminiscences.
Whilst Shelley was still a boy, clubs were few in number, of small
dimensions, and generally confined to some specific class of persons. The
universal and populous clubs of the present day were almost unknown. His
reputation has increased so much of late, that the honour of including his
name in the list of members, were such a distinction happily attainable,
would now perhaps be sought by many of these societies; but it is not less
certain, that, for a period of nearly twenty years, he would have been
black-balled by almost every club in London. Nor would such a fate be
peculiar to him.
When a great man has attained to a certain eminence, his patronage is
courted by those who were wont carefully to shun him, whilst he was
quietly and steadily pursuing the path that would inevitably lead to
advancement. It would be easy to multiply instances, if proofs were
needed, and this remarkable peculiarity of our social existence is an
additional and irrefragable argument that the constitution of refined
society is radically vicious, since it flatters timid, insipid mediocrity,
and is opposed to the bold, fearless originality, and to that novelty
which invariably characterise true genius. The first dawnings of talent
are instantly hailed and warmly welcomed, as soon as some singularity
unequivocally attests its existence amongst nations where hypocrisy and
intolerance are less absolute.
If all men were required to name the greatest disappointment they had
respectively experienced, the catalogue would be very various; accordingly
as the expectations of each had been elevated respecting the pleasure that
would attend the gratification of some favourite wish, would the reality
in almost every case have fallen short of the anticipation. The variety
would be infinite as to the nature of the first disappointment; but if the
same irresistible authority could command that another and another should
be added to the list, it is probable that there would be less
dissimilarity in the returns of the disappointments which were deemed
second and the next in the importance to the greatest, and perhaps, in
numerous instances, the third would coincide. Many individuals, having
exhausted their principal private and peculiar grievances in the first and
second examples, would assign the third place to some public and general
matter.
The youth who has formed his conceptions of the power, effects and aspect
of eloquence from the specimens furnished by the orators of Greece and
Rome, receives as rude a shock on his first visit to the House of Commons
as can possibly be inflicted on his juvenile expectations, where the
subject is entirely unconnected with the interests of the individual. A
prodigious number of persons would, doubtless, inscribe nearly at the top
of the list of disappointments the deplorable and inconceivable
inferiority of the actual to the imaginary debate. It is not wonderful,
therefore, that the sensitive, the susceptible, the fastidious Shelley,
whose lively fancy was easily wound up to a degree of excitement
incomprehensible to calmer and more phlegmatic temperaments, felt keenly a
mortification that can wound even the most obtuse intellects, and
expressed with contemptuous acrimony his dissatisfaction at the cheat
which his warm imagination had put upon him. Had he resolved to enter the
career of politics, it is possible that habit would have reconciled him to
many things which at first seemed to be repugnant to his nature. It is
possible that his unwearied industry, his remarkable talents and vast
energy would have led him to renown in that line as well as in another;
but it is most probable that his parliamentary success would have been but
moderate. Opportunities of advancement were offered to him, and he
rejected them, in the opinion of some of his friends unwisely and
improperly; but, perhaps, he only refused gifts that were unfit for him:
he struck out a path for himself, and, by boldly following his own course,
greatly as it deviated from that prescribed to him, he became
incomparably more illustrious than he would have been had he steadily
pursued the beaten track. His memory will be green when the herd of
everyday politicians are forgotten. Ordinary rules may guide ordinary men,
but the orbit of the child of genius is essentially eccentric.
Although the mind of Shelley had certainly a strong bias towards
democracy, and he embraced with an ardent and youthful fondness the theory
of political equality, his feelings and behaviour were in many respects
highly aristocratical. The ideal republic, wherein his fancy loved to
expatiate, was adorned by all the graces which Plato, Xenophon and Cicero
have thrown around the memory of ancient liberty; the unbleached web of
transatlantic freedom, and the inconsiderate vehemence of such of our
domestic patriots as would demonstrate their devotion to the good cause,
by treating with irreverence whatever is most venerable, were equally
repugnant to his sensitive and reverential spirit.
As a politician Shelley was in theory wholly a republican, but in
practice, so far only as it is possible to be one with due regard for the
sacred rights of a scholar and a gentleman; and these being in his eyes
always more inviolable than any scheme of polity or civil institution,
although he was upon paper and in discourse a sturdy commonwealth-man, the
living, moving, acting individual had much of the senatorial and
conservative, and was in the main eminently patrician.
The rare assiduity of the young poet in the acquisition of general
knowledge has been already described; he had, moreover, diligently studied
the mechanism of his art before he came to Oxford. He composed Latin
verses with singular facility. On visiting him soon after his arrival at
the accustomed hour of one, we were writing the usual exercise, which we
presented, I believe, once a week--a Latin translation of a paper in the
_Spectator_. He soon finished it, and as he held it before the fire to
dry, I offered to take it from him. He said it was not worth looking at;
but as I persisted, through a certain scholastic curiosity to examine the
Latinity of my new acquaintance, he gave it to me. The Latin was
sufficiently correct, but the version was paraphrastic, which I observed.
He assented, and said that it would pass muster, and he felt no interest
in such efforts and no desire to excel in them. I also noticed many
portions of heroic verses, and even several entire verses, and these I
pointed out as defects in a prose composition. He smiled archly, and
asked, in his piercing whisper, "Do you think they will observe them? I
inserted them intentionally to try their ears! I once showed up a theme at
Eton to old Keate, in which there were a great many verses; but he
observed them, scanned them, and asked why I had introduced them? I
answered that I did not know they were there. This was partly true and
partly false; but he believed me, and immediately applied to me the line
in which Ovid says of himself--
'Et quod tentabam dicere, versus erat.'"
Shelley then spoke of the facility with which he could compose Latin
verses; and, taking the paper out of my hand, he began to put the entire
translation into verse. He would sometimes open at hazard a prose writer,
as Livy or Sallust, and, by changing the position of the words and
occasionally substituting others, he would translate several sentences
from prose to verse--to heroic, or more commonly elegiac, verse, for he
was peculiarly charmed with the graceful and easy flow of the latter--with
surprising rapidity and readiness. He was fond of displaying this
accomplishment during his residence at Oxford, but he forgot to bring it
away with him when he quitted the University; or perhaps he left it behind
him designedly, as being suitable to academic groves only and to the banks
of the Isis. In Ovid the facility of versification in his native tongue
was possibly in some measure innate, although the extensive and various
learning of that poet demonstrate that the power of application was not
wanting in him; but such a command over a dead language can only be
acquired through severe study.
There is much in the poetry of Shelley that seems to encourage the belief,
that the inspiration of the Muses was seldom duly hailed by the pious
diligence of the recipient. It is true that his compositions were too
often unfinished, but his example cannot encourage indolence in the
youthful writer, for his carelessness is usually apparent only. He had
really applied himself as strenuously to conquer all the other
difficulties of his art, as he patiently laboured to penetrate the
mysteries of metre in the state wherein it exists entire and can alone be
attained--in one of the classical languages.
The poet takes his name from the highest effort of his art--creation; and,
being himself a maker, he must, of necessity, feel a strong sympathy with
the exercise of the creative energies. Shelley was exceedingly deficient
in mechanical ingenuity; and he was also wanting in spontaneous curiosity
respecting the operations of artificers. The wonderful dexterity of
well-practised hands, the long tradition of innumerable ages, and the
vast accumulation of technical wisdom that are manifested in the various
handicrafts, have always been interesting to me, and I have ever loved to
watch the artist at his work. I have often induced Shelley to take part in
such observations, and although he never threw himself in the way of
professors of the manual erudition of the workshop, his vivid delight in
witnessing the marvels of the plastic hand, whenever they were brought
before his eyes, was very striking; and the rude workman was often
gratified to find that his merit in one narrow field was, at once and
intuitively, so fully appreciated by the young scholar. The instances are
innumerable that would attest an unusual sympathy with the arts of
construction even in their most simple stages.
I led him one summer's evening into a brickfield. It had never occurred to
him to ask himself how a brick is formed; the secret was revealed in a
moment. He was charmed with the simple contrivance, and astonished at the
rapidity, facility and exactness with which it was put in use by so many
busy hands. An ordinary observer would have smiled and passed on, but the
son of fancy confessed his delight with an energy which roused the
attention even of the ragged throng, that seemed to exist only that they
might pass successive lumps of clay through a wooden frame.
I was surprised at the contrast between the general indifference of
Shelley for the mechanical arts and his intense admiration of a particular
application of one of them the first time I noticed the latter
peculiarity. During our residence at Oxford I repaired to his rooms one
morning at the accustomed hour, and I found a tailor with him. He had
expected to receive a new coat on the preceding evening; it was not sent
home and he was mortified. I know not why, for he was commonly altogether
indifferent about dress, and scarcely appeared to distinguish one coat
from another. He was now standing erect in the middle of the room in his
new blue coat, with all its glittering buttons, and, to atone for the
delay, the tailor was loudly extolling the beauty of the cloth and the
felicity of the fit; his eloquence had not been thrown away upon his
customer, for never was man more easily persuaded than the master of
persuasion. The man of thimbles applied to me to vouch his eulogies. I
briefly assented to them. He withdrew, after some bows, and Shelley,
snatching his hat, cried with shrill impatience,--
"Let us go!"
"Do you mean to walk in the fields in your new coat?" I asked.
"Yes, certainly," he answered, and we sallied forth.
We sauntered for a moderate space through lanes and by-ways, until we
reached a spot near to a farmhouse, where the frequent trampling of much
cattle had rendered the road almost impassable, and deep with black mud;
but by crossing the corner of a stack-yard, from one gate to another, we
could tread upon clean straw, and could wholly avoid the impure and
impracticable slough.
We had nearly effected the brief and commodious transit--I was stretching
forth my hand to open the gate that led us back into the lane--when a
lean, brindled and most ill-favoured mastiff, that had stolen upon us
softly over the straw unheard and without barking, seized Shelley suddenly
by the skirts. I instantly kicked the animal in the ribs with so much
force that I felt for some days after the influence of his gaunt bones on
my toe. The blow caused him to flinch towards the left, and Shelley,
turning round quickly, planted a kick in his throat, which sent him
sprawling, and made him retire hastily among the stacks, and we then
entered the lane. The fury of the mastiff, and the rapid turn, had torn
the skirts of the new blue coat across the back, just about that part of
the human loins which our tailors, for some wise but inscrutable purpose,
are wont to adorn with two buttons. They were entirely severed from the
body, except a narrow strip of cloth on the left side, and this Shelley
presently rent asunder.
I never saw him so angry either before or since. He vowed that he would
bring his pistols and shoot the dog, and that he would proceed at law
against the owner. The fidelity of the dog towards his master is very
beautiful in theory, and there is much to admire and to revere in this
ancient and venerable alliance; but, in practice, the most unexceptionable
dog is a nuisance to all mankind, except his master, at all times, and
very often to him also, and a fierce surly dog is the enemy of the whole
human race. The farmyards in many parts of England are happily free from a
pest that is formidable to everybody but thieves by profession; in other
districts savage dogs abound, and in none so much, according to my
experience, as in the vicinity of Oxford. The neighbourhood of a still
more famous city--of Rome--is likewise infested by dogs, more lowering,
more ferocious and incomparably more powerful.
Shelley was proceeding home with rapid strides, bearing the skirts of his
new coat on his left arm, to procure his pistols that he might wreak his
vengeance upon the offending dog. I disliked the race, but I did not
desire to take an ignoble revenge upon the miserable individual.
"Let us try to fancy, Shelley," I said to him, as he was posting away in
indignant silence, "that we have been at Oxford, and have come back again,
and that you have just laid the beast low--and what then?"
He was silent for some time, but I soon perceived, from the relaxation of
his pace, that his anger had relaxed also.
At last he stopped short, and taking the skirts from his arm, spread them
upon the hedge, stood gazing at them with a mournful aspect, sighed deeply
and, after a few moments, continued his march.
"Would it not be better to take the skirts with us?" I inquired.
"No," he answered despondingly; "let them remain as a spectacle for men
and gods!"
We returned to Oxford, and made our way by back streets to our college. As
we entered the gates the officious scout remarked with astonishment
Shelley's strange spencer, and asked for the skirts, that he might
instantly carry the wreck to the tailor. Shelley answered, with his
peculiarly pensive air, "They are upon the hedge."
The scout looked up at the clock, at Shelley and through the gate into the
street, as it were at the same moment and with one eager glance, and would
have run blindly in quest of them, but I drew the skirts from my pocket
and unfolded them, and he followed us to Shelley's rooms.
We were sitting there in the evening at tea, when the tailor, who had
praised the coat so warmly in the morning, brought it back as fresh as
ever, and apparently uninjured. It had been fine-drawn. He showed how
skilfully the wound had been healed, and he commended at some length the
artist who had effected the cure. Shelley was astonished and delighted.
Had the tailor consumed the new blue coat in one of his crucibles, and
suddenly raised it, by magical incantation, a fresh and purple Phoenix
from the ashes, his admiration could hardly have been more vivid. It
might be, in this instance, that his joy at the unexpected restoration of
a coat, for which, although he was utterly indifferent to dress, he had,
through some unaccountable caprice, conceived a fondness, gave force to
his sympathy with art; but I have remarked in innumerable cases, where no
personal motive could exist, that he was animated by all the ardour of a
maker in witnessing the display of the creative energies.
Nor was the young poet less interested by imitation, especially the
imitation of action, than by the creative arts. Our theatrical
representations have long been degraded by a most pernicious monopoly, by
vast abuses and enormous corruptions, and by the prevalence of bad taste.
Far from feeling a desire to visit the theatres, Shelley would have
esteemed it a cruel infliction to have been compelled to witness
performances that less fastidious critics have deemed intolerable. He
found delight, however, in reading the best of our English dramas,
particularly the masterpieces of Shakespeare, and he was never weary of
studying the more perfect compositions of the Attic tragedians. The
lineaments of individual character may frequently be traced more certainly
and more distinctly in trifles than in more important affairs; for in the
former the deportment, even of the boldest and more ingenuous, is more
entirely emancipated from every restraint. I recollect many minute traits
that display the inborn sympathy of a brother practitioner in the mimetic
arts. One silly tale, because, in truth, it is the most trivial of all,
will best illustrate the conformation of his mind; its childishness,
therefore, will be pardoned.
A young man of studious habits and of considerable talent occasionally
derived a whimsical amusement, during his residence at Cambridge, from
entering the public-houses in the neighbouring villages, whilst the
fen-farmers and other rustics were smoking and drinking, and from
repeating a short passage of a play, or a portion of an oration, which
described the death of a distinguished person, the fatal result of a
mighty battle, or other important events, in a forcible manner. He
selected a passage of which the language was nearly on a level with vulgar
comprehension, or he adapted one by somewhat mitigating its elevation;
and, although his appearance did not bespeak histrionic gifts, he was able
to utter it impressively and, what was most effective, not theatrically,
but simply and with the air of a man who was in earnest; and if he were
interrupted or questioned, he could slightly modify the discourse, without
materially changing the sense, to give it a further appearance of reality;
and so staid and sober was the gravity of his demeanour as to render it
impossible for the clowns to solve the wonder by supposing that he was
mad. During his declamation the orator feasted inwardly on the stupid
astonishment of his petrified audience, and he further regaled himself
afterwards by imagining the strange conjectures that would commence at his
departure.
Shelley was much interested by the account I gave him of this curious
fact, from the relation of two persons, who had witnessed the
performance. He asked innumerable questions, which I was in general quite
unable to answer; and he spoke of it as something altogether miraculous,
that anyone should be able to recite extraordinary events in such a manner
as to gain credence. As he insisted much upon the difficulty of the
exploit, I told him that I thought he greatly over-estimated it, I was
disposed to believe that it was in truth easy; that faith and a certain
gravity were alone needed. I had been struck by the story, when I first
heard it; and I had often thought of the practicability of imitating the
deception, and although I had never proceeded so far myself, I had once or
twice found it convenient to attempt something similar. At these words
Shelley drew his chair close to mine, and listened with profound silence
and intense curiosity.
I was walking one afternoon in the summer on the western side of that
short street leading from Long Acre to Covent Garden, wherein the
passenger is earnestly invited, as a personal favour to the demandant, to
proceed straightway to Highgate or to Kentish Town, and which is called, I
think, James Street. I was about to enter Covent Garden, when an Irish
labourer, whom I met, bearing an empty hod, accosted me somewhat roughly,
and asked why I had run against him. I told him briefly that he was
mistaken. Whether somebody had actually pushed the man, or he sought only
to quarrel--and although he doubtless attended a weekly row regularly, and
the week was already drawing to a close, he was unable to wait until
Sunday for a broken head--I know not; but he discoursed for some time with
the vehemence of a man who considers himself injured or insulted, and he
concluded, being emboldened by my long silence, with a cordial invitation
just to push him again. Several persons, not very unlike in costume, had
gathered round him, and appeared to regard him with sympathy. When he
paused, I addressed to him slowly and quietly, and it should seem with
great gravity, these words, as nearly as I can recollect them:--
"I have put my hand into the hamper; I have looked upon the sacred barley;
I have eaten out of the drum! I have drunk and was well pleased! I have
said _Konx ompax_, and it is finished!"
"Have you, sir?" inquired the astonished Irishman, and his ragged friends
instantly pressed round him with "Where is the hamper, Paddy?" "What
barley?" and the like. And ladies from his own country--that is to say,
the basket-women, suddenly began to interrogate him, "Now, I say, Pat,
where have you been drinking? What have you had?"
I turned therefore to the right, leaving the astounded neophyte, whom I
had thus planted, to expound the mystic words of initiation as he could to
his inquisitive companions.
As I walked slowly under the piazzas, and through the streets and courts,
towards the west, I marvelled at the ingenuity of Orpheus--if he were
indeed the inventor of the Eleusinian mysteries--that he was able to
devise words that, imperfectly as I had repeated them, and in the tattered
fragment that has reached us, were able to soothe people so savage and
barbarous as those to whom I had addressed them, and which, as the
apologists for those venerable rites affirm, were manifestly well adapted
to incite persons, who hear them for the first time, however rude they may
be, to ask questions. Words, that can awaken curiosity, even in the
sluggish intellect of a wild man, and can thus open the inlet of
knowledge!
* * * * *
"_Konx ompax_, and it is finished!" exclaimed Shelley, crowing with
enthusiastic delight at my whimsical adventure. A thousand times, as he
strode about the house, and in his rambles out of doors, would he stop and
repeat aloud the mystic words of initiation, but always with an energy of
manner, and a vehemence of tone and of gesture that would have prevented
the ready acceptance, which a calm, passionless delivery had once procured
for them. How often would he throw down his book, clasp his hands, and
starting from his seat, cry suddenly, with a thrilling voice, "I have said
_Konx ompax_, and it is finished!"