Had he but spoken of backslidings in the wilderness! But for that fatal omission, the lecture was, of its kind, good.

By degrees Richard forgot his pose and the carefully struck note of mellowness; he began to believe what he was saying, and to say it with the right vigour of popular oratory.

Forget his struggles with the h-fiend; forget his syntactical lapses; you saw that after all the man had within him a clear flame of conscience; that he had felt before speaking that speech was one of the uses for which Nature had expressly framed him.

His invective seldom degenerated into vulgar abuse; one discerned in him at least the elements of what we call good taste; of simple manliness he disclosed not a little; he had some command of pathos.

In conclusion, he finished without reference to his personal concerns.
The chairman invited questions, preliminary to debate.
He rose half-way down the room,--the man who invariably rises on these occasions.