They had expected, as an audience does expect in an unknown speaker, any one of the usual types of ordinary looking politicians--perhaps bald, perhaps grey headed, perhaps pink and fat--it did not matter; but they did not expect the magnetic personality of this young man of astonishing beauty, with his perfect features, wavy black hair, athletic build and laughing eyes, who seemed the embodiment of youth and joy and purpose and victory.
Before he spoke a word, he knew that he had them under his control, and he felt the great thrill of it.

Physically he had the consciousness of a blaze of light, of a bare barn of an ungalleried place, of thickly-set row upon row of faces, and a vast confused flutter of beating hands.

The applause subsided.

He turned with his "Mr.Chairman, Your Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen," to the circle behind him, caught Miss Winwood, his dearest lady's smile, caught and held for a hundredth part of a second the deep blue eyes of the Princess--she wore a great hat with a grey feather and a chinchilla coat thrown open, and looked the incarnation of all the beauty and all the desires of all his dreams--and with a flash of gladness faced the audience and plunged into his speech.
It began with a denunciation of the Little Englander.

At that period one heard, perhaps, more of the Little Englander than one does nowadays--which to some people's way of thinking is a pity.