CHAPTER XXII.
There is nothing of which men take less heed than the infection of emotion, a thing as real as that mysterious influence which in some diseases leaps forth from one to another till all are in the same pain.
With the exception, perhaps, of the infection of fear, which societies have learnt to dread by tragic experience, man still fondly supposes that his emotions are his own, that they must rise and fall within himself, and does not know that they can be taken in full tide from another and imparted again without decrease of force.

May God send a healthful spirit to us all! for good or evil, we are part of one another.
There were a good many people who went up the mountain that night to find the enthusiasts, each with some purpose of interference and criticism.

They went secure in their own sentiments, but with minds tickled into the belief that they were to see and hear some strange thing.

They saw and heard not much, yet they did not remain wholly their own masters.

Perhaps the idea that Cameron's assembly would be well worth seeing was gleaned partly from the lingering storm, for an approaching storm breeds in the mind the expectation of exciting culmination, but long before the different seekers had found the meeting place, which was only known to the loyal-hearted, the storm, having spent itself elsewhere, had passed away.
There was an open space upon a high slope of the hill.