In fact, as I afterwards learnt, he had given for his text one which the simple rustics received in all respect, as coming from a higher and holier volume than Shakspeare-- "Mercy is twice blessed: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest." And on that text did he dilate; gradually warming with his subject, till his gestures--which at first had seemed burthened with a queer constraint, that now and then resulted in an irrepressible twitch of the corners of his flexible mouth--became those of a man beguiled into real earnestness.

We of Norton Bury had never heard such eloquence.
"Who CAN he be, John?
Isn't it wonderful ?" But John never heard me.

His whole attention was riveted on the speaker.

Such oratory--a compound of graceful action, polished language, and brilliant imagination, came to him as a positive revelation, a revelation from the world of intellect, the world which he longed after with all the ardour of youth.
What that harangue would have seemed like, could we have heard it with maturer ears, I know not; but at eighteen and twenty it literally dazzled us.

No wonder it affected the rest of the audience.