Like one who was compounded of pure wisdom, you appear to have sprung from Jupiter's forehead completely armed. You have the voice and presence of the tribune; you add to the power of the demagogue a cool, elastic, and a subtle brain. I know not which to marvel at the more, your almost reckless courage, or that wonderful self-discipline which bends a courser so fiery to your lightest behest.
"You must bear with me in patience, Mr. Northcote, while I exhaust the stock of my superlatives; you see you have carried an old advocate away just as completely, nay, even more completely than you carried those honest laymen. This afternoon you furnished an old warrior, weary of the arena, with a few more of those priceless moments which he had not dared to hope again to enjoy. For over and above all your other qualities you have the divine gift which fuses every quality you possess. You have that sympathetic imagination which is the gift of heaven. It is a key which unlocks every bosom. The rich and the poor must alike bow before it. Things and men, Nature herself, even the universe itself, if you care to address your questions to it, can deny to you none of their secrets. The foreman of your jury, the divine mystic of the Galilean hills, was the man who was endowed with that rare jewel beyond all others; and he, as we read, carried the multitude from place to place and caused the sea to open that it might walk across."
The voice of the judge grew lower and lower. He had spoken very rapidly, and under the impetus of an excitement almost painful in one of his years.
