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. He was oldish, with bent shoulders, and wore
spectacles--probably a clerk of forty years' standing. In his hand
was a small note-book, which he consulted. He began with measured
utterance, emphatic, loud.
'I wish to propose to the lecturer seven questions. I will read them
in order; I have taken some pains to word them clearly.'
Richard has his scrap of paper on his knee. He jots a word or two
after each deliberate interrogation, smiling.
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