He enjoyed the oratory of Messrs. Cowes and Cullen; he
liked to shout 'Hear, hear!' and to stamp when there was general
applause; it affected him with an agreeable sensation, much like
that which follows upon a good meal, to hear himself pitied as a
hard-working, ill-used fellow, and the frequent allusion to his
noble qualities sweetly flattered him. When he went, home to the
public-house after a lively debate, and described the proceedings to
his brother Nicholas, he always ended by declaring that it was 'as
good as a play.'
He read the 'Tocsin,' that is to say, he glanced his eye up and down
the columns and paused wherever he caught words such as 'villains,'
'titled scoundrels,' 'vampires,' and so on. The expositions of
doctrine he passed over; anything in the nature of reasoning muddled
him. From hearing them incessantly repeated he knew the root
theories of Socialism, and could himself hold forth on such texts as
'the community of the means of production' with considerable fluency
and vehemence; but in very fact he concerned himself as little with
economic reforms as with the principles of high art, and had as
little genuine belief in the promised revolution as in the
immortality of his own soul. Had he been called upon to suffer in
any way for the 'cause of the people,' it would speedily have been
demonstrated of what metal his enthusiasm was made.
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