usa_) had just
concluded a set of airs whose sole excuse for existence was their
patriotic character, and Sir Thomas Wurzel (of Heycocks) was rising to
his feet, when our party appeared on the platform. Election fever was
running high by this time; the critical spirit was almost entirely
obliterated by a truly human desire to cut the preliminaries and hit
somebody in the eye; and we were greeted with deafening cheers.

Presently Champion was introduced and called upon to speak. He was
personally unknown to the crowd before him, although his name was
familiar to them. But in five minutes he had the entire audience in his
grip. He made them laugh, and he made them cheer; he made them breathe
hard, and he made them chuckle. There were moments when the vast throng
sat in death-like silence, while Champion, with his voice dropped almost
to a whisper, cajoled them as a woman cajoles a man. Then suddenly he
would blare out another battle-call, and provoke a great storm of
cheering. He made little use of gesture--occasionally he punctuated a
remark with an impressive forefinger, but he had the most wonderful
voice I have ever heard. I sat and watched him with whole-hearted
admiration. It is true that he was not doing our cause any particular
good. He had forgotten that he was there to make a party speech, to
decry his opponents, and crack up his friends. He was soaring away into
other regions, and--most wonderful of all--he was taking his audience
with him. He besought them to be men, to play the game, to think
straight, to awaken to a sense of responsibility, and to remember the
magnitude and responsibility of their task as controllers of an Empire.
He breathed into them for a moment a portion of his own great spirit;
and many a small tradesman and dull-souled artisan realised that night,
for the first (and possibly the last) time, that the summit of the
Universe is not composed of hides and tallow, and that there are higher
things than the loaves and fishes of party politics and the petty
triumphs of a contested election.

From a strictly tactical point of view all this was useless, and
therefore dangerous. But for a brief twenty minutes we were gods,
Utopians, Olympians, joyously planning out a scheme of things as they
should be, to the entire oblivion of things as they are. That is always
worth something.

Then he sat down, and we came to earth again with a bump, recollecting
guiltily the cause for which we were assemble