individuals, we mean--that
subtle, invisible power that acts from one upon another, and which when
aggregated is almost irresistible? You have felt it in a company moved
by a single impulse which carried you for a time with the rest, though
all your calmer convictions were in opposition to the movement. It has
kept you silent by its oppressive power when you should have spoken out
in a ringing protest, and it has borne you away on its swift or
turbulent current when you should have stood still and been true to
right. Again, in the company of good and true men, moved by the
inspiration of some noble cause, how all your weakness and hesitation
has died out! and you have felt the influence of that subtle sphere to
which we refer.

Everywhere and at all times are we exposed to the action of these
mental and moral spheres, which act upon and impress us in thousands of
different ways, now carrying us along in some sudden public excitement
in which passion drowns the voice of reason, and now causing us to
drift in the wake of some stronger nature than our own whose active
thought holds ours in a weak, assenting bondage.

You understand what we mean. Now take the pervading sphere of an
occasion like the one we are describing, and do you not see that to go
against it is possible only to persons of decided convictions and
strong individuality? The common mass of men and women are absorbed
into or controlled by its subtle power. They can no more set themselves
against it, if they would, than against the rush of a swiftly-flowing
river. To the young it is irresistible.

As Ellis Whitford, with Blanche leaning on his arm, gained the
supper-room, he met the eyes of his mother, who was on the opposite
side of the table, and read in them a sign of warning. Did it awaken a
sense of danger and put him on his guard? No; it rather stirred a
feeling of anger. Could she not trust him among gentlemen and
ladies--not trust him with Blanche Birtwell by his side? It hurt his
pride and wounded his self-esteem.

He was in the sphere of liberty and social enjoyment and among those
who did not believe that wine was a mocker, but something to make glad
the heart and give joy to the countenance; and when it began to flow he
was among the first to taste its delusive sweets. Blanche, for whom he
poured a glass of champagne, took it from his hand, but with only half
a smile on her lips, which was veiled by something so like pain or fear
that Ellis f