nkind. There, providing he was a man of earnest purpose, his
soul swelled within him, and shone without. A breath of universal
philanthropy seized him, and filled his mind as the breeze fills the
sail; so long as his feet rested upon those four planks, he was a
stronger and a better man; he felt at that consecrated minute as if he
were living the life of all the nations; words of charity for all men
came to his lips; beyond the Assembly, grouped at his feet, and
frequently in a tumult, he beheld the people, attentive, serious, with
ears strained, and fingers on lips; and beyond the people, the human
race, plunged in thought, seated in circles, and listening. Such was
this grand tribune, from which a man addressed the world.

From this tribune, incessantly vibrating, gushed forth perpetually a
sort of sonorous flood, a mighty oscillation of sentiments and ideas,
which, from billow to billow, and from people to people, flowed to the
utmost confines of the earth, to set in motion those intelligent waves
which are called souls. Frequently one knew not why such and such a
law, such and such an institution, was tottering, beyond the frontiers,
beyond the most distant seas: the Papacy beyond the Alps, the throne of
the Czar at the extremity of Europe, slavery in America, the death
penalty all over the world. The reason was that the tribune of France
had quivered. At certain hours the quiver of that tribune was an
earthquake. The tribune of France spoke, and every sentient being on
this earth betook itself to reflection; the words sped into the
obscurity, through space, at hazard, no matter where,--"It is only the
wind, it is only a little noise," said the barren minds that live upon
irony; but the next day, or three months, or a year later, something
fell on the surface of the earth, or something rose. What had been the
cause of that? The noise that had vanished, the wind that had passed
away. This noise, this wind, was "the Word." A sacred force! From the
Word of God came the creation of human beings;--from the Word of Man
will spring the union of the peoples.

VI

WHAT AN ORATOR IS

Once mounted upon this tribune, the man who was there was no longer a
man: he was that mysterious workman whom we see, at twilight, walking
with long strides across the furrows, and flinging into space, with an
imperial gesture, the germs, the seeds, the future harvests, the wealth
of the approaching summer, bread, life.

He goes to