with all present, by a clear impress of their state and place, did
she seem prepared to rise to a higher stage of communion. Then she
listened, with ear finely vibrating to every tone, with all
capacities responsive in sympathy, with a swift and ductile power of
appreciation, that made her feel to the quick the varying moods of
different speakers, and yet the while with coolest self-possession.
Now and then a slight smile, flickering over her countenance, as
lightning plays on the surface of a cloud, marked the inward process
whereby she was harmonizing in equilibrium opposing thoughts. And,
as occasion offered, a felicitous quotation, pungent apothegm, or
symbolic epithet, dropped unawares in undertone, showed how swiftly
scattered rays were brought in her mind to a focus.

When her turn came, by a graceful transition she resumed the subject
where preceding speakers had left it, and, briefly summing up their
results, proceeded to unfold her own view. Her opening was deliberate,
like the progress of some massive force gaining its momentum; but as
she felt her way, and moving in a congenial element, the sweep of her
speech became grand. The style of her eloquence was sententious,
free from prettiness, direct, vigorous, charged with vitality.
Articulateness, just emphasis and varied accent, brought out most
delicate shades and brilliant points of meaning, while a rhythmical
collocation of words gave a finished form to every thought. She was
affluent in historic illustration and literary allusion, as well as
in novel hints. She knew how to concentrate into racy phrases the
essential truth gathered from wide research, and distilled with
patient toil; and by skilful treatment she could make green again the
wastes of common-place. Her statements, however rapid, showed breadth
of comprehension, ready memory, impartial judgment, nice analysis of
differences, power of penetrating through surfaces to realities, fixed