Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/277

 much as when one's photograph used to be so leisurely taken by the imperfect science and art of five centuries before. The practised calm of the experienced public speaker of the twenty-fourth century could do this; and, without moving a muscle that was unconnected with speech, pour forth streams of impassioned eloquence. But, as with the old photographing of the nineteenth century, so the novice of the twenty-fourth would need artificial steadying, lest the features of his person and the sounds of his speech should be alike blurred by the imperfect focussing.

The youthful Victoria stood, in line with the many others, courageously by her pile. Ascending the rostrum with characteristic composure, when her turn to speak was announced, she made a first favourable impression by beginning her address at once without ceremony, and without requisition for any artificial aids. Most fair and winsome of look, and with the ever-attractive bearing of a direct simplicity of purpose, and withal still in the fresh youth of her teens, she quickly excited a general and lively interest throughout the vast audience. Leaving the favourable aspects of her pile to tell their own tale, she turned directly and solely upon the less favourable, as well with the delicate reserve which the case required, as with that judicious brevity, which, even then, five centuries back from to-day, was alone endurable, where so much other work of the busy world had to be crowded into its too brief and fleeting hours.

The defensive line was well chosen, for it was in entire accord with the sentiment of the time, although it might have sounded somewhat oddly from such a quarter some few centuries earlier. "If I may be