Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/234

 MARK TWAIN

Briinn, and was master of the situation. His speech was not formally prepared. He had a few notes jotted down for his guidance; he had his facts in his head ; his heart was in his work ; and for twelve hours he stood there, undisturbed by the clamor around him, and with grace and ease and confidence poured out the riches of his mind, in closely reasoned argu ments, clothed in eloquent and faultless phrasing.

He is a young man of thirty-seven. He is tall and well proportioned, and has cultivated and forti fied his muscle by mountain-climbing. If he were a little handsomer he would sufficiently reproduce for me the Chauncey Depew of the great New England dinner nights of some years ago; he has Depew s charm of manner and graces of language and delivery.

There was but one way for Dr. Lecher to hold the floor he must stay on his legs. If he should sit down to rest a moment, the floor would be taken from him by the enemy in the Chair. When he had been talking three or four hours he himself proposed an adjournment, in order that he might get some rest from his wearing labors; but he limited his motion with the condition that if it was lost he should be allowed to continue his speech, and if it carried he should have the floor at the next sitting. Wolf was now appeased, and withdrew his own thousand- times offered motion, and Dr. Lecher s was voted upon and lost. So he went on speaking.

By one o clock in the morning, excitement and noise-making had tired out nearly everybody but the orator. Gradually the seats of the Right underwent depopulation; the occupants had slipped out to the

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