Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/225

Rh seemed to possess the greatest share of public favour; and he is really an unusually gifted and agreeable speaker, carrying the public along with him, and seeming to know his own power of moving and electrifying them. A Mr. Quincy, a young man, of one of the highest families in Boston, spoke violently against anti-slavery people, and among others against his own eldest brother, now Mayor of Boston. But the public did not like his outbreak, especially against the Mayor, and hissed and clamoured terrifically. Mr. Quincy proceeded with still more violence, walking up and down the platform, his hands in the pockets of his coat-skirts, which he fluttered about, as if he enjoyed himself, and was fanned by the most agreeable of zephyrs.

At length the tumult and the cry of “Phillips!” “Wendel Phillips!” was so overpowering, that Mr. Quincy could not be heard. He paused, and beckoned with a smile to Wendel Phillips that he should take his place.

Phillips, a fair-complexioned young man, of a pleasing figure and very easy deportment, stepped forth, and was greeted with a salvo of clapping, after which a profound silence prevailed. Wendel Phillips spoke with the calmness and self-possession of a speaker who perfectly under stands both himself and his hearers, and he took up that subject which Miss Lucy had passed over; he spoke for the female slave, for the mother whose new-born child belongs not to her, but to the slave-holder and to slavery. He spoke of this with the low voice of suppressed emotion, and a simplicity of language, yet powerful enough to excite to the utmost the human heart against the circumstances and the mode of treatment which he described. It was masterly. The assembly hung on his lips and took in every word. Once, during an argument, he addressed my companion, Mr. Sumner, saying, “Is it not so, brother Sumner?” Sumner smiled, and nodded an affirmative.