Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays

It was my first experience of French public oratory; and while I was aware of the resources of the language and the sympathetic power of the race, I was not prepared to see these so superbly conspicuous in public meetings. The ordinary appreciation of eloquence among the French seemed pitched in the key of our greatest enthusiasm, with the difference that their applause was given to the form as well as to the substance, and was given with the hands only, never with the feet. Even in its aspect the audience was the most noticeable I ever saw: the platform and the five galleries were filled almost wholly with men, and these of singularly thoughtful and distinguished bearing,--an assembly certainly superior to Parliament or Congress in its look of intellect. A very few were in the blouse of the ouvrier, and there was all over the house an amount of talking that sounded like vehement quarreling, though it was merely good — natured chatter. There were only French people and French words around me, and though my immediate companion was from the provinces and knew nobody, yet there was on the other side a very handsome man, full of zeal and replete with