“These opponents of ours,” he said, “many of them in Parliament openly, and many of them secretly in the Press, have charged us with being the promoters of a dangerous excitement. They say we are the source of the danger which threatens; they have absolutely the effrontery to charge me with being the friend of public disorder. I am one of the people. Surely if there be one thing in a free country more dear than another, it is that any one of the people may speak openly to the people. If I speak to the people of their rights, and indicate to them the way to secure them, if I speak of their danger and the monopolies of power, am I not a wise counsellor, both to the people and to their rulers? Suppose I stood at the foot of Vesuvius or Etna, and, seeing a hamlet or a homestead planted on its slope, I said to the dwellers in that hamlet or in that homestead, ‘You see that vapour which ascends from the summit of the mountain? That vapour may become a dense black smoke that will obscure the sky. You see that trickling of lava from the crevices or fissures in the side of the mountain? That trickling lava may become a river of fire. You hear that muttering in the bowels of the mountain? That muttering may become a bellowing thunder, the voice of a violent convulsion that may shake half a continent. You know that at your feet is the grave of great cities for which there is no resurrection, as history tells us; that dynasties and aristocracies have passed away and their name has been known no more for ever.’ If I say this to the dwellers upon the slope of the mountain, and if there comes hereafter a catastrophe which makes the world to shudder, am I responsible for that catastrophe? I did not build the mountain, or fill it with explosive materials. I merely warned the men who were in danger.” As these words stand on the printed page it is not possible to gather from them their extraordinary influence upon the packed masses of the crowded hall. Throughout the whole passage his hearers were held as though by magnetic influence; and as he passed from image to image of the long metaphor he had adopted, there was a hushed stillness that was almost oppressive. Never prodigal of gesture, his slightest movement became for that reason the more significant and dramatic. The greater part of his speech had been delivered with the tips of his fingers just touching the table before him, content, for all accompaniment to the words he uttered, to rely upon the swiftly changing expression of his leonine face, which seemed to mirror in its noble dignity the very soul and spirit of the man.