be found on very humble platforms, as well as on high ones.

In old countries, a high money-value is set on the services of men who
have achieved a personal distinction. He who has points to carry must
hire, not a skilful attorney, but a commanding person. A barrister in
England is reputed to have made twenty or thirty thousand pounds _per
annum_ in representing the claims of railroad companies before
committees of the House of Commons. His clients pay not so much for
legal as for manly accomplishments,--for courage, conduct, and a
commanding social position, which enable him to make their claims
heard and respected.

I know very well, that, among our cool and calculating people, where
every man mounts guard over himself, where heats and panics and
abandonments are quite out of the system, there is a good deal of
skepticism as to extraordinary influence. To talk of an overpowering
mind rouses the same jealousy and defiance which one may observe round
a table where anybody is recounting the marvellous anecdotes of
mesmerism. Each auditor puts a final stroke to the discourse by
exclaiming, "Can he mesmerize _me_?" So each man inquires if any
orator can change _his_ convictions.

But does any one suppose himself to be quite impregnable? Does he
think that not possibly a man may come to him who shall persuade him
out of his most settled determination?--for example, good sedate
citizen as he is, to make a fanatic of him? or, if he is penurious, to
squander money for some purpose he now least thinks of? or, if he is a
prudent, industrious person, to forsake his work, and give days and
weeks to a new interest? No, he defies any one, every one. Ah! he is
thinking of resistance, and of a different turn from his own. But what