I heard him more than once and was able to judge for myself of the
magical effect--the term is by no means too strong--which he produced
on the Italian crowd. It was a magnificent spectacle, which I shall
never forget. I then perceived for the first time in my life the
mysterious, incantatory, supernatural powers of great eloquence.

He would come forward wearing a languid, dejected and overburdened
air. The crowd, like all crowds awaiting their master, sat thronged at
his feet, silently humming, undecided, unshaped, not yet knowing what
it wanted or intended. He would begin; his voice was low, leisurely,
almost hesitating; he seemed to be painfully searching for his ideas
and expressions, but in reality he was feeling for the sensitive and
magnetic points of the huge and unknown being whose soul he wished to
reach. At the outset it was evident that he did not know exactly what
he was going to say. He swept his words across the assembly as though
they had been antennæ. They came back to him charged with sympathy
and strength and precise information. Then his delivery became more
rapid, his body drew itself erect, his stature and his very size
increased. His voice grew fuller; it became tremendous, seductive or
sarcastic, overwhelming like a hurricane all the ideas of his
audience, beating against the walls of the largest buildings, flowing,
through the doors and windows, out into the surging streets, there to
kindle the ardour and hatred which already thrilled the hall. His
face--tawny, brutal, ravaged, furrowed with shade and slashed with
light, powerful and magnificent in its ugliness--became the very mask,
the visible symbol of the furious and generous passions of the crowd.
At moments such as this, he truly merited the name which I heard those
about me murmuring, the name which the Italians gave him in that kind
of helpless fear and delight which men feel in the presence of an
irresistible force: he was "the Terrible Orator."