generation. "Why now? why for the season?" Quoth the Colonel, "He is
still in the prime of life as a public man, and--a CRISIS is at hand!"

But that which gave weight and significance to Alban Morley's hints
was the report in the newspapers of Guy Darrell's visit to his old
constituents, and of the short speech he had addressed to them, to which
he had so slightly referred in his conversation with Alban. True, the
speech was short: true, it touched but little on passing topics of
political interest; rather alluding, with modesty and terseness, to the
contests and victories of a former day. But still, in the few words
there was the swell of the old clarion, the wind of the Paladin's horn
which woke Fontarabian echoes.

It is astonishing how capricious, how sudden, are the changes in value of
a public man. All depends upon whether the public want, or believe they
want, the man; and that is a question upon which the public do not know
their own minds a week before; nor do they always keep in the same mind,
when made up, for a week together. If they do not want a man; if he do
not hit the taste, nor respond to the exigency of the time,--whatever his
eloquence, his abilities, his virtues, they push him aside or cry him
down. Is he wanted? does the mirror of the moment reflect his image?--
that mirror is an intense magnifier--his proportions swell; they become
gigantic. At that moment the public wanted some man; and the instant the
hint was given, "Why not Guy Darrell?" Guy Darrell was seized upon as
the man wanted. It was one of those times in our Parliamentary history
when the public are out of temper with all parties; when recognized
leaders have contrived to damage themselves; when a Cabinet is shaking,
and the public neither care to destroy nor to keep it,--a time too, when
the country seemed in some danger, and when, mere men of business held
unequal to the emergency, whatever name suggested associations of vigour,