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 antennae.  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.”

But all this power, which seemed so blindly released, was in reality extremely circumspect, extremely subtle and marvellously disciplined.  The handling of those shy though excited crowds called for the utmost prudence, as a certain French speaker, whom I will not name, but who wished to make a like attempt, learnt to his cost.  The Italian is generous, courteous, hospitable, expansive and enthusiastic, but also proud and susceptible.  He does not readily allow another to dictate his conduct, to reproach him with his shortcomings or to offer him advice.  He is conscious of his own worth; he knows that he is the eldest son of our civilization and that no one has the right to patronize him.  It is necessary, therefore, beneath the appearance of the most fiery and unbridled eloquence, to observe perfect self-mastery, combined with infinite tact and discretion.  It is often essential to divine instantaneously the temper of the crowd, to bow before the most varied and unexpected circumstances and to profit by them.  I remember, among others, a singularly prickly meeting at Naples.  The Neapolitans are hardly warlike people; but they none the less felt on this occasion that they must not appear indifferent to the generous movement which was thrilling the rest of Italy.  At the last moment, we were warned that we might speak of Belgium and her misfortunes,