The opera house, the night of Mr Murchison's final address
to the electors of South Fox, was packed from floor to
ceiling, and a large and patient overflow made the best
of the hearing accommodation of the corridors and the
foyer. A Minister was to speak, Sir Matthew Tellier, who
held the portfolio of Public Works; and for drawing a
crowd in Elgin there was nothing to compare with a member
of the Government. He was the sum of all ambition and
the centre of all importance; he was held to have achieved
in the loftiest sense, and probably because he deserved
to; a kind of afflatus sat upon him. They paid him real
deference and they flocked to hear him. Cruickshank was
a second attraction; and Lorne himself, even at this
stage of the proceedings, "drew" without abatement. They
knew young Murchison well enough; he had gone in and out
among them all his life; yet since he had come before
them in this new capacity a curious interest had gathered
about him. People looked at him as if he had developed
something they did not understand, and perhaps he had;
he was in touch with the Idea. They listened with an
intense personal interest in him which, no doubt, went
to obscure what he said: perhaps a less absorbing
personality would have carried the Idea further. However,
they did look and listen--that was the main point, and
on their last opportunity they were in the opera house
in great numbers.
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