Which torpid now and chilly there abode,
Through every vacant artery may force
The green and joyous sap of thriving plants,—
Juice of crushed stalks mixed with their ropy gums,
And purpled bright with strength from berry and grape,
Full of a stinging, swift, and masterful
Vivacity.
For the blood of a declaimer of seventy does not travel so by ordinary ways. Nor can a declaimer, as he does, build up for the imagination an earth, with sky and mountains, within a little chapel, for the sake of showing how the lightning vaults and impales the unjust man. At other times his words rise up and circle and make fantastic architecture, as real as dreams, for the terror of the soul that for the time is forced to dwell therein. And though the substance of his sermon is but anecdote, biblical reference, exhortation, warning, picturesque logic built upon some simple religious theme, men and women weep under this divine bullying. A man, listening outside the chapel, put his hand to his head to make sure that his hat was on, so stiffly his hair stood up.
"Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth....
"He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet.