Yet more impressive than any thing she said was the subtle magnetism
of character, for that has a universal language which all can
understand. They saw and felt that a genuine woman stood down there
among them like a sister, ready with head, heart, and hand to help
them help themselves; not offering pity as an alms, but justice as a
right. Hardship and sorrow, long effort and late-won reward had been
hers they knew; wifehood, motherhood, and widowhood brought her very
near to them; and behind her was the background of an earnest life,
against which this figure with health on the cheeks, hope in the
eyes, courage on the lips, and the ardor of a wide benevolence
warming the whole countenance stood out full of unconscious dignity
and beauty; an example to comfort, touch, and inspire them.
It was not a long speech, and in it there was no learning, no
statistics, and no politics; yet it was the speech of the evening,
and when it was over no one else seemed to have any thing to say. As
the meeting broke up Christie's hand was shaken by many roughened by
the needle, stained with printer's ink, or hard with humbler toil;
many faces smiled gratefully at her, and many voices thanked her
heartily.
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