286 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



Cambridge at a festival which I will not particularise 

 further than to say it was partly solemn at first, and 

 broadened into good fellowship without any excess. 

 Songs were sung, and J. Mitchell Kemble, the subject 

 of Tennyson's early "Ode to J. M. K.," 1 gave time to 

 the chorus of one of the songs by raising his arm and 

 moving his glass. By those most simple gestures, he 

 drove us all into an enthusiasm, comparable with 

 that to which negroes are occasionally driven by an 

 accurately timed tom-tom. In one of Bulwer's novels, 

 the performer in a barn exercises equal power over 

 his audience by the movements of a stick. 



The human senses, when rythmically stimulated in 

 certain exact cadences, are capable of eliciting over- 

 whelming emotions not yet sufficiently investigated. 



1 Nephew of the two great actors, John Philip Kemble and of Mrs. 

 Siddons ; brother of Adelaide and of Fanny Kemble, and having at least 

 four other near relations who were noted actors. 



