Meanwhile, there is no rest to the silvery vocal utterances of your
companion: every object by the way furnishes a ready topic for
conversation. Just now you are passing an antiquated old mansion, and
your guide stops to tell you that in this house may have been committed
most strange and horrible murders, that, in spite of the tempestuous
mutterings heard on every side, ought now and here to be specially and
solemnly memorialized by human relation. A woman passes by, a perfect
stranger, but De Quincey steps entirely out of the road to one side,
takes off his hat, and in the most reverent attitude awaits her
passage,--and you, poor astonished mortal that you are, lest you should
yourself seem scandalously uncourteous, are compelled to do likewise. In
this incident we see what infinite majesty invested the very semblance
of humanity in De Quincey's thoughts: and something of the same
remarkable courtesy was manifested by Rufus Choate, who uniformly
addressed the lowest of women in the witness-box as if they were every
one of them worthy of the most queenly consideration.
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