Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays

[152] but when the speaking was once begun, we could no more communicate with the platform than if the Atlantic Ocean rolled between. There was then no private entrance to it, such as now exists, and in this seemingly slight architectural difference lay the failure of the whole enterprise, as will be presently seen.

Those of us who had been told off to be ready in Court Square went there singly, not to attract attention. No sign of motion or life was there, though the lights gleamed from many windows, for it happened — a bit of unlooked — for good fortune — that the Supreme Court was holding an evening session, and ordinary visitors could pass freely. Planting myself near a door which stood ajar, on the east side of the building, I waited for the trap to be sprung, and for the mob of people to appear from Faneuil Hall. The moments seemed endless. Would our friends never arrive? Presently a rush of running figures, like the sweep of a wave, came round the comer of Court Square, and I watched it with such breathless anxiety as I have experienced only twice or thrice in life. The crowd ran on pellmell, and I scanned it for a familiar face. A single glance brought the conviction of failure and disappointment. We had the froth and scum of the meeting, the fringe of idlers