IV.

“Slowly fades the sunset light, Slowly round me falls the night.

Gone the Isle, and distant far All its loves and glories are:

Yet forever, in my mind, Still will sigh the wandering wind,

And the music of the seas, ’Mid the lonely Hebrides.”

(Very great applause.)

Later in the evening Dr. Watson declared that Mr. Winter’s speech was the most beautiful he had ever heard.

I offered Dr. Watson $24,000 if he would give me twelve more weeks. I never could understand why he did not go on, excepting that he had promised his people he would come back, and he considered a promise worth more than $24,000--this, too, at the close of the nineteenth century, although many of his parishioners told me afterward that they would have been glad to have had him remain longer if he wished.

The doctor had such confidence in human nature that he would believe the very first man he met, a rather amusing instance of which occurred during our visit to Poughkeepsie.

We arrived there shortly after noon on the 9th of December, and were met at the station by the editor and owner of a prominent Poughkeepsie paper, with whom Dr. Watson and I were to dine at one o’clock. As we were being driven from the station to his house, our host began entertaining his guest by regretting that he was to have a small audience, because the lecture had not been properly advertised. This reminded me that when I had first announced that Dr. Watson was going to Poughkeepsie, this gentleman had written me asking if I had not better devote some extra space to advertising in his paper, to which I replied that the manager of the Opera House attended to that matter for me, and that whatever he did went.

I said to the gentleman, “Is there no interest here?”

He said, “None whatever. No advertising has been done.”

The doctor seemed chopfallen and showed me a rather unkind look, as he had been hurried around in a lively manner that day. I didn’t discuss the matter very extensively with our host, but on our way to his house I noticed that my three sheet posters announcing Dr. Watson were on all the bulletin boards, and that lithographs appeared in many of the windows along the streets through which we were driving. I called his attention to this, but he remarked that that kind of advertising had no effect in Poughkeepsie. We arrived at his house, where a number of local ministers and private friends were assembled to meet Dr. Watson at dinner. It was not the kind of meeting that would naturally inspire a man who had been speaking three times a day and travelling between times. I begged to be excused, and asked our host, inasmuch as he was to preside and introduce Dr. Watson, if he would see to getting him to the Opera House at two o’clock, saying that if he would do so, I would go and look after the business. On my arrival at the Opera House at 1:30 I found it packed with people. I hurried to the box office, and the manager told me that he was in trouble, as he had sold every seat in the house, and some of his best patrons, supposing, of course, there would be no difficulty in securing seats, were bitterly disappointed; that he was trying to arrange some chairs for them on the stage, but that they had some hesitancy in going there.

“Your house is sold out?” said I.

“Yes, everything, Major. It is the greatest rush we have had for a long time.”

By two o’clock the house was entirely seated. There were many on the stage, and all the standing room in the galleries was occupied. The manager, against my wishes, made the prices 50 cents, 75 cents, and $1, which precluded there being a very large money house. It was a cold December day, and the disappointed ones hurried away from the theatre, so that when Dr. Watson and his host drove up there was not a soul in sight. When they entered the lobby I said to the editor:

“Will you please step right through the lobby to the stage? There are no more people expected, and you might as well begin at once.”

He looked around to Dr. Watson, as much as to say: “You see, Doctor, it is as I told you; you have not been advertised.” Then the Doctor gave me a very rebukeful look, and I said:

“Please go on, Doctor. I remember what Mr. Beecher once said to me when I told him there was a very small audience in front. He replied: ‘That is not my part of it; but I will try to give them a little better lecture.’”

The gentleman led the Doctor through the alley to the stage door and on to the stage, and as they stepped into view the sight must have astonished him.

The presence of “Ian Maclaren” of course brought a demonstration from that eager audience such as no man but he has ever heard in Poughkeepsie. He was unprepared for the ovation, and I thought that he was rather at his wits’ end to collect himself in order to begin as he wished. But he never was in a more delightful atmosphere. Poughkeepsie’s best, and all of the Vassar girls, were there. There is an intelligent public in that Hudson River town, a fact that is known nowhere better than among themselves. After the performance many rushed to the stage and congratulated the Doctor.

“How is this?” I asked the gentleman who had been so doubtful as to the size of the audience that would turn out to hear Dr. Watson.

His reply was: “Major Pond, where in the world did these people come from?”

“Why,” I said, “somebody has told them about it. We don’t have to advertise ‘Ian Maclaren.’ You just tell somebody he is coming, and he tells somebody else, and so it spreads around. I have just paid a bill of $60 for advertising this lecture, so you see even newspaper men are sometimes mistaken.”

“How many people are there in here?” he asked, and I said:

“I don’t know exactly how many, but there is over $1,000 in the house, at $0.50, $0.75, and $1.”

“Well, Major,” he replied, “this is the greatest thing I have ever known in this city. Now, we want to take the Doctor out to Vassar.”

“Oh, my dear sir, do let the Doctor have one hour’s rest before he takes the train for Kingston to-night. He has been on the move every moment, night and day, for the last two weeks. Won’t you be merciful and let him rest quietly here in the green room?”

No, he could not do that; he had promised President Taylor to take him out to Vassar, and had a carriage in waiting. The Doctor finally yielded. We got into an old, cold, rickety carriage, with a pair of poor horses, and in that chilly afternoon drove four miles, not even having a lap robe. When we were in the carriage and started for Vassar College the Doctor said:

“Well, Major, it might have been worse.”

“Yes,” I said, “Doctor, it might have been worse. We have got over $750 out of that $3 telegram which I sent some time ago, you will remember--and from utilizing the hours your New York friend wanted for a breakfast.” Dr. Watson showed an expression of genuine satisfaction.

Arrived at the college, there was just time to be introduced to President Taylor, see the pretty chapel of which they are so proud, a dormitory, and one or two classrooms. We drove back to the station, urging the driver and the poor horses to the extent of their capabilities, arriving there just in time to catch the train to Rhinecliff, which connected with the steamer to Rondout and the trolley cars to Kingston, arriving at 7:30 P.M. We had dinner, and at eight o’clock “Ian Maclaren” was addressing another great crowd.

No better description of a lively week’s work can be given than to copy verbatim from my diary the entries for the last week Dr. Watson spent in this country:

* * * * *

“THURSDAY, Dec. 10, 1896.

“Three lectures to-day. Waldorf at eleven, gross receipts were $1,498.50. It was the social event of the season. Had luncheon there with Dr. and Mrs. Watson, Professor Fisher of Yale, and Mrs. Pond. Then we rode in Andrew Carnegie’s carriage to Brooklyn, where Oscar Murray had a $2,200 house waiting for us in the Academy of Music. Mrs. Howard, eighty-four years old--the only surviving charter member of Plymouth Church--came back on the stage to congratulate and thank Dr. Watson. Refreshments at the Hamilton Club, then Doctor and I went to Jersey City, where we all dined previous to the lecture, with the Rev. Dr. Brett, in whose church the lecture was given. The gross receipts were $560. Everybody was very much pleased, and the Doctor never spoke better. Gross business to-day, $4,269.50.

“To-day we have travelled on the trolley from Kingston to Rondout, by boat to Rhinecliff, cars to New York, cab to the Waldorf, carriage to Brooklyn, hack to the Annex Ferry, Annex boat to Jersey City, trolley to lecture hall, and the Doctor back by trolley, ferry, and elevated road to his hotel in New York. _I am tired_, but Dr. Watson is apparently as fresh as a morning lark. ‘Major, the people are not unfriendly,’ he remarked. ‘I think the boys will get their bicycles.’”

* * * * *

“FRIDAY, Dec. 11th.

“Three more speeches to-day! Up at seven, at the office at half-past eight, and at the Waldorf by ten. Lecture on Burns attracted a full house. Dr. Watson and I donated the net proceeds to the poor fund of St. Andrew’s Society. After lunch at the Waldorf, we drove to the Amphion Theatre, Brooklyn, where he gave ‘Annals of Drumtochty.’ Then back to New York, and to Stamford, in the evening, where he gave a reading. The house was packed.

“Through the kindness of George L. Connor, the Boston express stopped at Stamford at 10:09 and took us back to New York. The Doctor in good form. Got home at 12:30 A.M. As he returned he said to me: ‘People are not unfriendly, Major; those bicycles are pretty certain.’”

* * * * *

“SATURDAY, Dec. 12th.

“Another three-timer, and the last day of the pleasantest, most vigorous, and most satisfactory short lecture tour I ever had the honor to manage. Dr. Watson addressed the students of the Union Theological Seminary in New York at ten, luncheon at 12:30, lectured in Paterson at three, and Englewood at eight. He is happy and jolly, and gives no sign of being tired in body or voice. Hundreds of thousands of people have been made happier and benefited by coming in contact with him. He has been the centre of loving hearts wherever he went. I love him, and almost envy him the abundance of love people show him, and am thankful that I have been so favored. I have worked hard; he has worked hard, too. It has paid us both, and him a thousandfold more than the thousands of dollars he has cleared in the two short months. It is hard to part with him. How I shall miss him!”

* * * * *

“SUNDAY, Dec. 13th.

“Went to Plymouth Church. Dr. Watson was the preacher--his last public utterance in America. It was a great sermon. Thousands thronged the neighboring thoroughfares leading to the church, and long before the doors were thrown open to the public the line of anxious people extended from the church to Fulton Street on one side and past Hicks Street on the other. Never did I see such a crowd excepting when the body of Mr. Beecher was lying in state.”

* * * * *

“MONDAY, Dec. 14th.

“Dr. Watson spent an hour with me in the office signing books and photographs, and telling us about his receptions and entertainments. He christened a Scotch child in Gaelic at eleven, signed a lot of books at Dodd, Mead & Co.’s, signed fifty more books and lithographs for me, attended a big lunch in his honor at the Union League Club, at four went to a reception given by Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, and to evening dinner at the house of John Sloane. Everybody seems to want him, and the pressure is very great. His time is all filled between sunrise and midnight.”

* * * * *

“WEDNESDAY, Dec. 16th.

“It is very stormy. Snow-ploughs are at work in every street. Dr. and Mrs. Watson sailed at twelve on the _Majestic_. The Doctor made me a handsome present and wrote me a letter which is one of my most precious treasures. Here it is:

* * * * *

“‘5 WEST 51ST STREET, NEW YORK, “‘Dec. 16, 1896.

“‘DEAR MAJOR POND:

“‘The day has come when we leave America and return home, and as I look back on our campaign I am much impressed by the ability with which you conducted the operations from beginning to end, and your unfailing courage, good temper, and kindness.

“‘You will forgive me if at times I was depressed or irritable. It is a Celt’s infirmity; but I have never failed to note your care for our comfort and your sacrifices on our behalf.

“‘Accept with this note a little case for your expeditions, and as often as you use it--out with some greater star--give a thought to Drumtochty and its story-teller.

“‘Accept for Mrs. Pond and yourself this sincere assurance of our regard, and believe me ever,

“‘Yours faithfully, “‘JOHN WATSON.’

* * * * *

“Dr. Watson’s copy of ‘The Bonnie Briar Bush’ from which he read on the tour he inscribed to me as follows:

* * * * *

“‘With grateful thoughts for his best-natured friend, from a fiery Celt.--IAN MACLAREN.’

* * * * *

“He is a noble man. My heart is too full for utterance. Our tour has been a great success. In ten weeks we have cleared $35,795.91. This beats all records except Stanley’s, and I think I have seen more smiling and happy faces during the last ten weeks than any man has ever before seen in that length of time.”

* * * * *

On his return to Liverpool he wrote me the following letter:

* * * * *

“SEFTON PARK CHURCH, LIVERPOOL. “REV. JOHN WATSON, 18 SEFTON DRIVE. “Jan. 1, 1897.

“MY DEAR MAJOR:

“First of all let me wish you both a very Happy New Year, in which wish Mrs. Watson desires to join. May the ‘Stars’ all be bright and shining this year! We had rather a rough passage home, but after the first two days suffered nothing, and arrived home at 3 A.M. on the Thursday morning in good health, to get a warm welcome here.

“A reception was held in the church that day, and an address was presented, with a bouquet of flowers to Mrs. Watson. Letters from all kinds of people poured in to welcome us. I send two papers.

“We have suffered nothing from our journeys; in fact people declare that we never looked better--so there is a feather in your cap, Major; you did send us home as well as we came.

“My heart is warm to America, and I hope some day to see her good people again under your care; but I fear the day is far off. With kindest regards,

“Yours faithfully, “JOHN WATSON.”

* * * * *

Hall Caine is one of the most remarkable of personalities. A man of not over forty years, of slender frame, middle height, and having a slight stoop, he carries in all his movements the evidence of the intense nervous organization with which he is endowed. He is refined and gentle in speech and manner, low-voiced, with simple ways, giving at every turn evidences of kindliness of feeling and sensitiveness to all emotion. He is never fretful, though of so remarkable a nervous temperament. He dresses very quietly.

[Illustration]

As a speaker he would be very effective if he left his manuscript alone entirely. His voice is low but clear, with a vibrant note of personal appeal in it. Toward the close of a reading or lecture it would grow a little husky, and under the strain of feeling at times a trifle indistinct. Occasionally he would put his notes or manuscript aside and appeal directly to the audience, pouring out for a few minutes an electric, eloquent flood of sentences which would bring enthusiastic response. He is original, though not sensational, in manner. As an author-reader he followed Sir Edwin Arnold in originality by having specially prepared for reading an unpublished story--in substance a condensed novel. His handwriting is an index of his temperament, small, fine, and nervous in style.

The play of “The Christian” was entirely written on fine white note paper not over six by four inches in size. The writing is so small as almost to require a magnifying glass to read it, and it did not occupy more than two-thirds of the page, with the names of the characters, etc., set on separate lines and running to the farther edge of the paper.

I had been in correspondence with him for a number of years with the view of making him a star lyceum attraction. I never could get his consent, although I had very encouraging symptoms. We became great friends. While in Europe, Mrs. Pond and I visited him at Greba Castle on the Isle of Man, and declared it the most interesting part of our English journey that summer. I came home, however, with very little encouragement. He had just finished “The Christian,” and the last page of copy had gone to the printer’s. He was cleaning out his library and workshop, and there were thousands of manuscript pages that he had rewritten and cross-written which he was throwing away. I asked the privilege of saving a few, and am now sorry that I didn’t take the whole barrel. I disliked to see them swept out.

A year later Mr. Caine came to this country to produce the play “The Christian.” While that was being rehearsed there was hardly a day that he did not come to my office, as many of his letters were addressed there and he stayed at the Everett House. He advised with me a good deal concerning many things, which I considered a very high honor. After the play had got thoroughly established, I persuaded him to consent to give a few readings in Boston, Albany, Rochester, Buffalo, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati, Baltimore, and Washington.

The overwhelming success of the play of “The Christian” had in some way led Mr. Caine to believe that there would be the same sort of rush of people to hear the author of “The Christian.” While there were good-paying audiences and of the most select people, of course there were not galleries and big crowds such as Mr. Caine had been accustomed to see at performances of the play. The disappointment affected him very much. I had all I could do to keep him cheered up.

At Albany and Troy the houses were very small. The play of “The Christian” had its first production in Albany, turning people away, and with thirty curtain calls. There Mr. Caine had banked upon a great reception. The receipts were small, but he was making $500 a day on “The Christian.” then running in New York. Why, I said, should he let a little thing like that worry him. I tried to convince him that so far as money was concerned he did not need it, and that it just happened to be an inopportune time that we visited Albany; in other cities it would be all right. We had fair business in Rochester, a large house in Toronto, an overflowing house in Cleveland, and a matinee in Detroit before a crowded house.

Wherever Mr. Caine went, there were invitations for all sorts of social affairs, which he accepted and enjoyed very much. I learned, while on this trip, that to have him at his best was at a dinner or social club after his performance. There could not be a more delightful, brilliant, entertaining man in conversation.

In Chicago he reserved an evening for the Manxmen residents of that city, who gave him a dinner. They were all from the Isle of Man, his native land. They talked Manx, ate Manx, and drank Manx (principally water). It was a strange crowd, and Mr. Hall Caine towered above everybody else in it. His was the only speech, as no one else there could talk. It was an interesting occasion.

[Illustration: F. MARION CRAWFORD]

F. Marion Crawford is a man I love very much. I have the honor to call him friend. Had this popular author adopted a career of politics rather than the vocation of letters, he would have secured for himself a position in the councils of the republic almost equal in influence to that which he occupies as a writer of healthy and invigorating novels.

Fortunate in possessing a commanding presence, he has added to this an uninterrupted flow of choice and vivid language, and natural gestures which emphasize his magnificent word-pictures and carry conviction to those who listen to his appeals to manliness and universal tolerance.

He is a man who at all times has spoken his mind on religious subjects, with pride of strong conviction unmixed with defiance; a lecturer who handles his subject in a manner that is at once captivating, judicious, and wisely moderate. He breathes the very spirit of his novels--the spirit of human brotherhood, with hatred for all things petty and mean.

F. Marion Crawford carries his own stationery and pen and ink, and never writes with any other. He uses a “Falcon” pen, and has written every word of every novel with the same penholder. He was always writing. His “Ave Roma Immortalis” was written during this lecture tour. In a copy that he signed and presented to me he wrote,

* * * * *

“TO THE MAJOR:

“From his friend and old lecturer, “F. MARION CRAWFORD.

“The chapter on Julius Cæsar in this book was written chiefly on the train while we were travelling together in the West in 1898.”

* * * * *

The first thing upon entering his room at a hotel, Mr. Crawford arranges his writing materials, always in the same manner. The table is placed so that the light will fall from his left. He sits with his side to the table, his right arm resting on it, and the paper parallel with its length. He writes a very fine hand, and very rapidly, punctuating as he goes along. When a page is finished it is finished, and a work of art.

He arranges his bath and toilet articles, also, in a uniform way invariably. He never patronizes a local laundry. He has two leather trunks, made to order, that hold two dozen shirts; when one trunkful of shirts has been used he sends them to New York to be laundered, and the other trunk of fresh shirts arrives by express in time for his need.

The novelist carries a hand valise that he had made to order, with very long handles, so that it barely clears the pavement when carried. This enables him to get through a crowd without annoying others with his valise, for it is never in the way. His silver monogram is on every article of his toilet and writing equipment and his travelling-bags.

He wants his room at a temperature of sixty degrees, and so has it. He is very kind and polite to servants, and sees to it that each one who serves him is justly rewarded, not only pecuniarily, but with kind words.

Mr. Crawford asks the name of every servant or waiter who attends him, and addresses him by his name; and if he has occasion to refer to any hotel where he has been, he can recall the name of the one who served him.

He always has a drawing-room in the sleeping-car, and I know of only one instance, in a journey of seven thousand miles, where he failed to secure one. He arranges his drawing-room in exactly the same methodical way as his hotel room. He has a hanging alarm clock that is always in sight.

He sees the bright side of everything, and never says an ill-natured word. He is not fond of company, and receptions are especially irksome to him; but under such conditions he is always the perfect gentleman.

It was a long time before I could persuade him to prepare a lecture and devote a season to the platform. In the spring of 1898 he called at my office and asked me what my proposition was. I told him that I would do the same with him that I did with Stanley and others: make it a partnership arrangement, he taking two-thirds of the profit and I one-third, and I personally conducting the tour.

So we began early in October of that season. He had prepared four lectures: “The Early Italian Artists,” “Italian Home Life in the Middle Ages,” “The Italy of Horace,” and “Leo XIII. in the Vatican,” and returned to Italy for the summer to fit himself for his platform tour. He began on the 28th of October in Bridgeport, Conn., before one of the most select literary clubs in the country. I received a letter from the committee in Bridgeport which had engaged him, thanking me for the most delightful, scholarly lecture that club had ever offered to its members. I saw that Mr. Crawford was a success. His time was booked six nights a week, from November 1st to the following April. It was one of the most extensive and successful tours I have ever made with a star.

He lectured before the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, one of the most intelligent audiences in the country. The house was closely packed, and on the platform were a number of the leading citizens of Brooklyn, including St. Clair McKelway, Mayor Schieren, the Rev. Dr. Lyman Abbott, and Dr. Richard S. Storrs. Dr. Abbott said such nice things of the lecture at its close that I asked him if I might have the privilege of publicly quoting his words. In reply, he sent me the following letter:

* * * * *

“BROOKLYN, N. Y., Jan. 19, 1898.

“MY DEAR MAJOR POND:

“I heard with great interest Mr. Crawford’s lecture on ‘Leo XIII. and the Vatican,’ and am glad to be quoted anywhere as saying what I said at the close of that lecture, that I am sure wherever it is delivered it will help to remove prejudice of Protestants against Romanists and of Romanists against Protestants.

“Mr. Crawford’s literary skill needs no indorsement from me, and his ability in analysis of character and in portrait painting is seen to great advantage in his graphic picture of Leo XIII.

Yours sincerely, “LYMAN ABBOTT.”

* * * * *

He lectured in the Northern cities until the 30th of January, and then made a tour through the principal cities of the South, and up through Texas and Kansas City, Mo., where I met him on the 12th of March and accompanied him across the continent to San Francisco and Southern California, back up the coast to Seattle, Victoria, B. C., Portland, Ore., Helena, Mont., and several other towns in Montana, closing in Fargo, N. Dak., on the 27th of April.

In our travel across the plains from Kansas City to Denver, I pointed out to Mr. Crawford where I had shot my first buffalo and many scenes of Indian fights and adventure, all of which he seemed to enjoy just as much as I did. In all, we spent twenty-two weeks and travelled twenty-six thousand miles. Our journey across the continent, through California, and up the coast was a succession of pleasurable events. With the exception of Mr. Beecher, I never had been associated with a man who interested himself so much in everything in which I was interested. We were inseparable, and there were many incidents of our journey which were really memorable in the cities where we visited.

In the Brigham Young Normal College, Provo, Utah, where over six hundred young men and women were being taught as missionaries to go all over the world and make converts to the Mormon faith, Mr. Crawford gave his lecture on “Leo XIII. in the Vatican” to as attentive an audience as I have ever known, and what was remarkable to Mr. Crawford and me were the characteristic interruptions of the audience. These people are accustomed to being addressed constantly, as all Mormons are preachers or speakers. Mr. Crawford said that he had some of the keenest questions put to him in regard to characters in his book and religious arguments that he had ever encountered. He was so pleased that he gave the college library a complete set of his books, which he signed and forwarded to that institution on his return from the journey.

Mr. Crawford’s lecture in Salt City was largely attended by a most remarkable audience. The Roman Catholic bishop, four Mormon bishops, and clergymen of all the different denominations residing there, were present. In the Methodist Church the lecturer was introduced by the Methodist pastor, and sixty per cent of the audience were Mormons, among whom were several of Brigham Young’s daughters, sons, and daughters-in-law.

The reception to the lecturer by the Ladies’ Press Club was held in the historic Bee-hive House, the former home of Brigham Young, where Mary Ann Angel, his first, and, as he claimed in his will, his legitimate wife, and a number of other wives had lived. Mormons and Gentiles were about equally represented. Among those present were some of the prophet’s daughters and many of his grandchildren and other former polygamous wives. There were army officers from Fort Douglas, with their wives, the Presbyterian and Episcopalian ministers and their wives, all mingling with one another without prejudice. From all appearances they were mutually enjoying the occasion. To me it seemed strange.

The Mormon religion is as firmly founded and progressive as any. The Mormon people, trained in industry and fealty, are as sincere as ever. Many “Gentiles” of former days have married Mormon women and joined the church. They had to do it if they got the wives, for one of their religious tenets is to marry young and increase the church, and the women have never known any other religion. There are now over three thousand missionaries in various parts of the world preaching the Mormon faith and sending converts by thousands every year to Utah. All the valleys and mountain cañons are becoming closely settled with homes made for these immigrant converts. They are spreading all over Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Northern Mexico, and Manitoba. Industrious, honest, frugal, patiently toiling, they are enriching the great mountain country, and doing it quietly while they work unceasingly. What is to be the result? The Mormon religion is surely growing.

The attendance was very great in Southern California, where Mr. Crawford met a large number of his readers and friends. What was particularly interesting on the tour was the great interest taken in him by all the Catholic priests. Invariably the leading priest called on him wherever he visited. Whenever we arrived at a city where there was a bishop, he would secure a carriage and his first call was on the bishop. He claimed that that was his duty. I had an opportunity to observe that among the best-educated men in the land are the Catholic priests. At Riverside, Cal., Father Sherman, the son of Gen. William T. Sherman, took great pains to entertain us in that interesting city. I would not have missed the opportunity of meeting Father Sherman for a good deal, as his father had been one of my dearest friends.

One night in San Francisco, after having returned from Oakland, we were seated in the grill-room of the Palace Hotel, our supper partly finished, engaged in conversation, when I suddenly said:

“Mr. Crawford, are we in the dining-car? See how these dishes are dancing.”

Mr. Crawford pulled out his watch and said:

“It’s an earthquake, Major. Don’t be frightened. I’ve been in fifty of them. It will only last twenty seconds.”

Then I saw chandeliers swinging, heard glass falling, and saw sober people staggering; meanwhile we were being shaken with vibrations like a milk shake, beginning slowly for, say ten seconds, then coming to the hardest part of the shock. Our table and chairs, and we in them, were being carried along the floor. Suddenly there was a great noise like a tremendous explosion, and then an atmospheric depression indescribable. All who could had rushed out into the streets. Had it not been for Mr. Crawford’s apparent indifference there’s no knowing where the writer would have been. It lasted only forty seconds, so all records agree, but, ah, it seemed a lifetime to most of those who got the benefit of it; for there never could have been a more remarkably exciting scene than the court and corridors of the Palace Hotel presented from the time of the earthquake until daylight. In the grill room were a number of men gathered in groups, with expressions on their faces that showed they were prepared for the worst. None of them smiled or attempted to show unconcern except Mr. Crawford, who kept continually assuring everybody that the whole thing was over--that if a return shock did not come within three minutes there would be none. Every man and woman that I saw was yawning. Whether it was because yawning is catching, or an atmospheric condition caused by the disturbance, it is not easy to tell, but such opening of mouths and such sallow, yellow and green countenances I never witnessed. The elevators began bringing guests to the ground floor, men, women, and children scrambling for the open--in all kinds of costumes that people sleep in, and some badly mixed up; one lady was barefooted, in a man’s overcoat; there were men in pajamas, trousers, and slippers, in overcoats. One man in a simple undershirt tried to jump from the first balcony. He was a short, fat man, weighing, I should say, 350. I thought I recognized him as one of the staff of a certain New York magazine, and called Mr. Crawford’s attention to the fact. He said:

“Yes, that is poor W----.” We hurried to him, only to learn that it was some other person. He was greatly frightened, and embarrassed, too, after coming to his senses; for the undershirt could no more protect his shaking body than the tinfoil on the neck of a champagne bottle could conceal all the champagne. We were glad it was not our friend, but we could not smile for gladness. A smile and an earthquake never appear simultaneously.

Two men fresh from their rooms, in sleeping garb, were supporting a young lady in angel clothes by both arms. They carried her bodily, as she had collapsed. It was pitiable, but not laughable, until next morning. Such calls as this: “Is there a doctor in the house? My wife is dying!” “Oh, can’t you get a doctor quick? I know my husband is dead or dying. Do try. Oh, what will become of us?” “Is there any train leaving right away?” A woman caught hold of a man’s arm, screaming, “Save me! save me!” He tried in his rush and fright to shake her off, but she again cried out: “Save, oh, save me! What shall I do?” Just then he loosened her grasp, saying, “Go to hell!” and she fell prostrate.

Returning to our rooms, I found my bed in the middle of the floor and the centre-table very near the wall; both had moved about four feet. Water was running in the bathroom. On the floor in the hallway lay a young man. I asked him if he felt badly or was in pain. He said: “No, I am in no pain, neither am I frightened. I simply cannot get up. My legs refuse to carry me.” We helped him to a sofa in the corridor, and there left him, at his request, with “Thank you.”

We were to leave for Southern California the following morning. I noticed that Mr. Crawford had some severe spells of coughing on the cars at night, and I thought that the earthquake had affected him more severely than he had cared to tell me. Before retiring he told me that he was going to take me into his confidence, as we were partners and friends, and mentioned the fact that he had been having a good deal of trouble coughing, and that he had had two hemorrhages since I had joined him; that his left lung was very sore, and he might be obliged to return home, but that he intended to finish the tour no matter what the sacrifice, if it were possible. In San Francisco he had been in consultation with a physician who had been recommended to him by his New York physician, and he had been advised to close the tour then and there and return home; but he was in hopes that Southern California might help him. This put a damper on further pleasure for me. I cared nothing whatever as to the business part of it--that never entered my mind; but I assured Mr. Crawford that I would not be the means of his breaking down for a dozen fortunes. He assured me that it was not my fault at all, and that he was going through. He had contracted a cold in New Orleans, and at Pueblo, on a very windy day, he had visited a smelting-works and had inhaled so much of the gas that it had nearly killed him. He received the best of care. We visited Southern California with no serious mishap, went back up to San Francisco for two more lectures, and then to Portland, Ore. At Portland he was seriously ill, and I persuaded him to call in a local physician, who examined him thoroughly, and who told me afterward that only a man of his perfect physique and iron constitution could possibly have continued lecturing. But Mr. Crawford was incorrigible, and insisted that he must be doctored up in order to finish his tour. This physician assured me that the case was very serious, and gave me some medicine and some directions about how to act in case there should be further attacks.

We continued on to Victoria, B. C., and back to Helena, Mont., a town that we had been advised to skip owing to its high altitude. The San Francisco doctor had insisted that it would not do for Mr. Crawford to venture twelve thousand feet above sea-level in Helena. It did no good. We went to Helena. Mr. Crawford gave two lectures there to the two largest audiences we had between the Pacific Ocean and the Missouri River. Then we went on to Winnipeg, and home. I was satisfied that Mr. Crawford’s days were numbered. I had promised to say nothing to any one about it, and I never did mention it, and would not do so now, were it not for the fact that Mr. Crawford has written me that he has fully recovered. During all the time Mr. Crawford kept up his writing, and was always cheerful. It was his wonderful power of abstraction and courage that carried him through this ordeal.

We parted in Chicago. He was so anxious to hurry home that he took the fastest train, while I made $16 by arriving twelve hours later by another route. We exchanged several telegrams on our different routes. I put it down as one of the most enjoyable and delightful companionships that I have ever had.

At the close of this six months’ tour Mr. Crawford sailed for his home in Italy, still in poor health. I hardly expected ever to see him again. I was lonesome without him, and busied myself at odd times with writing him letters, which he never answered. I feared he was ill, or that I had hurt his feelings in some way, but, to my delight, in due time the following letter came, which brought great joy to the Pond household:

* * * * *

“SANT’ AGNELLO DI SORRENTO, ITALY, “Dec. 16, 1898.

“DEAR OLD MAJOR:

“A Merry Christmas to you, and to Mrs. Pond, and Bim, and Miss Glass, and all the very best wishes of the season! I am not dead and buried, and as you may have supposed from a rude way I have of never answering a man’s letters till he has written about six times. But I have been very busy with my work, and between times with enjoying a long spell of home with my wife and children. Knowing how you hate Mrs. Pond and Bim, you will probably find this most extraordinary! You must try and get used to the idea. (This letter does not contain a request for a loan for five dollars at the end of it, so you may read it quite calmly--I just thought of that.)

“I look over my old note books of last year, and it hardly seems possible that I could ever have been the talking-piece of baggage that was sent flying over the country for six months to be wound up every day at the same hour. This is a good deal more comfortable, my friend, and there is less wear and tear on one’s throat and good clothes--not to mention one’s temper and digestion. All the same, I am glad I did it once, and saw the country from end to end and from top to bottom, and with a man who knows the West as you do. But if we ever do it again, I shall take a patent reversible india-rubber coffin which can be used as a bath, overcoat, or pulpit, and can be hermetically sealed so as to bring the lecturer home on ice from the point at which he dies!

“Well--I am all right again, thank goodness! Whatever you do, my friend, _never let_ your lecturer go and visit the smelting furnaces in Colorado. That was the beginning of my trouble, and you were not there on that day to prevent me from going.

“We had a little earthquake here not long ago--a sort of little kitten earthquake--but it made me think of that evening in San Francisco, when the house rocked and the boy dropped the cheese into the ice box and ran! That was a good supper, well shaken down--we shall probably never digest another so quickly.

“I have discovered that the wicked Emperor Tiberius was left-handed--you and I are in good company.

“This is just a Christmas greeting--a little less than a lecture, a little more than an autograph, from

“Your friend and old lecturer, “F. MARION CRAWFORD.”

* * * * *

Gen. Lew Wallace has made three distinct and creditable reputations, as a soldier in the war for the Union, as a lawyer and orator, and as an author. As a State lawyer and political speaker, he is confessedly one of the most distinguished at the bar and on the stump of Indiana. As a novelist, he has made one of the most brilliant successes of late years. His “Ben Hur” had only one rival in popularity in America--“Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” As a lecturer, he has proved one of the best attractions in the lyceum, and his popularity is increasing.

[Illustration]

After the success of “Ben Hur” he was called for from all parts of the land, especially by the Young Men’s Christian Associations. I don’t know that anybody has been in so much demand since Gough’s time for these societies as General Wallace. After two or three years of earnest effort I succeeded in getting him to make a tour of one hundred lectures. The General was a pessimist in regard to lecturing. He did not think the people cared to hear him, and to some extent he was right.

He surprised me by making the suggestion that instead of the regular fifteen per cent commission for booking time, I should take twenty-five per cent; he thought that was little enough. That enabled me to put a good deal of extra spirit into my work. He kept the engagements, a hundred in number. The tour proved very profitable. From a business standpoint it was delightfully satisfactory. I could ask nothing pleasanter in my life than to be constantly associated with Gen. Lew Wallace and to be his daily companion while he was travelling about the country delivering lectures. He had kind words for every person he met. They were genuine, too, and did not smack of the demagogue.

During his engagements with me, Mr. Klaw of Messrs. Klaw & Erlanger called on me several times and proposed that I should get General Wallace to consent to the dramatization of “Ben Hur,” saying that they would pay any amount of money I wanted. I made this suggestion to General Wallace several times, and tried to point out to him the good it would do, and the profit that was to be realized from it, as these managers would spare no money in making the production a success. I pointed out to him that there was an opportunity in the chariot race for an unsurpassed scene and dramatic effect. The General would not listen to it, although I approached him from every standpoint possible. That success was not for me. Two years later I found that these same managers had obtained General Wallace’s consent to dramatize “Ben Hur” and to bring it out in New York. I never got over it; I entertained so high an opinion of the General’s fairness, and felt so satisfied that our business relations had been the pleasantest in the world, and that he would not under any circumstances do me a wrong. I have never seen him or heard from him on the subject and I have never seen the play. If the General happens to read this he will know why I have never seen it. That was another of my escapes.

Apropos of this, there is one other escape I had while in Boston. Mr. Alexander Graham Bell came to me wanting to interest me in a new invention that he had by which he could hear in Lowell, or in any other town, a lecture delivered in Boston. I went out and heard a test of it with Mr. Bell. I suggested to him that it would be just the thing for communication between business offices and factories, livery stables and hotels. He wanted me to go into the business with him and urged me to do so. He spent an hour sitting by my desk talking about it. I spoke about it to my partner, but he reminded me that our business contract would not admit of speculation of any kind. I felt pretty certain that there was a fortune in the business, and came very near telling him that I would leave the lyceum and take the risk and go into the telephone business. As Mr. Bell was leaving my office a gentleman from Providence, who ran a lecture course in that town, came in, and I said to Mr. Bell: “Here is the man you want for that business.”

Turning to the other gentleman, I said: “Gower, here’s something that there’s a fortune in. Now you go into this thing.”

Mr. Gower did his errand in a moment, and walked out of the office with Mr. Alexander Graham Bell. I never saw him afterward. Gower went up in a balloon in Paris and was never heard from. It was said that he was worth over a million dollars when he disappeared--all from the telephone business. At that time he was the husband of Lilian Norton--our Nordica. That was another narrow escape which I had.

[Illustration:

* * * * *

COPYRIGHT 1898 BY ROCKWOOD N.Y.

* * * * *

ISRAEL ZANGWILL]

Israel Zangwill, author of “The Children of the Ghetto,” is another of the unique characters that I have introduced to American audiences, and one who interested me deeply. Many inquiries about him had come from all over the country, especially from Jewish societies. I called on Mr. Zangwill at his home in London, in 1897, and was very cordially received. He had never lectured, but thought he could make a go of it, and after an hour’s conversation with him I came to the conclusion that he could not fail to interest all who met him. It was a peculiar fascination, largely due, I think, to his indomitable assurance. He looked me right square in the eye when he talked, and whatever he said was so because he said so, although I knew better at the time.

He showed me over his two rooms--one of them a library with book shelves on all sides filled with books that bore the marks of wear and tear, and arranged on these shelves _ad libitum_, or perhaps I should say disarranged. I asked him if he had saved press notices of his various books. He took me into the adjoining room and lifted the lid of a trunk which was stuffed full of press cuttings, with the Romeike attachments. (There must have been $500 worth.) He had been in the habit of throwing them promiscuously into the trunk and pressing them down or stamping on them, until it looked like a trunk packed full of old waste paper or refuse packing material.

Zangwill had just got back from Jerusalem, and showed me another trunkful of unmounted photographs of the great paintings and architecture of all parts of Europe. There were thousands of them,--most of them very beautiful too,--but they were almost ruined by the rough way in which they had been carelessly thrown into the trunk. One very peculiar photograph was of the mummy of Pharaoh. I asked him to let me take a snapshot of it, and got him to hold the photograph up against the window-sill.

It seemed almost impossible to come to any kind of understanding with Zangwill. He thought that there was a great public waiting for him over here, and I also thought so to a considerable extent. But he couldn’t understand why he should come over to America and draw great crowds and I get a third of the profits from his earnings; so nothing was definitely settled at that interview. I came away knowing well enough that he intended to visit the United States, and to get all that there was in it if he did come. Weeks went by, and nothing was satisfactorily arranged between us. He kept me informed of his movements. He was to sail in August in the steamship _Lucania_ in company with his friend Judge Sulzburger of Philadelphia, whose guest he was to be while over here.

He arrived on the morning of September 27th, and I met him at the steamer. We had made no arrangement, and he was not under my direction or under any obligation to me in any way. Still, I knew he had made no other arrangements. Several Jewish friends met him and took possession of him. I asked him if he would see reporters, and he said that he would be glad to meet them at any hour I might name. He went with me to the Everett House, leaving his other friends to call for him to go to Long Branch at five in the afternoon.

He met the press representatives in my office, all gathered around the same table where many other English men of letters had been on the stand. There was great interest in him. The reporters recognized a brilliant subject, and succeeded in getting about as rich material for “space” as they had encountered for some time. Zangwill answered questions of every conceivable sort, and returned the fire from his assailants with vigor. The reports in all the papers the next day were excellent, and the interest in the great Jewish novelist was manifest everywhere.

Lecture committees called and letters of inquiry came pouring in, but as yet I could give no answer. In the interviews the day before he evaded all questions as to his plans, and so it went on until October. Many excellent applications had to be rejected because no definite answer could be given. The result was that when an understanding was finally reached, nearly all the lyceum courses in the country were made up, and the only way to book Zangwill was to hire halls and speculate or accept certainties wherever they came from.

After our contract was duly signed, I at once engaged the Lyceum Theatre in New York for his initial performance in America. It took place on the afternoon of October 11th, 1898. The pretty theatre was crowded with as intelligent and fashionable an audience as New York could turn out to welcome a stranger. “The Drama as a Fine Art” was the subject chosen by Mr. Zangwill. He told me that he would speak without notes, as he had been assured that to attempt to read a lecture to a New York audience was fatal. There was no use of arguing this with him. It was with some difficulty that he got under way, but the lecture itself was a shower of epigrams interspersed with sparkles of wit that carried his audience with him from the beginning to the very last word. Not until the close of the lecture did a single person leave the house. The speaker was recalled and cheered vociferously for a long time.

The lecture was a severe criticism of the dramatic critics, and most of our New York critics were there. The only one of whom Zangwill had spoken kindly was William Winter, on whom the compliment was lost because the latter had ceased long ago to take interest in such affairs.

Many of New York’s best people rushed upon the stage to congratulate Zangwill on his real success. Some of the most prominent Jewish citizens were there--among them Mr. Seligman and Mr. Isidor Straus. The latter, who sat by me, declared that I had certainly found a winner. I don’t think I ever knew an audience to be more delighted.

Yet the papers the next morning, much to my surprise, were not very complimentary of Mr. Zangwill’s criticism, and when Zangwill and I met to join Hall Caine and Judge Sulzburger, with whom we were to lunch that day at the Waldorf, he wore about as dejected an expression as I have ever seen. Mr. Caine’s play “The Christian” was receiving very vigorous treatment at the hands of the New York papers about this time, and when he and Mr. Zangwill met at the lunch table, I think Judge Sulzburger must have noticed that the two men were in so chopfallen and dejected a state of mind that they might have put pepper in their coffee instead of sugar without ever having known the difference.

If the reporters could have heard that little interchange of opinions of the American press from two such brilliant minds, their story would have delighted the general public if not the journalists themselves.

I had little difficulty in booking Zangwill. After New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, he went to Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, and Memphis; from there to Birmingham, Ala., Atlanta, and back to New York, making a succession of the longest rides that ever a lecturer attempted in this country. Everywhere Zangwill met big crowds, and his audiences were delighted.

On his return in November he gave a series of three lectures in the Waldorf-Astoria; but the newspapers had succeeded in creating a prejudice against the speaker, and these lectures were very poorly attended.

I booked him for a Sunday night in Boston, and there was a large advance sale up to the Friday evening before the lecture. Then came a blizzard, and not another ticket was sold until the night of the lecture, when only $2 was taken in at the box office. It was one of the historic blizzards of Boston. The advance sale had been $480 up to Friday, and Sunday night it was swelled to $482, but very few of the people who had purchased tickets in advance were able to get to the theatre.

Arrangements were made for another Sunday night in Boston three weeks later, but the public proposed to wait until the night came before buying their tickets, as many of them had been disappointed on the last occasion. On the Saturday before this Sunday another blizzard set in. Mr. Zangwill was on hand and filled the bill, but the house was empty. Nobody could get there. Mr. Zangwill and I had rented the theatre and were speculating. Our loss was about $80, but Mr. Zangwill wrote me a letter declaring he thought he must have been the Jonah on this occasion, and insisted on paying all the loss out of his own pocket.

The two leading Jewish clubs in New York, the Harmony Social and the Freundschaft, each paid him $500 for a lecture on Sunday evening, and I don’t believe Mr. Zangwill or anybody else ever faced a more cultivated or appreciative audience than on these occasions.

Many offers were made to Mr. Zangwill for his literary work, and he accepted a dazzling proposition from Harpers to write a novel, and withdrew _forever_ from the platform, as he said.

I tried very hard to secure Mr. Zangwill for another season, as his lectures had given great satisfaction in the large cities which he visited and they had been extensively reported. He was about the best-advertised man in the country, and the public had learned that he had something to give for the money which the American public has always been willing to pay under such conditions. But it was no use. Theatrical managers were after him to dramatize “The Children of the Ghetto.” Mr. Zangwill was a great dramatic critic, and he believed he could write a great play, and managers had the same belief, which they were ready to back up with large sums of money.

He came over again in 1899 and produced the play in Washington in October of that year. There were fine criticisms and every prospect of a fortune in sight; but it was not what New York wanted, and so, after a long and fair trial, it was withdrawn from the boards of the Herald Square Theatre.

Zangwill is a good lecturer, because his subject-matter is educational to a great degree, and his copious flow of English and epigrammatic sentences render it as entertaining and novel as it is instructive. There is good money for him in America whenever he wishes to set aside the time for it; but he will not do it. He cannot jump on a steamer and come over here, give a few lectures and run back again, without notifying the people in advance that he is coming.

[Illustration]

William Webster Ellsworth is a man whose fame as a lecturer was not acquired through _The Century Magazine_, but who has helped to make _The Century_ what it is at this time. He has been secretary of the great corporation which publishes _The Century_ since its establishment by Roswell Smith. Mr. Ellsworth is of Puritan stock, a great-grandson of Chief Justice Ellsworth and of Noah Webster, and he was reared in Connecticut, a stamping-ground of Revolutionary heroes. A few years ago he found himself a recognized authority on Revolutionary subjects. It came about, I believe, through a publisher’s suggestion to an author. Mr. Ellsworth asked Elbridge S. Brooks to write a book for boys and girls on the Revolution, proposing that it should take the form of a trip to the battlefields, and he offered to go with Mr. Brooks. They made the trip together, and the photographs taken by Mr. Ellsworth were used as illustrations for “The Century Book of the American Revolution,” and were afterward made the basis of a lecture by Mr. Ellsworth which many of the societies of Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution promptly asked to hear. His position gave him access to private and public collections of manuscripts and printing, and with his heart in the subject Mr. Ellsworth has brought to light more interesting documents and pictures than were ever supposed to exist. Scores of lyceum, patriotic, and historical societies have had his two lectures, one on the Revolutionary War, and the other on “Arnold and Andre: the Story of the Treason,” which he prepared two years ago.

During the last two years he has made discoveries and brought to light much interesting new material relating to the early history of George Washington. A new lecture has been prepared by Mr. Ellsworth on the subject, which I was invited to hear at his home, Esperanza Farm, near New Hartford, Conn., in August, 1900. This has certainly proved the most interesting and charming of all. Gifted with a descriptive voice that is strong, resonant, and absolutely faultless in delivery, with the personal magnetism that is so essential to a lecturer’s success, Mr. Ellsworth is unquestionably one of the best-equipped men for an instructive and entertaining lecture that the lyceum has yet produced. From one of Mr. Ellsworth’s lectures the rising generation can obtain more knowledge of the early history of our nation than from a whole winter of hard study. School boards and teachers are beginning to find out that one of the simplest and most thorough means of instruction nowadays is the lecture platform. In the city of New York there is hardly a public school that does not have a large hall set aside for lectures. Last year over three thousand free lectures were given in the public schools in Greater New York on nearly every possible educational topic, generally illustrated with stereopticon pictures which greatly enhanced their value. In this special line great advances are being made, and they are due to the fact that such men as Mr. Ellsworth, who have something to give in return for what they receive, are available for the work.

[Illustration:

COPYRIGHT 1897 BY ROCKWOOD N.Y.

ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS]

Anthony Hope Hawkins was discovered by Robert Barr, who first went to London in the interests of the Detroit _Free Press_. One night Barr, then editing _The Idler_ with Jerome K. Jerome, met a thin, pale, bald young barrister who talked so charmingly about books that Barr, who is big, burly, bouncing, and straightforward, asked him:

“Do you do anything of the sort?”

Mr. Hawkins confessed, with a blush, that he did when not painfully busy.

“I’ll come and read some of ’em to-morrow,” said Barr. And he did. After he had read the last sheet he said:

“Say, Hawkins, how much have you got like this?”

“Considerable.”

“Want to sell it?”

“Why--why, yes, I’d like to.”

“How much do you want a thousand words?”

Hawkins was amazed. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Would a pound be too much?”

Barr laughed. “You don’t know much about this business, do you?” he asked.

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Well,” drawled Barr, “I’ll give you several pounds a thousand, and we’ll start publishing right away.”

Beneath the title of each sketch Mr. Hawkins had written: “By Anthony Hope.”

“Ought I to put my last name there?” he asked.

“It doesn’t make any difference about the name,” answered Barr; “it’s the stuff that counts.”

And count it did.

Anthony Hope Hawkins is an English gentleman in every sense that the words implies. I cannot say that I ever associated with a man whom I held in higher esteem. He sees everything from the most agreeable point of view. He has one of the most delightful laughs in conversation that ever I heard, and I made it my business to excite as often as possible the vein in his nature that brought it out.

He has the better qualities of the English voice, its softer tones and accents. Owing to its richness, he can be heard distinctly by every auditor. Although monotonous in his delivery, because of his distinct enunciation and the sweetness of his voice, the monotony is not objectionable.

He charms invariably his audiences, because he feels his characters and is able to exploit them.

I shall never forget Mr. Hawkins’ first appearance in America. It was really his first regular platform appearance anywhere. We had spent the previous night at the Parker House, Boston, and some of the members of the Woman’s Club of Lowell, Mass., under whose auspices he was to read next day, telephoned me to know if we would not come early, that they might give him a little reception before the reading. Mr. Hawkins declined. He said he preferred to be by himself until he was introduced to the public. On our arrival at Lowell we went directly to the hall. He met the committee of ladies, who escorted him to the platform, and as he went on he shook hands with me, saying: “Good by, Major. I may never see you again.” I felt so nervous for him that I really didn’t know whether he had made a hit or not; but as soon as his voice was heard there was the closest attention, and an expression of satisfaction appeared on every face in front of him. He could not possibly have escaped the infection. I saw his beautiful face light up with a gleam of real satisfaction. His voice rolled out in resonant tones, and the hearty response from his hearers gave him what I believe was the most satisfactory hour of his life. His reading of the “Dolly Dialogues” on that occasion was one of the finest efforts that I remember.

He enjoyed his audiences very much when the benches were full in front of him, but a small audience and a row of empty benches disheartened him. On two occasions he urged me to return the money to the auditors; but he filled every date, and on those two occasions I think he was as well pleased after the performance as where he had had more and less enthusiastic hearers.

Just after our train drew out of Boston on our way to Hartford, I ordered luncheon in the buffet car, for we were both desperately hungry. The composite cook, waiter, and porter promised us some royal chicken, which he was able to furnish, he said, as good as we could get anywhere. We came near getting it. We saw it as it was set before us just as we arrived at Williamantic, where we were obliged to change cars.

I leave it to an anonymous journalist, who happened to be on the car, to describe the incident as he wrote it up for the New York _Evening Sun_:

“Persons who met Mr. Hope on his way to Boston last Wednesday remarked how fine and hearty he was looking. And yet at the same hour a day later, when Hope boarded the New York train to go to Hartford, his next stand, he looked almost an old man. His color was gone and there were circles round his eyes. Whether the two receptions he had to attend or twelve hours of Major Pond’s consecutive conversation had brought Hope to this condition, none can say. But comparatively speaking he looked a wreck, and no sooner was he on board the train than he and the Major waylaid the waiter of a buffet car and ordered an elaborate breakfast. Broiled Philadelphia chicken was the star attraction of the bill of fare, and the Major, in his loudest tones, ordered that two broiled Philadelphians should be sacrificed at once.

“Having had nothing to eat since the night before, the author and the manager awaited their meal expectantly. At the end of the first hour Mr. Hope looked up and inquired good-naturedly:

“‘Don’t you think it’s about time for that chicken?’ For answer the Major hurried to the kitchen, and there was the making of a first-rate dialect story in the sounds which emerged from that vicinity within the next few minutes. Presently the Major came back looking so pleased with himself that Hope lay back in his chair and hoped once more. Another half-hour passed. Again the Major repaired to the kitchen. This time Hope made notes of the conversation on the back of his cuff.

“Ten minutes later came the waiter bearing a three-foot tray. Hope’s eyes were dancing, the Major smacked his lips as he grabbed the carving knife. Just then from the end of the car the conductor cried, ‘Willimantic!’ Surely the parting between the Princess Flavia and Rassendell was a mere farce comedy to Hope’s adieu to that chicken. His first impulse was to seize a drumstick and run, but the Major restrained him.

“The manager’s practised eye had noticed a crowd of Willimantic belles on the platform intent upon catching a glimpse of Hope gratis. It would never do for his star to make his début in Willimantic drumstick in hand. So gently, but firmly, he persuaded Hope to renounce the chicken’s leg in favor of his satchel. Hope, however, as he left the car, had the good taste to do his swearing under his breath.

“On the platform the Major met the waiter, who thrust the bill into his hand. The Major stamped on it and said he’d see him in Philadelphia first. Neither of them had one mouthful, and he was going to report the matter to Chauncey Depew.

“It may interest Mr. Hope to know, however, that as soon as the train started, two drummers bought his chicken at an advance on regular rates, and one of them, with a gallantry worthy of the Dolly Dialogues hero himself, had the wish-bone of Mr. Hope’s chicken polished, and presented it to his sweetheart as a souvenir.”

Mr. Hawkins and I made the tour together, visiting Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia, and everywhere he was the recipient of the choicest honors that I have ever known a man of letters to receive. His readers were of the most select literary class we have. His audiences varied in different cities more than did those of some others, but where he had been secured in a regular lyceum course and in clubs, they were invariably large.

To him were tendered many of the most delightful banquets that I have known any foreigner to get. The leading clubs in Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa entertained him. He was the guest of the Governor-General of Canada--Lord Aberdeen. In Chicago the Lawyers’ Club gave him a breakfast, attended by the leading members of the bar of that city, a distinction that no other literary man has had that I remember.

At Detroit, after the reading, the Fellowcraft Club gave Mr. Hawkins a supper, with an elaborate menu. It was Robert Barr’s home, and Mr. Barr had undoubtedly warned his fellow-citizens of the character of the expected visitor, and they were prepared to meet him and do him honor, which they did. I don’t believe the good fellows of Detroit ever had a better time. The speeches and stories of that occasion would make a rare book, and I should like to own the copyright. It will never be printed. Colonel Livingstone, editor of the Detroit _Journal_ and president of the Fellowcraft Club, is “equalled by few and excelled by none” as a club president.

Mr. Hawkins is not superstitious. A few years ago he moved from his lucky chambers in the quiet Middle Temple, London, where he practised law without clients, and has working offices on Buckingham Street, near the Strand--much as one might say West Tenth Street, near Broadway. The house is old and dark and dingy. It overlooks the London lodgings of Benjamin Franklin and the rooms of Peter the Great of Russia when they were in the city. It is on the site of the famous York House, home of Bacon. Hope’s lodgings are full of books; on the mantel there are original drawings by Charles Dana Gibson, and there are many pipes, and other convivial equipments.

In Washington Mr. Hawkins was met on his arrival by the Hon. John Russell Young, librarian of Congress, who entertained and showed him through that magnificent library and about the Capitol, introducing him to many of the judges of the Supreme Court, and then going to the White House, presented him to President McKinley, who entertained him about an hour in social chat, while politicians in waiting fairly congested the waiting-room outside. After the evening reading, Mr. Thomas Nelson Page gave him a supper at his beautiful Washington home, where were present Mr. Lyman Gage, Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Mr. James Lane Allen, and Mr. John Fox, Jr., the two most prominent Southern novelists, and several other gentlemen whose names I cannot now recall. I am unable to describe this occasion, although one of the honored guests. One can imagine the charming intellectual atmosphere of such an event. It seemed that there must have been some fault in the reckoning of time, for it was four o’clock when the party reluctantly dissolved.

Everywhere we went Mr. Hawkins was the honored guest of the choicest of our American men of letters. In Indianapolis two social events in one day: the afternoon was a reception at the Woman’s Club, where Mrs. Harrison, wife of the ex-President, received; and in the evening the largest audience of the beauty and fashion of the Hoosier capital packed the hall, being welcomed by James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier poet. In Boston, among the first callers besides the press representatives were Col. T. W. Higginson, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Edward Everett Hale, and Judge Holmes, son of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and many of the Harvard faculty. I copy from my diary the following notes:

“Mr. Hawkins and I visited the Academy of Fine Arts, Trinity Church (formerly Phillips Brooks’), the Boston Public Library, where we were shown over all parts of the library and introduced to all the modern systems of its wonderful operations; the new court house, where Judge Holmes personally conducted us through the different courts, and we sat half an hour listening to a judge charge a jury. Missed our lunch. Hurried to depot, just caught train for Hartford, and missed lunch on buffet car, owing to the incapacity of the composite cook and porter. Reached Hartford, the Hublein, 6:30. Reading at 8:30 finished in an hour. Joe Jefferson against us at Perkins’ Opera House, but we had $360 in Unity Hall. Joe Jefferson had reserved a box for us, and we saw nearly all of ‘Lend Me Five Shillings.’ Then we all had supper together, Joe Jefferson, his three sons, and the wife of young Jefferson. Joe was at his best, as he is a lover of Anthony Hope’s writings, and they had never met before, and it seemed as though they never meant to part; for it was far beyond midnight when the weary waiters were relieved, and a tired but happy crowd went to bed.”

“Good-night, Major,” said Anthony Hope; “you Americans are too much for us Englishmen.”

I think the last speech that Mr. Hawkins made in New York was at a public dinner given him by the Lotos Club, which is the most famous of all our American clubs for its receptions and dinners to men of letters. On this occasion he said:

“Mr. President and Gentlemen:--I am too well aware of the history of your club and of the distinction of the guests whom you have entertained before, not to rise on this occasion with perhaps more than usual--shall I say trepidation or discomfort?--which possesses an after-dinner speaker. I have received here to-night an appreciation which would have been wholly delightful if I were not persistently haunted with the idea that it is too excessively indulgent.

“As I crossed the Atlantic Ocean, feeling less at ease than I usually do on land, an intelligent sailor came up to me and told me that we were in the Gulf Stream. The consolation was slight, because the Gulf Stream seemed to me as turbulent as any other part of the ocean. But it has occurred to me since, that he spoke, as it were, in a metaphor, and that what he really referred to was the gulf stream that flows between here and England; of the gulf stream of sympathy which unites the two countries, and which, unlike the merely physical and uncomfortable stream, flows both ways, from us to you and from you to us. (Applause.)

“It is indeed, in a way, strange for an Englishman to make his first visit to this country. I was asked by a cynical friend before I started why I was going, and he referred not obscurely to the hopes I entertained of paying my expenses. (Laughter.)

“Well, gentlemen, the ancient epigram forbids us to say that it is necessary to live; but I am still among those who consider that it is desirable. (Laughter.) I agree with a clergyman in my own country who said that the Scriptures teach that the laborer is worthy of his hire, but that, for his part, he thought it ought to be paid free of income tax. (Laughter.)

“But that was not the sort, not exclusively the sort, of American gold which was in my mind; and if it had been when I started, I should before now have found out my mistake. Better than that, gentlemen, is the gold of your cordial reception, which still sits on my heart as too much undeserved.

“But to come here is indeed, in the old phrase, the experience of a lifetime. It has been my fate--I don’t know whether you will be surprised about it--to be asked quite three or four times already what were my impressions of America. (Laughter.) When in Quarantine I was asked first; and my only impression then was that I should never get here. I was asked again at the landing, when my sole feeling was that I was very glad to get here. (Laughter and applause.)

“The question I have not yet answered. It is difficult to answer. One comes to a country that is unfamiliar, and yet not strange; that is new, and yet recalls every moment the things that are old; that is foreign, and yet is distinct with a separate, individual, and proud nationality. (Applause.)

“And as with your nationality, so, if I may say so, it seems to me, with your literature. It has its roots where our literature has; but patriotic as I am, I must admit that a brighter sun has shone upon it, copious rain has nourished it, it has its own fruit and its own flavor; and thus it enhances and glorifies the English language, in which both itself and our literature on the other side of the Atlantic are expressed. (Applause.)

“It is far from my desire to speak to you long to-night, but it is impossible for me to sit down, without at least trying to say to you how very deeply I feel the generosity and the kindness of this greeting, and to say also how I have felt for years back the kindness and the readiness with which the public of America greets us English writers. (Applause.)

“We come here with no credentials save that our country has played in the past a part which our country would not repeat in the future. (Applause.) But if you do not forget that--and perhaps you do not forget it--you are at least willing to forgive it; and as members of the same family, we remember, not the occasions on which every now and then, perhaps from living too close together, we fell out, but rather the time when we made friends again and celebrated the event by a cordial dinner. (Applause.)

“Gentlemen, I thank you.” (Loud and continued applause.)

From October 17, 1897, to January 13th following, Mr. Hawkins and I travelled together, visiting sixty different cities, and he gave seventy-six readings. He saw the face of America’s book-loving public. He spent Christmas at my home, making it a memorable day in our household. On New Year’s day, in company with his publisher, Mr. Fred. A. Stokes, John S. Wise, and his son, of Virginia, Mr. William Carey of the _Century Magazine_, and Mr. George F. Foster of Stokes & Co., and _me too_, Mr. Hawkins was given a Chinese dinner in Mott Street, the Chinese quarters of New York. The menu was in Chinese hieroglyphics, and as far as any of us could tell the dinner was as much hieroglyphic as the menu. The host, Mr. Stokes, had anticipated the inability of the party to make out or digest the Oriental spread, and took with him a satchel filled with sandwiches, cigars, and a canteen or two of _pure_ water, and this, with the stories, supplied the necessaries of the day and occasion, both of which are not easy to forget, for the delight they gave.

Since Mr. Hawkins’ return to England we have frequently corresponded, and many of the letters that I have received from him illustrate so well the genial spirit of the man that I take the liberty of reproducing a few of them by his kind permission.

* * * * *

“25th Jan., ’98, “16 BUCKINGHAM STREET.

“MY DEAR MAJOR:

“A peaceful, prosperous voyage! The old ship rolled a bit, but my colors were not lowered. We got in at two on Saturday--since when I have been overwhelmed with work which had accumulated here. Your album delights my father and family--not least your inscription at the end--which delights me too. I feel myself a very much travelled man, although you made light of my wanderings. I wish you well through yours in the West and look forward to yours here in the East.

“I hope all does go well--and I think of you and drink to your health.

“Your ever, “A. H. H.”

* * * * *

“17th May, ’98, “16 BUCKINGHAM STREET, STRAND.

“MY DEAR MAJOR:

“You have found out by now what a bad correspondent I am--for your cable from San Francisco came and was appreciated and yet not answered--but your letter reaches me to-day and I must congratulate you on your safe achievement of your big journey and your return home. Our little trip together sinks quite into insignificance, doesn’t it? I’m afraid you’d have found me a very lazy and trying companion for so long a jaunt. If you weren’t devoted to moving, I would wish you a good long rest at home now, but, since you’re the man you are, I’ll wish a good and speedy voyage _to England_, with Mrs. Pond and your boy this time. We have a good many of your folks here--among them Cable, who is being well treated, I think; he’s giving some public readings and I’m going to hear him in about a fortnight in one of them. Our thoughts have been much with you all in the war. I feel it even as I should an English war, and I’m sure the great--the vast--majority over here are of the same way of thinking. But I think _you’ve_ done enough fighting for your country and may fairly let the boys have a look in this time--or are you pining to be in Cuba with your scouts? I am living my usual quiet life, writing and reading proofs--and, I must add, dining out--when I talk quite learnedly about America on the strength of my journey with you. _The Critic_ printed my letter all right--in fact I was very well treated, smoothed down, and complimented, and called a real gentleman, and everything that was nice. So that’s all over and all is well. And, to prove I think so, I’ve been advising more than one eminent gentleman to go out and do a trip with you.

“You must read ‘Rupert of Hentzau’ when it comes--we consider it rather a good yarn.

“Give Mrs. Pond all my remembrances--just as cordial as you know how to make them. So, my dear Major,

“Ever yours, “ANTHONY H. HAWKINS.”

* * * * *

“22d Sept., ’98, 16 BUCKINGHAM STREET, STRAND.

“MY DEAR MAJOR:

“I was very glad to get your letter--but why haven’t you been over? I’ve been expecting, or at least hoping, to hear of your coming all the summer. Thanks for your news of ‘Ursula’--it seems to have made a good beginning--here we are busy rehearsing it and hope to do as well in London. I’m back from my holiday for this purpose--also to have teeth out--for the holiday was spoilt by a violent attack of toothache. I had a face like a turnip--thankful am I that this didn’t happen while I was with you, or we should have had to bring the curtain down for a fortnight at least. But I got a run in France and another in Scotland, so I mustn’t complain. Only just now I’m a wreck from that dentist’s nefarious deeds!

“I think you ought to have a success with Zangwill--he’s an interesting personality. For me--well, I hope indeed to come over again, but I doubt whether the reading desk will see me any more--they like my books better than they like me, and I am very content to have it so. But I wouldn’t have missed the tour we did together and the experience of it. Just now I’m doing nothing--except the aforesaid rehearsals. All inspiration for new work tarries. It’ll come some day perhaps. Congratulations that you are well and prosperously through the war! The feeling here has surprised me by its warmth and generality. So there’s one good result, anyhow.

“My best remembrances to Mrs. Pond. No, I didn’t solve the riddle and had to look! I suppose it’s no good hoping for you here before next summer now, but then you must come at all risks.

“Yours ever, my dear Major, “ANTHONY H. HAWKINS.”

* * * * *

“30th Dec., ’98, “16 BUCKINGHAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.

“MY DEAR MAJOR:

“Most cordial thanks to you for your greetings--and the best of good wishes to you and yours for the New Year. On Christmas day I did not fail to remember our cheery banquet under your roof a year ago, and I drank your health and Mrs. Pond’s--hoping you were drinking mine out of a certain mug! [A loving cup which Mr. H. presented me, and which I found on my desk after he had sailed, inscribed, “Here’s Your Good Health, Major.”] I hope all goes well with you in health. For success, your letter seems to tell of a good season--you’ll have made more than I could make for you--though upon my word I don’t believe that would prevent you from having me over again. I am glad to hear that Caine and Zangwill both did so well--they are both very interesting people, so it’s small wonder. I have been rather ill this ‘fall’ (you see I don’t forget the language).... That little play I brought over to New York in my portmanteau has come to the rescue and I come out at the right end. It’s capital news that you hope to come over in the summer. I am sure to be here, I think, and we’ll fight our battles over again. We are all Americans here now--a development of feeling that gives me the heartiest pleasure. But whether the nations go on loving one another or not, your welcome here is safe whenever you come.

“Kindest remembrances to Mrs. Pond and your son--and I am, my dear Major, with friendliest thoughts,

“Ever yours, “ANTHONY H. HAWKINS.”

* * * * *

“26th July, ’99, “16 BUCKINGHAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.

“MY DEAR MAJOR:

“I am the basest of men in that I never answered your very pleasant letter. The only excuse is that I have been _buried_ in a new story and came up to the surface only yesterday! Moreover--yes, here’s another--I’ve a vivid recollection that you were coming over this summer and have hoped to hear your knock on my door. You haven’t come--and I suppose won’t now?

“For me? Well, I was nearly tempted over to New York--just for fun--but prudence stepped in and I stuck to work. That’s done, and I’ve a series of little holidays before me, broken by the task of rehearsing a play in the end of August. I am well, but tired--amiable but irritable (as you may remember!)--and shall be very much better for a month of the country. Except geographically, I _have_ been living in America--so many pleasant friends from your side of the water have been here and so much dissipation have they led me into. People keep turning up whom we met on our journeyings together. They asked me if _you_ worked _me_ very hard, and I have to confess that I gave you a much worse time than you succeeded in inflicting on me.

“What a splendidly successful season you seem to have had! You will hear with complete resignation that I don’t think I shall ever face the footlights again, although I do by all means intend to find myself in America again, and that before very long. But I’ve read here once or twice--oh, so badly! I believe I need the stimulus of your kindly but critical eye on the back benches of the hall!

“My best remembrances and regards to Mrs. Pond, and to yourself always good wishes and most friendly memories.

“Yours, “ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS.”

* * * * *

I quote from my diary of January 15, 1898:

“Saw my dear friend Anthony Hope Hawkins on board the _Umbria_, bound for England. Sorry to part with him; never had a better time in any man’s company for three months. He is an honor to his profession, his country, and his race. This evening I join F. Marion Crawford for a three-months’ tour to the Pacific coast.”

George W. Cable, with his “Old Creole Days” and his Southern stories, and George Kennan, with his “Travels and Explorations Among the Convict Colonies in Siberia,” are the only public favorites as readers and lecturers that have been brought into prominence through magazine articles almost exclusively. Both of these gentlemen were introduced to me by Roswell Smith, President of the _Century Magazine_ Company.

[Illustration]

One morning Mr. Smith called at my office to ask me if I had read George W. Cable’s Creole stories, which were appearing in the _Century_. I told him that I had not, but that I had heard Mr. Beecher speak of Mr. Cable, and was very anxious to meet him. Mr. Beecher had mentioned him to me as having “developed great literary ability,” and advised me to go and hear him read “just for the sake of the enjoyment.” Mr. Smith said he would bring him in and introduce him, which he did a day or two later. I found him a charming gentleman, and I know that he made a very fine impression on me at the time. He told me that he had been reading in Boston and had met with great success; that he had given five readings in Chickering Hall which, to his surprise, had netted him about $1,000 profit. This certainly was an excellent report for an author reader. I asked him if he would give a public reading for me before he returned South. He said he would. I at once arranged for an appearance in the Long Island Historical Society Hall in Brooklyn, and asked Mr. Beecher if he would preside; but a lecture engagement in Boston prevented his being able to introduce Mr. Cable, much as he would have liked to present him to the Brooklyn public. He said, however, that he would make an announcement of the reading from his pulpit on Sunday, which he did in the following words, taken down at my request by Mr. Ellingwood (Mr. Beecher’s stenographer):

“Mr. George W. Cable will give a reading from his own works to-morrow evening in the Hall of the Historical Society, at eight o’clock. Admission, including reserved seat, one dollar. I give notice of this, not because it is for any charitable purpose, but because I am very glad to mark, and to asked you to observe, the fact that our literary treasures are not confined to the North, nor to the Middle States, nor are they all of Yankee blood. Next Friday and Saturday evenings are to be given to the New England Societies of Brooklyn and New York, when we shall prove that there is nothing good on the face of the earth that did not come from New England blood. But until that is proved, it is worth your while to believe that God has made some smart men somewhere else besides in New England and the Middle States. After the period of separation between the North and the South, now happily passed, it ought to be a pleasure to every generous man to greet every returning sign of amity and friendship. When a man, born and bred in the South, has, under the providence of God, developed great literary talent, especially given to America an entirely new vein of dramatic interest, and brought it out with delicacy and richness, and with very great power, as Mr. Cable has--all of whose works I believe I have read, and read with the utmost relish and delight--when such a man appears among us, our hospitality ought to be so marked that there shall be one man, at any rate, from the South who will admit that Yankees have got hearts, and that they are not cold. Besides all this, if you want to know what an enjoyable evening is, go, just for the sake of the enjoyment.”

I told Mr. Cable of the pleasant things Mr. Beecher had said to me about him, of his regret at not being able to introduce him in Brooklyn, and of the cordial announcement made from his pulpit. Mr. Cable made no response whatever--was absolutely silent--and I was rather surprised, as the indorsement of Mr. Beecher assured success in Brooklyn.

The night of Mr. Cable’s appearance, Historical Hall was crowded. He walked on to the platform alone. There was no introductory speech, but, instead, a round of applause--I think about as hearty as Mr. Cable ever had. He began his programme, and then everybody listened attentively to the simple readings and delineations of the characters that he had created, and the quaint singing of the Creole-African songs. I am bound to say that never in my life have I witnessed an audience more absolutely charmed than this one, by these simple natural readings. It was a revelation to them.

Mr. Cable was obliged to return to New Orleans the next day, to be absent three weeks. Meanwhile I made arrangements for a course of five readings in New York, Philadelphia, and neighboring cities, I to accompany him on the tour.

Somehow I never could get a response from him when Mr. Beecher’s name was mentioned, and yet he must have realized Mr. Beecher’s part in the hearty reception that he had received in Brooklyn.

On the day after Mr. Cable returned from New Orleans to begin his course of New York readings in Chickering Hall, he said to me:

“Major Pond, you must have noticed that whenever you have mentioned Mr. Beecher to me I have never said very much. As you know, Southern public opinion is very hostile to him, and I am well aware that all accounts I have had of him, or virtually all, were colored by hostile prejudice; but it is already known of me, as far as I am known at all, that I am not always guided by Southern opinion. I have never allowed myself to form a fixed opinion of Mr. Beecher. I have read writings, sermons, and speeches of his, but I have never heard him preach, and I should like to do so to-morrow. If you can secure me entertainment for to-night (it was Saturday) and to-morrow, I will go and hear him. I would not go from New York on Sunday, as I never travel in public conveyances on the Sabbath.”

This delighted me, and I at once telegraphed a common friend of Mr. Beecher’s and mine, in Brooklyn (a lady who had a fine home on Columbia Heights and who was a prominent member of Plymouth Church), asking if she would entertain Mr. George W. Cable over Sunday, as he wished to hear Mr. Beecher preach. A very hearty invitation came at once, and a carriage was sent to the Everett House for Mr. Cable to take him to Brooklyn.

The next day he and I sat in Mr. Beecher’s pew, and he listened to the first sermon he ever heard the Plymouth pastor preach. It seemed to please him greatly. After the sermon he very cordially approached Mr. Beecher and told him how delighted he was with the sermon, and told him then and there that he had never before felt entitled to form a fixed opinion of him. Mr. Beecher said to me:

“Pond, will you please escort Mr. Cable to my house? I want you both to remain and take dinner with us. I have a committee meeting which will occupy about ten minutes, and I will join you.”

Turning to Mr. Cable, he said, “My family are all anxious to meet you, Mr. Cable.”

All of Mr. Beecher’s family were at home to dinner and they had all read Mr. Cable’s stories, and his characters were brought into discussion and comment in a way that only the Beecher family could do it. It must have been very satisfactory to the author. Mr. Beecher left the table about two o’ clock for his accustomed afternoon sleep, and the party dissolved, Mr. Cable and I returning to the home of his Brooklyn hostess.

I felt much gratification at seeing Mr. Cable’s silent neutrality change to outspoken friendship. After that, Mr. Cable and Mr. Beecher were very fast friends, and when Mr. Cable brought his family North and settled in Northampton, Mass., I arranged for Mr. Beecher to lecture in that city with the view that Mr. Cable and his family should hear him. It was quite an occasion in Northampton. Mr. Cable invited some friends to meet Mr. Beecher at his house, and the afternoon before the lecture Mr. Beecher planted an elm, which is now a handsome tree on Mr. Cable’s beautiful place in Northampton, and is known as “The Beecher Elm.”

Among the first letters that I received at the time of Mr. Beecher’s death were the two following from Mr. Cable:

* * * * *

“NORTHAMPTON, MASS., “March 7, 1887.

“DEAR MAJOR:

“Can the sad rumor be true--that Mr. Beecher is stricken with apoplexy? It is dreadful as a mere possibility. How shall one express the feeling of loss that comes to every hearer of such tidings? How shall we send words of sympathy to the family when as to him we are all in a greater degree than of any other one man, his children? He is--I trust we need not yet say was--the fatherliest man to the whole people our land has given us. You will know whether to show this to Mrs. Beecher or not.

Yours truly, “G. W. CABLE.”

“P. S.--I have just read the sad, sad news.--G. W. C.”

* * * * *

“NORTHAMPTON, MASS., “March 8, 1887.

“DEAR MAJOR POND:

“Your letter of March 6th, written at Mr. Beecher’s desk, touches me deeply. I know you are losing in his death the best friend you ever had; a man who had the art of being a friend as few have it. May God turn this great loss to your spirit’s gain, as only He can. I wish you had written me more; but I hope to hear from you again very soon.

“The blow seems to strike everywhere. No one fails to feel that the world is losing one of its greatest lights.

“This evening I go to read in Meriden. To-morrow I shall be back here. I hope you will find opportunity to come up soon and let me help you in the work--more a labor of love to you now than ever before--which you had projected.

“Four of my children are confined with scarlet fever, but the cases are light, and I can assist you, though not in my own house.

Yours truly, “G. W. CABLE.”

* * * * *

When Mr. Cable first began to give public readings he had so little voice that he could not comfortably make himself heard by an audience of two hundred and fifty. He decided that the first thing to do was to secure a training of his voice, which all his life he had been using so injuriously, because so faultily. Many of his friends advised him not to take elocution lessons, but he persisted, with the end in view just mentioned.

Mr. Cable’s singing of Louisiana folk-songs was a charming, quaint, and fascinating feature of his entertainment, and was so commented on by the newspapers everywhere. It never failed to awaken applause from his audiences, who would have had him sing the songs over and over again had he been willing to humor his appreciative listeners. Yet he rarely sang more than one in an evening and almost never more than two. For a long time he omitted them entirely from his programmes, because, as he said, “he felt jealous for the readings when reporters spent their praises on the songs.” One season he thought of preparing a lecture on these Creole songs, to be illustrated by singing a number of them interspersed through the lecture; but when Mr. Gilder told him “it seemed hardly to comport with his dignity as an author,” he took the same view, and never prepared the lecture.

Of late Mr. Cable has gotten back to his original usage, giving to the public what they ask--the Creole songs and stories as he originally sang and told them. Two years ago he gave them, in Great Britain with all the attractive naturalness of his maiden efforts.

As a reader of his own stories, George W. Cable is among the greatest of lyceum favorites. These creations are unique, and he alone gives them full value. But he is also highly esteemed as a lecturer. In that field he makes his own road also, just as he has done in realistic and character-making literature.

The essentials for a platform entertainment were so aptly and ably suggested in one of Mr. Cable’s letters that, for the benefit of committees, associations, and managers they are submitted:

* * * * *

“NEW YORK, Feb. 10, 1886.

“MY DEAR MAJOR POND:

“To make an end of all misconceptions, let us write a list of things we have to have and of things we would be happy without. For instance, among the essentials it is probably not unreasonable to demand a platform, brightly lighted and furnished with a table, which is all the better if it is decidedly heavy, so that one can freely lean against it without its starting away on its castors. Also, one chair, light enough to be freely lifted about by the speaker with one hand. A comfortable retiring room one need hardly mention; it is nearly always supplied. Foot-lights, if practicable. These are really about all that one need say are important to have.

“But there are other things that gladden one by their absence. One doesn’t want any lights behind the speaker, unless they are high overhead; nor any light on the table; nor any reading desk. Much less any sort of railing in front of the speaker; and still less a water pitcher and glass. Even less than these, any orchestra or band of music; and least of all, any species of _performance_, amateur or professional, long or short, musical or unmusical. And one thing which can be dispensed with even joyfully is sitters on the platform--except in the event of a crowded house; when everybody is welcome everywhere.

“Once more: Often there are those who would like to make certain non-essential yet pleasant additions to the appointments of the stage if they only knew what would be acceptable. We owe it to such kind friends to say what luxuries of the platform are to our taste. It is pleasant, for instance, but not imperative to have a space on the platform of about fifteen feet square or its equivalent. A carpet is always far pleasanter than a bare floor. An introduction to the audience is acceptable, yet of no importance. Where practicable, it is very pleasant to have an enclosed scene set, say a drawing-room, library, or study. A few books in modest bindings, inkstand, pen-rack, etc., decorate the table agreeably. Floral decorations had better be scanty than too abundant. A tasteful programme free from advertisements and printed on cardboard is a comfort. These trifles are real helps, and add to the pleasures of the evening both on the platform and beyond it. Yet there is almost nothing that cannot be dispensed with if not procurable.

Yours truly, “G. W. CABLE.”

* * * * *

Walt Whitman gave a few readings under my management during his life. They were mostly testimonials from friends, and benefits given in the theatres of New York City. On one occasion Mr. Carnegie took a box for $500. I think the receipts were $1,800. It was a performance well worth attending, and attracted a strange audience, consisting mostly of poets, literary lights, and rich people who admired the writings of the “Good Gray Poet.”

[Illustration]

It was indeed a picturesque spectacle at Walt’s last appearance in the Madison Square Theatre, on Lincoln’s birthday. Just as he was about to recite “My Captain,” a little girl, the granddaughter of Edmund Clarence Stedman, walked out upon the stage and presented him with a beautiful bouquet of roses.

Walt Whitman’s Camden home seemed to be a Mecca for the litterateurs of Europe who visited this country. Both Matthew Arnold and Sir Edwin Arnold visited him there, and a number of other distinguished men as well. It was during Sir Edwin Arnold’s last visit to New York that he suggested he would like to call on Walt Whitman again. He and I went to Philadelphia together, and, with John Russell Young, took a carriage at the Lafayette Hotel about noon and drove to his Camden home. Whitman, who of course knew of Sir Edwin Arnold, and he seemed cheered and pleased by the attention. I had planned the visit the night before by telegraph to Mr. Young, saying that we would surprise Walt. He had no intimation of our coming until we arrived.

The aged poet sat in his bedroom. He was wrapped in a big blanket, upon which his gray beard, that of a typical sage, flowed. The floor was littered with books and papers, almost blocking our approach. Sir Edwin Arnold managed to wade through the literary débris, and stood in the full light of the window before his host.

An inexpressible flood of delight passed over the face of the American poet as he beheld his great English confrère. Sir Edwin rushed toward him and exclaimed, “My dear friend, I am delighted to see you.”

“Arnold, I did not expect you; how kind and considerate!” was the surprised exclamation of the aged poet as he held out his hand. But there was more than the usual hand-shaking. The greeting was a literal embrace, for the two poets loved each other in the strictest literary sense. Sir Edwin had always been infatuated with Walt Whitman’s poetry, and the American bard found equal delight in the productions of the former. It was the second time that the two had met. Sir Edwin Arnold’s visit to this country in 1892 was made expressly to see Walt Whitman.

After the two poets had embraced, Walt Whitman received John Russell Young and me with an effusive greeting.

For the next hour and a half the talk ran fast and without intermission. Walt had much to tell, and so had Sir Edwin; it was a shower of literary epigrams. Sir Edwin was very sorry that his friend was not in the best of health.

“If I had hold of you,” said Sir Edwin, pointing his finger affectionately, “I’d soon get you well. You are not sick; why, if I could only have you, I wager that I could make you young again. Seventy-three years--that’s not much. You’re certainly good for fifteen years more, and during that time you can keep me delighted with books of new verse.”

“Oh, what beautiful things you say of me,” responded Walt; “and Arnold, how can I repay you for that splendid little tribute to me at the Lotos Club? You don’t know how it pleased me. It stirs the cockles of my blood to read the nice things you say of me.”

The two sat alongside of each other and began talking about American and English poetry.

“Arnold, we’re a lively, hustling people,” said the American bard, “and we’re too practical yet to appreciate the full sentiment of our verse. What a wealth has been written! Yes, we have not the high poetical spirit of the Japanese in this country. Over there in Japan there is so much sentiment--so much that is ideal.”

Sir Edwin said he hoped that the day would not be far distant when the people of America would have a very soft poetical glow to their temperament. “Americans,” said he, “are a great people, of remarkable intellect. What a future they have!”

Sir Edwin and his host next fell to musing over the great men of the country. They talked about Washington, Lincoln, and Grant, whose characters and deeds Sir Edwin avowed he was always fond of reading about. Then the pair had a literary treat by talking of Emerson, Longfellow, and other American poets. Each quoted many selections. Sir Edwin then asked Whitman if he should not recite from memory some of the latter’s gems.

“Have you some of my poetry in your memory?” exclaimed the aged poet.

“Well, I will guarantee to be able to recite at least half of what you have written,” replied Sir Edwin playfully.

“Now let me try you.”

Sir Edwin then stood up when he was asked to recite a portion of Walt Whitman’s verse on the death of Lincoln. The famous English bard’s eyes twinkled, and he began:

“Come early and soothing Death. Undulate round the world, severely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate death.”

Sir Edwin kept on reciting until tears filled the eyes of the American poet and he reached forth his hand thankfully. Sir Edwin recited several more selections, and then his host repeated many lines from Sir Edwin’s works.

Before the party arose to take their departure, Walt Whitman had three volumes brought to him by a servant. Each volume was very large, and contained all of his productions in verse and prose. He jotted down his autograph on each, and as he handed them to his guests he spoke like a playmate to his companions: “I won’t say that I will write to you fellows; it’s all inside the book.”

“God bless you and keep you safe and well!” responded Sir Edwin, and the visit came to an end.

Sir Edwin spoke thus of Walt Whitman: “Great, good poet that he is, he stands next to Emerson.”

WALT WHITMAN.

Gone has the savor from the salt With Walt. An untamed stallion, strong and sure, He galloped through our literature; No critic trainer had the grit To tame him to the bridle bit, No rein his headlong speed could halt, Unharnessed Walt.

A man of many a flaw and fault Was Walt. He never tried to train his thought To blossom in a flower pot; With careless hand he flung his seeds, And some grew roses, some grew weeds, And some rich flowers of purple blood Sprung from the mud.

O’er custom’s fence, with easy vault, Leaped Walt. The pedant’s gown he would not don, Nor hold his pen with handcuffs on. His rhythm, like a fetterless sea, Broke in mad music and débris Against the bowlders of his age With giant rage.

We shall not find ’neath heaven’s vault Another Walt. He gave a gift beyond all pelf, Man’s greatest gift--he gave himself. Then bear, with dead hands on his breast, This shaggy old man to his rest. A strong, audacious soul has fled, Now Walt is dead. --SAM WALTER FOSS.

[Illustration: A. CONAN DOYLE]

Dr. A. Conan Doyle came to this country in October, 1894, and gave forty public readings. Had it not been for his invalid wife, with whom he had promised to spend Christmas, he could have continued during the season and returned home with a small fortune in American dollars.

There was something about his personality that attracted people, and still he was not what I would say the most satisfactory reader of his writings. There was something about him that fairly charmed his audiences, and many of his great admirers were seriously disappointed when they found that as soon as the lecture was over the Doctor had made his escape from the stage door, so that those friends who had rushed to meet him and congratulate him could not do so.

I remember that I made a promise to a group of very prominent New York ladies, who had made a special request to meet the Doctor after his reading, that they could have the privilege of being introduced to him. While in the wings as he was stepping on the stage I told the Doctor what I had done and asked him to please wait and meet them. He replied: “Oh, Major, I cannot, I cannot. What do they want of me? Let me get away. I haven’t the courage to look anybody in the face.” He was a pessimist in regard to the satisfactoriness of his entertainment.

He is a gentleman with very hot blood. He seldom wears an overcoat, even in the coldest weather. He seemed to like everybody he met and everything he saw in America excepting our heated hotel lobbies, public halls, and railway cars. When he had a matinée lecture he removed his vest and buttoned his Prince Albert coat close to his body. This he could not very well do in his evening dress.

Dr. Doyle comes of a family of artists and literary men, his grandfather having been a famous caricaturist, and one of his uncles the famous Richard Doyle of the early days of London _Punch_, and another, James Doyle, the historian. He studied medicine, and at nineteen went to the Arctic regions as medical officer to a whaler. On his return to Edinburgh he continued his medical studies and there met Dr. James Bell, the eminent surgeon, the man who suggested “Sherlock Holmes,” his most famous character.

Like most literary men, he makes few close friends. He is a golf fiend, and will spend all the time possible, cold, wet, rain or shine, on the links. He is an ideal travelling companion.

I think that Dr. Doyle was tendered more honors from clubs and societies generally than any other Englishman I have known, hundreds of which he was obliged to decline. He was one of the most appreciative Englishmen that ever came to this country. American institutions and American customs did not seem to cause unkind remark or to surprise him as they have many others. He was a great favorite with the newspaper men, and they were always ready and willing to say nice things of him.

As for his impression of America generally, I don’t know that I can do better than to give his own story as he told it at a dinner given in his honor by the Lotos Club, New York, on the 17th of November, just before his return home.

Two hundred members and guests of the Lotos Club gathered to greet him. President Lawrence made a highly flattering address of welcome, and, when he presented Dr. Doyle, the latter was blushing at the kind things said of him. He began by saying:

“There was a time in my life which I divided among my patients and literature. It is hard to say which suffered most. But during that time I longed to travel as only a man to whom travel is impossible does long for it, and most of all I longed to travel in the United States. Since this was impossible, I contented myself with reading a good deal about them, and building up an ideal United States in my own imagination. This is notoriously a dangerous thing to do. I have come to the United States, I have travelled from five to six thousand miles through them, and I find that my ideal picture is not to be whittled down, but to be enlarged on every side. I have heard even Americans say that life is too prosaic over here. That romance is wanting. I do not know what they mean. Romance is the very air they breathe. You are hedged in with romance on every side. I can take a morning train in this city of New York, I can pass up the historic and beautiful Hudson, I can dine at Schenectady where the Huron and the Canadian did such bloody work, and before evening I have found myself in the Adirondack forests, where the bear and the panther are still to be shot, and where within four generations the Indian and the frontiersman still fought for the mastery. With a rifle and a canoe you can glide into one of the back eddies which has been left by the stream of civilization. I feel keenly the romance of Europe. I love the memories of the shattered castle and the crumbling abbey; of the steel-clad knight and the archer; but to me the romance of the red-skin and the trapper is more vivid, as being more recent. It is so piquant also to stay in a comfortable inn, where you can have your hair dressed by a barber, at the same place where a century ago you might have been left with no hair to dress.

“Then there is the romance of this very city. On the first day of my arrival, I inquired for the highest building and I ascended it in an elevator--at least they assured me it was an elevator. I thought at first that I had wandered into the dynamite gun. If a man can look down from that point, upon the noble bridge, upon the two rivers crowded with shipping, and upon the magnificent city with its thousand evidences of energy and prosperity, and can afterward find nothing better than a sneer to carry back with him across the ocean, he ought to consult a doctor. His heart must be too hard or his head too soft. And no less wonderful to me are those Western cities, which, without any period of development, seem to spring straight into a full growth of every modern convenience, but where, even among the rush of cable cars and the ringing of telephone bells, one seems still to catch the echoes of the woodsman’s axe and of the scout’s rifle. These things are the romance of America, the romance of change, of contrast, of danger met and difficulty overcome; and let me say that we, your kinsmen upon the other side, exult in your success and in your prosperity, and it is those who know British feeling, true British feeling best, who will best understand how true are my words. I hope you don’t think I say this, or that I express my admiration for your country, merely because I am addressing an American audience. Those who know me better on the other side will exonerate me from so unworthy a motive. It is a subject upon which I feel deeply. I am aware that the division of opinion among us at the time of your civil troubles has been taken to mean lack of sympathy with you. Far from being so, it was exactly the contrary. Our sympathies are so close and vital that when you are rent in two we are rent in two, and with a bitterness and completeness which was the counterpart of your own. So it would be to-morrow, and when it ceases to be, it will be a proof that we have finally lost touch with you. It is only when a great American or an Englishman dies, when a mighty voice is hushed forever, a Tennyson, a Lowell, or a Holmes, that a thrill through both countries tells of that deep-lying race feeling in the development of which lies, I believe, the future history of the world. Little waves and eddies may disturb the surface, but there is an unseen current there a thousand fathoms deep, which sweeps us onward to the same goal. And the proudest thought of a literary man is that he, too, in his infinitesimal way, is one of the forces which make for unity of feeling amongst the English-speaking races, and for that ‘peace and good will to all men’ which such a unity of feeling would entail.

“Gentlemen, I thank you once more for your great kindness to me.”

President Seth Low of Columbia University, Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, W. Bourke Cockran, David Christie Murray, Bartow S. Weeks, and William H. McElroy also spoke.

The menu had in its upper right-hand corner a portrait of Dr. Doyle, and on its border characters and scenes from his novels.

The night before Dr. Doyle sailed for England, Friday, December 6, 1894, the Aldine Club gave him a farewell dinner. Hamilton W. Mabie presided and introduced the guest of the evening, who had just arrived from Boston. It was a literary crowd of our choicest men of letters. Dr. Doyle seemed to have no set speech, but prefaced his reply to Mabie with an account of his arrival in Boston:

“I arrived in Boston and alighted from the train almost into the arms of a dozen cabbies. One of them had a dog-eared book peeping out of his pocket, and I instinctively called him, saying as I got in: ‘You may drive me to Young’s, or Parker’s--perhaps.’

“‘Pardon me,’ said the cabbie, ‘I think you’ll find Major Pond waiting for you at Parker’s, sir.’

“What could I do but stare and acquiesce by taking my seat speechlessly? We arrived, and the observant cabman was at the door. I started to pay my fare when he said, quite respectfully:

“‘If it is not too great an intrusion, sir, I should greatly prefer a ticket to your lecture. If you have none of the printed ones with you, your agent would doubtless honor one of your visiting-cards, if pencilled by yourself.’

“I had to be gruff or laugh outright, and so said:

“‘Come, come, I am not accustomed to be beaten at my own tricks. Tell me how you ascertained who I am, and you shall have tickets for your whole family, and such cigars as you smoke here in America, besides.’

“‘Of course we all knew that you were coming on this train--that is, all of the members of the Cabmen’s Literary Guild,’ was the half-apologetic reply. ‘As it happens, I am the only member on duty at this station this morning, and I had that advantage. If you will excuse other personal remarks, your coat lapels are badly twisted downward, where they have been grasped by the pertinacious New York reporters. Your hair has the Quakerish cut of a Philadelphia barber, and your hat, battered at the brim in front, shows where you have tightly grasped it, in the struggle to stand your ground at a Chicago literary luncheon. Your right overshoe has a large block of Buffalo mud just under the instep, the odor of a Utica cigar hangs about your clothing, and the overcoat itself shows the slovenly brushing of the porters of the through sleepers from Albany. The crumbs of doughnut on the top of your bag--pardon me, your luggage--could only have come there in Springfield, and stencilled upon the very end of the “Wellington,” in fairly plain lettering, is the name, “Conan Doyle.”

“Now I know where Sherlock Holmes went when he died. That leaves me free to write any more adventures of his that I wish as long as I locate them in Boston.”

Dr. Doyle heard some fine speeches that evening after he had finished. Bill Nye was the first to follow him; then Edward Eggleston, Thomas Nelson Page, Charles Dudley Warner, F. Hopkinson Smith, James Lane Allen, and others; but the intellectual part of the feast was listening to Dr. Doyle’s story-telling. He has a brilliant capacity for telling a true story with absolute correctness of historical detail and with anything but historical dulness.

After Dr. Doyle returned to his home he was, of course, obliged to say something of the impressions left by his visit. Among other things that he said, he made a remark to the effect that an English author should come here with the primary purpose of seeing the country and not of making money. This was immediately seized upon as a hint that his own tour had not paid. The following letter put that idea at rest:

* * * * *

“TO THE EDITORS OF “THE CRITIC,” NEW YORK:

“I notice that you allude to my recent lecturing tour in America as though it had been unsuccessful. In justice to my most able manager, Major J. B. Pond, will you allow me to say that it was successful beyond all possible expectation, that I had crowded houses nearly everywhere, and that I could have easily doubled the list of my engagements? My remarks about American lecturing were impersonal, and I repeat that an English author should go there with the primary idea of seeing the country and the people, and that the making of money should be a secondary one.”

A. CONAN DOYLE. “MALOJA, SWITZERLAND, Sept. 2, 1895.”

* * * * *

The warm feeling of friendship he felt toward America and the American people is well illustrated by the following letter which he wrote me some time after his American tour:

* * * * *

“UNDERSHAW, HINDHEAD, HASLEMERE.

NIND “MY DEAR MAJOR:

“It was quite a pleasure to me to see your handwriting again. I shall always regret that I did not see you when you came to London. Pray give my kindest remembrances to Mrs. Pond and the little man. You will, I am sure, be glad to hear that my wife’s health has much improved.

“Has not the Anglo-American _entente cordiale_ which I preached when I was in the States grown since 1894? It is the best and healthiest sign in the waning century. But we have much still to do.

Yours always, “A. CONAN DOYLE.”

* * * * *

I would give him more money to-day than any Englishman I know of if he would return for a hundred nights.

He must be a great disappointment to his old teacher. When he had finished school the teacher called the boy up before him and said solemnly:

“Doyle, I have known you now for seven years, and I know you thoroughly. I am going to say something which you will remember in after-life. Doyle, you will never come to any good.”

[Illustration]

Joaquin Miller, the poet of the Sierras, when he first appeared made a great sensation, and it was believed that a second Byron had been added to the list of our poets. He was born in Indiana, but was taken to Oregon when a mere infant. He spent part of his boyhood with a tribe of Indians, and there took the name of a well-known highwayman or “road agent.” It was a mere caprice on the boy’s part, but the name stuck to him and he stuck to the name. After leaving the Indians he went to the mines, and his life there is described in his novel “The Danites,” which furnished the plot and character for his play of the same name. He soon tired of digging for gold, and established an express, which consisted of a few teams that took and brought parcels from the mining camp to the nearest town. Then he took to law, practised before the territorial courts, and subsequently was elected a judge. Of course he contributed to the territorial newspapers--everybody did who had any talent for writing; but unlike most frontier writers his contributions soon attracted notice outside of the Territory, and he soon found himself famous. That made it certain in those days that he would be invited to lecture. He did lecture a few times in California, and then came East, but proceeded to London before attempting to lecture in New England. He found himself unknown in London, and adopted a very original scheme for becoming known. He issued an edition of his poems of the Sierras--just enough to send to the leading newspapers. He instantly became famous, and was courted by “society.” He accepted numerous invitations to parties in high life, and went to splendid aristocratic residences clad in red shirt, slouch hat, and with his trousers tucked into his boots. He wore his hair long and exaggerated the manners of the far West. The result was to make him the lion of the season. He reaped a rich harvest from fabulous fees for readings from his Western poems, and relating incidents of his adventures in the Rocky Mountains. When he returned to the United States he lectured a little, but did not make a hit, and he soon returned to the coast, and has since depended almost solely on his pen for a living.

Later he went to the Klondike, and after his return lectured in the States on his experiences there; but his former friends were not around, and the present public did not know him, so his venture was a failure.

Alexander Black is guilty of a new invention for drawing audiences. He wrote the story of “Miss Jerry,” and not being in a position to engage a company to produce it throughout the country, induced a number of excellent actors to give the play in costume, and while it was being acted photographed every scene and incident. Then he developed the pictures, put them on lantern slides, and with the stereopticon reproduces the play in every respect but the speaking, which Mr. Black does himself. This stroke of genius is making Mr. Black rich, as well as surprising the public with an absolute novelty.

[Illustration]

He has since produced two other picture plays. In “The Capital Courtship” the scene is laid in Washington, and the characters in the play call on the President in his office and in his parlors at the White House. They also visit many of the cabinet ministers, all of whom must have consented to pose specially for these illustrations. So great has been Mr. Black’s success with the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences that the manager of that institution, Mr. Franklin W. Hooper, paid him $300 for his initial performance of “The Capital Courtship,” and wrote me that this picture play of Mr. Black’s had brought many thousands of dollars to the institute.

The third year Mr. Black produced another play, “Miss America,” which has met with equal success. There is hardly an established lyceum in the United States where he has not appeared, and what is particularly interesting in these times is that Mr. Black is recalled more than any other stereopticon entertainer.

He was originally a journalist, and retired from that calling to become a showman. He spends his summers in preparing some new scheme for the edification and instruction of his myriads of friends throughout the length and breadth of the land. As I am not Mr. Black’s manager, it can be seen that I pay him this tribute disinterestedly.

[Illustration: ERNEST SETON-THOMPSON]

Ernest Seton-Thompson is a practical demonstration of what I have ever declared: that there always has been and always will be some one coming to the front whom the general public wants to see and hear. That somebody must do something good enough to attract general attention and render an equivalent return for what the patrons will give.

The name of Seton-Thompson had been on my list for a season. He frequently called at my office and gave me newspaper notices, and told me of the pleasant things that had been said to him where he had given lectures for small Lyceums at a moderate fee. He presented me with a copy of his book, “Wild Animals I have Known,” which interested me immensely, and I was satisfied that he was not lecturing or reading for revenue only, but that he had a cause, was fond of animals, that his life had been associated with them, and that he showed clearly that every living creature had paternal and family instincts the same as human beings.

I asked him if he would give a lecture in Jersey City, near my home, so that I could hear it, which he consented to do. I then discovered that he was certainly a big attraction. I had booked him with a kindergarten society of New York for a lecture at Carnegie Lyceum, which I attended. Although I went early, I found the box office crowded with women and children trying to secure admission; but the man in the office had no more tickets to sell. The young lady who had charge of the affair came to me in great tribulation; there were a lot of people who wished to get in, and all the tickets she had put out among her friends had been sold and she didn’t know what to do. I hurried to the box office and asked the ticket agent to sell the people something that would admit them to the place, charging a dollar each, and I told the young lady to let everybody in and secure all the money she could. The result was about $160 more than the original sale of tickets that had been counted upon.

Then I suggested to Ernest Seton-Thompson that he and I give lectures in partnership in that hall as often as we could. I secured a number of dates,--I think eight in all,--the first one being one week from the afternoon just mentioned. I went to Carnegie Lyceum that afternoon and found every seat had been sold. The profits of the lecture were over $500. I asked Mr. Thompson if that wasn’t the largest day’s work he had ever done. He seemed very much flattered, and acknowledged that it was. We went from there to Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, and Baltimore, giving afternoon and evening entertainments.

The matinées were arranged so as to take place after school hours, generally from 4:30 to 5. These were invariably the largest attended. It was surprising to find the number of children who had read Mr. Seton-Thompson’s book and how familiar they all were with the names of Lobo, Wahb, Mollie Cottontail, Blanca, Silver Spot, Vixen and Tip, The Wild Mustang, and especially Little Johnny. The appearance of any one of them on the screen was the signal for shouts of laughter from the children. Lobo and Little Johnny seemed to please them the most.

No man has risen more rapidly in public favor than Mr. Seton-Thompson, as regards both his writings and his lecturing. At the present time there are more engagements booked for him at high prices than for any other platform attraction in the country.

Mr. Seton-Thompson demonstrated that the hunting of wild animals with a camera, instead of with a rifle to destroy their lives, is fully as enjoyable, and possesses much more satisfactory final results. He has also taught us that the animals instinctively avoid man because they are being hunted for their lives; but in communities where the shooting of animals is prohibited, the creatures become tame and almost sociable. In the Yellowstone Park, where no firing is allowed or has been for years, the bears and the wolves, the cattle and the horses, and the children, mingle together undisturbed, and children, colts, wolves, and lambs are as safe as though in their natural homes.

Mr. Seton-Thompson is a delightful man personally. Children have no hesitancy in approaching him or writing to him. He has received thousands of letters from children in all parts of the land telling him how they have enjoyed his books, and of the animals they have known that he must have heard of, or he could not have given their characters so graphically. The most interesting reading that I have found for a long time is among Mr. Seton Thompson’s letters from children. Here is one:

* * * * *

“August 6, 1899, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.

“MY DEAR MR. ----

“‘Wild Animals I have Known’ is the best and truest book I know. I have read it twice, each time feeling its trueness more and more. In the simple way the book is written it helps you to understand the delicate and finer parts of animal and bird life.

“The book appeals to you because it is true and just in all it says. I think it keen in detail, liberal and fair to every creature in it, beautiful in its style. The style that fascinates you yet not a novelist’s fascination. Original in every way and no quoting or phrases of other men, but just the Author’s own original and simple words, and on the whole it is a fine book that couldent be matched in beauty and style. The Author must lead a beautiful life in the woods and on the plains and in animals resting places, feeling at home with them and learning their ways, and I guess we all thank him for his toil and labor to compleat such a fine book. I like the Pacing Mustang and his glorious gate, as everlasting as steel. Bingo and lots of other stories. The Don Valley Partridge in which Mr. Thompson speaks of the cruel hunter who hunted Redruff. I had a simeler experience but not a brutal one for it turned out all right. My, Uncle, a boy friend of mine, and myself with our rifels and a pistol, (we were with a party of others going for a ducking in Eel River) we three were ahead, and just as we turned a curve we saw a Father quail with six or seven young ones, we were all seized with an impulse to shoot him although it was out of season. I shot between his toes, then my uncle shot and it kept it hot. I shot twice again but all the time my friend was shooting and the dust was flying, there the quails stood untouched, and unmoved he waited till all the young were hid and then he hid himself. It was about five minutes that we had been shooting. I stopped and thought of Mr. Thompson’s book. I tried to stop the others, and I did. When we left the spot there was one boy ashamed of his shooting, a man glad he dident kill the quaile, but ashamed of his shooting, and last of all I with a wreath of happiness round my head and glad I didn’t kill the biped. Mr. Thompson saved his life (The quail’s) by writing that fine book of his, and he made me happy the rest of the day, and put the cruel hunting spirite out of my head.

“Hoping Mr. Thompson will write many more books,

“I am yours sincerely, “A---- W----.” (Twelve years old.)

* * * * *

It is surprising to learn, within two or three months after Mr. Seton-Thompson’s success, how many people have been interested in the same way, and are ready to make sacrifices by writing books and lecturing on wild animals.

He is a benefactor and has a cause. Fame and fortune are assured to him, which he justly deserves.

At present writing Mr. Seton-Thompson is speaking twice a day in order to comply with the demand for his services. Everywhere crowded houses welcome him, and always on afternoon occasions the greater portion of the audience is composed of children. The whole human family is his public, because every human being loves wild animals; the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, are alike interested and enthusiastic auditors.

All of Mr. Seton-Thompson’s writings and drawings descriptive of the personality of wild animals are enhanced many fold by his inimitable description of them from his own lips. It is seldom that an author-artist is gifted with the ability to entertain upon the lecture platform, but Mr. Ernest Seton-Thompson is as clever with his voice as with his pen and pencil.

William Henry Drummond, D.D., author of “De Habitant” and other French-Canadian poems, has lived virtually all his life with the French-Canadian people, and while most of the English-speaking public know the French-Canadians of the cities, they have had little opportunity of knowing the habitant as does the doctor. He knows them, and they know and love him so well that he allows them to tell their tales in their own way as they would relate them to English-speaking auditors not conversant with the French tongue.

[Illustration]

As James Whitcomb Riley’s Hoosier dialect poems have charmed the American people, so have Dr. Drummond’s won the hearts of the Canadians. He reads as charmingly as he writes.

For the sake of those who are not familiar with his work, I quote (by permission of G. P. Putnam’s Sons) a few verses from his poem, “De Habitant.”

“De place I get born me, is up on de reever Near foot of de rapide dat’s call Cheval Blanc, Beeg mountain behin’ it, so high you can’t climb it, An’ whole place she’s mebbe two honder arpent.

“De fader of me, he was habitant farmer, Ma gran’fader too, an’ hees fader also, Dey don’t mak’ no monee, but dat isn’t fonny, For it’s not easy get ev’ryt’ing, you mus’ know--

“All de sam’ dere is somet’ing dey got ev’rybody, Dat’s plaintee good healt’, wat de monee can’t geev, So I’m workin’ away dere, an’ happy for stay dere On farm by de reever, so long I was leev.”

“O! dat was de place w’en de spring tam she’s comin’, W’en snow go away an’ de sky is all blue-- W’en ice lef’ de water, an’ sun is get hotter, An’ back on de medder is sing de gon-glou--

“W’en small sheep is firs’ comin’ out on de pasture, Deir nice leetle tail stickin’ up on deir back, Dey ronne wit’ deir moder, an’ play wit’ each oder, An’ jomp all de tam jus’ de sam’ dey was crack.”

[Illustration: Very dutifully Yours,

_Tho Nelson Page_ ]

Thomas Nelson Page has been the most successful of the Southern authors who have read from their own writings. He has done more to preserve the traditions of the old South, the old negro character, and the interior home life before the war, than any one else. I wish that I were able to write well enough to say what I would like to of this Southern gentleman of letters. He seems to convey all that is best in a character, whether master or slave, and in such a way that every one who reads his charming descriptive novels is made familiar with life in the South as it actually was before the war.

Shortly after “Marse Chan” made its appearance, I received letters from all parts of the country asking if Thomas Nelson Page, the author of that story, could be secured to give readings. It was some time before I obtained a favorable reply to my many invitations for him to let himself be seen as well as read. He was very shy and quite averse to making an exhibition of himself, claiming that he was not gifted with voice or histrionic ability. He did consent to give joint readings with F. Hopkinson Smith for a short tour, beginning in Boston, January 12, 1892, in cosy little Chickering Hall. I had hoped for a big success financially, but the fame of the two Southern authors had not preceded them at the Hub. They opened with a small audience; but the newspapers gave excellent reports the following day, which assured success for the balance of the season. A Boston success means a success in New England, but I had struck high for large cities. We went to Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington. The readings were attended by the choicest literary public in each city. Return engagements were made invariably, which were very remunerative, and there was a good deal of money in sight. Mr. Page was paving the way for a magnificent success another season, as was evident from the number of applications that came from every city where he had appeared.

Unfortunately, that season I made one engagement too many in Chicago, for from there I received notice from Mr. Page that he would not give another season to the platform under any conditions. Very shortly afterward I learned that in Chicago he had made the acquaintance of one of the most charming ladies in that city, who seemed to have more influence over him than the alluring promises of lyceum readings. To make a long story short, Mr. Page changed his manager.

He is now living in Washington, and I am happy to say that I can count him as one of my best friends.

Three years ago I was a guest at a dinner at his house given to Anthony Hope, where were present the Hon. Lyman Gage, Secretary of the Treasury, Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and James Lane Allen and Mr. John Fox, Jr., the two famous Southern novelists of the time. One can imagine the charming intellectual atmosphere of an occasion like this; none present but that felt there must have been some fault in the reckoning of time, for it was 4 A.M. when the party reluctantly dissolved.

Mr. Page has a beautiful home in Washington, and I know of no one better fitted for such charming surroundings. He is as delightful as a host and in his everyday conversation as he is as a reader of his fascinating Southern stories. One can spend a day with Mr. Page in ordinary travel and conversation and attend his readings at night, and find that he has been as delightfully entertained in the ordinary speech as by the public reading. He has the sweetest-speaking voice that I ever heard. There is no music more delightful to listen to.

For one reason I am glad that I was deprived of his services as a star. Had he continued on the platform he never would have written “Red Rock,” a book which has met with an enormous sale and which gives the most graphic picture of the trials that the Southerners endured during and after the war. It is probably because I had been a soldier four years and had known nearly every character exactly as Mr. Page has presented it to the present generation and preserved it for posterity that I enjoyed it so much. Thomas Nelson Page certainly has not lived in vain.

Mr. John Fox, Jr., is a young friend of Mr. Page’s of whom I like to write. He is a Kentuckian, a Harvard man, lawyer, New York newspaper man, all-around athlete, and author of “The Cumberland Vendetta,” “Hell for Sartain,” and “The Kentuckians,” which have won him a position among the best writers of America and Europe.

In Thomas Nelson Page’s letter introducing Mr. Fox to me, he writes:

“Get John Fox some engagements. He is going to be a success, and some one else will secure him. Mr. Theodore Roosevelt was praising him to me the other night in a way to warm my heart.”

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Mr. Fox is surely one of the most popular Southern authors of the time, and is very much appreciated in the South on account of his nativity as well as because of the high character of his literary work; but he has appeared before the most cultivated literary circles in all of the larger cities of the North, giving his dialect readings from his own sketches of life in the Cumberland Mountains. He discovered a dialect and lots of good in the humble people who inhabit that mountainous region, and who are the least known of any of the inhabitants of our country.

For the class he presents he is as thoroughly sympathetic as Thomas Nelson Page is for the old-time Virginia negro “uncles” and “aunties” he so charmingly describes. I do not know a more natural and, in a refined sense, unconventional man on the platform and before his audience than this handsome, well-bred, easy youngish gentleman from Bourbon County, Kentucky.

The Cumberland tableland, which is the scene of his stories, divides the Blue Ridge or Cumberland Mountains in East Tennessee from the “basin,” or central and western sections of that State, and runs, a rugged formation, into Southeast Kentucky. “Charles Egbert Craddock,” as Miss Murfree signs herself, has preceded John Fox in the same field, but the latter brought to his later task of dialect and character portraiture the physical sense of companionship from his ability to actualize in his own life the Cumberland mountaineer’s rugged out-of-door existence.

In my own wanderings as printer, soldier, and later lecture manager, I have often felt the variant charm of the many-sided life of our land. Often, too, have I wondered at men going abroad to find romance and striking character, when so much of it is to be readily seen at home. The Cumberland mountaineers, generally of non-slave-holding stock, hunters even more than farmers, strong Union men in days of need, as a rule, but intensely Southern, nevertheless, afford a field for the story-teller’s art which seems to me of the most interesting and unique character.

John Fox has won its secret and knows how to make others understand. He has a capital presence, a magnetic force and manner, and a most telling voice at his command. On the platform he is pretty much what he is off it, except that he is sensitively watchful of doing his work well. William Dean Howells declares that Fox brings a “fresh vision” and a “novel touch” in the seeing and presenting of his scenes and characters. If that is true of his books, it is more eminently so of his readings and lecture descriptions. He has no mannerisms and gives no evidence of effort. He simply tells and lives in the telling. What he gives is truly his own work. His dialect is perfect, but it is human and actual, not a mere caricature. The figures he gives are wholesome and clean, as is the man who presents them.

Rudyard Kipling and I have exchanged a number of letters, but up to the day before he was stricken with his late illness we had never met. After several attempts through his friends and publishers, members of the Century Co., to get an introduction to him, a common friend of the editorial staff said to me:

“Major, it’s no use; Kipling won’t see you.”

“What have I done?” I asked.

“Nothing,” replied my friend. “He says that he has been told that if he meets you he will go lecturing, and he doesn’t purpose to expose himself.”

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And although his New York house was within a block of mine, he managed to keep out of my sight, much as I tried to meet him.

In 1895, while crossing the continent with Mark Twain on his lecture tour around the world, Mr. Kipling was often mentioned by Mark as the greatest “card” in the world, and I was urged to try to get him. “I am told he is the finest reader and interpreter of his own writings of all of us. Get him,” said Mark. So, on my return from Victoria, B. C., after having seen Mark and his wife and daughter sail out on the _Warrimoo_ for Australia, I determined to call on Mr. Kipling at his home in Vermont, hoping that, on Mark’s suggestion, I might capture him. I received no reply to my various telegrams that I would call on such a day, but I had determined to make the effort. Yet when I started from Montreal to Brattleboro my courage failed. I did not stop, but wrote Mr. Kipling immediately on my arrival in New York, and received the following reply:

* * * * *

“BRATTLEBORO, VT., Sept. 30, 1895.

“DEAR MR. POND:

“I am much obliged to you for your letter, but I can’t say that I can see my way to the ententement you propose. There is such a thing as paying one hundred and twenty-five cents for a dollar, and though I suppose there is money in the lecturing business, it seems to me that the bother, the fuss, the being at everybody’s beck and call, the night journeys, and so on, make it very dear. I’ve seen a few men who’ve lived through the fight, but they did not look happy. I might do it as soon as I had two mortgages on my house, a lien on the horses, and a bill of sale on the furniture, and writer’s cramp in both hands; but at present I’m busy and contented to go on with the regular writing business. You forget that I have already wandered over most of the States, and there isn’t enough money in sight to hire me to face again some of the hotels and some of the railway systems that I have met with. America is a great country, but she is not made for lecturing in. With renewed thanks for your very kind letter, believe me,

“Yours sincerely, “RUDYARD KIPLING.”

* * * * *

Later I sent a complete set of his books, with a request that he favor me with his autograph in each volume (about twenty books). He unpacked, signed, and repacked them, and here is what he wrote:

* * * * *

“DEAR MAJOR POND:

“Your order of the 22d instant has been filled, we trust to your satisfaction, and the stuff is returned herewith.

“We did not know that there would be such a mass of lumber to put through the mill; and we note also that your order covers at least two supplementary orders--(_a_) in the case of a young lady aged nineteen (not in original contract) and (_b_) an autograph work for which we have supplied one original hardwood case.

“Our mills are running full time at present, in spite of business depression; but we are very reluctant to turn away any job that offers under these circumstances, and making allowance for time consumed, sorting, packing, crating, and returning finished goods, we should esteem it a favor if you would see your way to forwarding an additional ten ($10) dollars to the _Tribune_ Fresh Air Fund.

“Very sincerely yours, “R. KIPLING & CO.”

(Autographs supplied on moderate terms; guaranteed sentiments to order. Verse a specialty. No discount for cash.)

* * * * *

MY “BENEFIT” EXPERIENCE.

I had never believed in benefits for managers, for it is generally looked upon as a sort of give-away--an acknowledgment of an impecunious condition, like the beggar who stands on the street holding out his hat or turning a little hand-organ, labelled with the sign, “I am blind”--and one’s friends are liable to cut an old comrade in the street, or pass by on the other side, as an after-effect of such an appeal to the public.

It had been a hard season, and some of my friends had reaped pretty fair profits and urged me to accept a complimentary benefit, tendering their services and assistance gratuitously. My friend Bill Nye visited the proprietors of Chickering Hall and obtained from them the free use of that edifice for the entertainment, and my printers went so far as to volunteer to furnish programmes, tickets, and such advertising material as I wished. The newspapers, however, didn’t open their advertising columns gratuitously, as that would have been an innovation and an instance unparalleled in that department of newspaperdom, but the editors were very generous with their puffs.

So it was suggested by my friends George W. Cable, Max O’Rell, Bill Nye, and James Whitcomb Riley that I accept a testimonial. It was arranged that George W. Cable should be introduced by his friend Roswell Smith, president of the Century Co.; that Max O’Rell should be introduced by his friend, Gen. Horace Porter; Bill Nye by Col. John A. Cockerell, editor of the New York _World_, and one of the finest editor-orators of the time; and James Whitcomb Riley was to be introduced by Dr. Edward Eggleston, the Hoosier novelist, author of “The Hoosier Schoolmaster” and “The Hoosier Schoolboy.” Each one of these introducers was considered an attraction in himself.

The occasion was well advertised, circulars were sent out, and I think I never had a more copious response by mail than I had at that time from my friends, all asking for one or two tickets--complimentary, of course.

The time arrived, and my old friends turned out in full force--the old free list. The expenses were about $200, and the receipts about $110. I pocketed my loss of $90, and have discouraged every suggestion of a “benefit” offered since that time.

The entertainment was delightful. No audience ever went out of Chickering Hall with more beaming countenances, and I had congratulations from all my friends. I was asked by one friend, who had paid for her ticket, if I contemplated a tour to Europe. I certainly could afford it after receiving such a rousing benefit!

In an appropriate speech, Mr. Roswell Smith introduced his friend George W. Cable as the most successful magazine writer of his time, and dwelt upon the good fortune his writings had brought to the Century Co., of which he had the honor to be known as president.

His speech brought a hearty round of applause to Mr. Cable, as he stepped forward and read “Posson Jone’,” his favorite Creole story.

Then Col. John Cockerell, in his characteristic eloquence, presented his pet humorist, Bill Nye, who had come from the West on his invitation and accepted a position on the editorial staff of the New York _World_, and whose writings had quadrupled the circulation of the Sunday edition of that paper. He was eloquent in his eulogistic introduction, and Nye caught the inspiration as he wabbled down to the front of the stage. Without uttering a word he had the audience convulsed for a long time, and when he did begin his story of how he earned his first dollar, the audience fairly bubbled over, while there was not the slightest ripple on the speaker’s round countenance. Nye was bald-headed all over, and more so when in front of an audience.

Then Edward Eggleston, the Hoosier novelist, introduced James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier poet, with many happy turns on the term Hoosier and the Hoosier State. Roswell Smith was from Indiana, Nye was part Hoosier, and every one down on the programme was Indianian to some degree except possibly Max O’Rell, the French humorist.

Mr. Eggleston’s introduction of James Whitcomb Riley put the poet in trim for his best Hoosier interpretations, and before he had finished his recital everybody in that audience was Hoosier more or less.

General Porter was saved for the last. His witty introduction of the French humorist was the climax of the day. There had been so much Indiana and Hoosier in the programme, he said, that he felt a little embarrassed and discouraged, as the only novelty about his candidate for the audience’s amusement was that he was not from Indiana.

It was an interesting two hours’ display of ability and genius, wit and humor, such as would be difficult to reproduce at the present time.

GENERAL SURVEY OF THE LYCEUM FIELD

James Redpath.--No reference to the American lyceum, its lecturers or lectures, would be complete without telling something about the many-sided man who picked up the famous old lyceum system that had done so much to “educate and agitate” back in the fifties and sixties, and who created out of its wonderful fragments the equally notable plan of entertainment and lecturing which then took its place.

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Previous to Mr. James Redpath’s establishment of the Redpath Lyceum Bureau, the entertainment agency system of to-day had no existence; and to Mr. James Redpath, in connection with his energetic partner, Mr. George L. Fall, deceased, belongs the credit of instituting the bureau system, by means of which nearly all the lecture business of the country is now conducted. That I have had so much to do with this more latterly is due largely to my good fortune in knowing so well his methods, while winning and holding the personal friendship of the founder of “Redpath’s Lyceum Bureau.”

Mr. James Redpath was born in Berwick-on-Tweed, England, August 24, 1833, coming to this country in 1848 with his family. For two or three years he worked as a printer at Kalamazoo, Detroit, and Chicago, then went to New York, where he began to write for the daily and weekly press, and soon afterward became editorially connected with the New York _Tribune_.

His health failing, in 1854 he started on a tour on foot through the Southern seaboard States to see with his own eyes what slavery was. When winter set in he renewed his journey, partly on foot and partly by railroads and steamers, until he reached New Orleans. During all this long journey he talked with the slaves, slept in their cabins, ate of their humble fare, and listened to their distressing revelations. These conversations Mr. Redpath took down in shorthand, and sent a series of letters, descriptive of his walks and talks, to the New York _Anti-Slavery Standard_ (William Lloyd Garrison’s paper)--letters which were afterward collected and published, and which elicited the highest praise of the leaders of the anti-slavery party.

From New Orleans Mr. Redpath went to St. Louis, where he at once obtained a position as reporter on the _Missouri Democrat_, a Republican daily paper. In 1855 the proprietors of that journal sent him to Kansas to report the proceedings of the “bogus legislature” convened at the Shawnee Mission. His reports of its proceedings and his descriptions of the scenes which took place were copied far and wide by the Republican press, and gave him at once a national reputation.

I was an awkward boy of eighteen, working at the “case” in beleaguered Lawrence, Kansas Territory, during the summer of 1856, and was drawn to the keen-witted, brave, friendly, and untiring young fellow who was constantly on the move as special correspondent of the New York _Tribune_ and of the old _Missouri Democrat_ of St. Louis. I had been reared on the old _Try-bune_ up in the Wisconsin pioneer home where my boyhood was passed. That’s why I found myself out there in that Kansas summer of danger. When Redpath asked me to go to Prairie City with him--he was intending to interview John Brown, and it was dangerous--I was eager to go, because his articles in the _Tribune_ had caused me to look upon him almost as a god, and where he went it was my ambition to follow.

In October, 1856, during the time of the blockade of the Missouri River by the border ruffians, Mr. Redpath led in an armed company of immigrants, whom he had brought overland from Illinois, and succeeded in locating them on the free soil of Kansas. He remained there for some months, taking an active part in Free State politics, and still acting as correspondent of the _Missouri Democrat_, the Chicago _Tribune_, and the New York _Tribune_. Early in 1857 he left Kansas for Massachusetts, married, and resided at Malden, near Boston, until 1875, when he moved to New York.

In the fall of 1857 he went to Kansas to establish a weekly newspaper, and at Doniphan, December 15th, he issued the first number of _The Crusader of Freedom_. It was a radical anti-slavery journal; but owing to the failure of parties who had agreed to support him to fulfil their pledges, he was obliged to discontinue it, after three months’ publication, and returned to Boston.

At the time of John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry, the press of all parties cried out against the act, and denounced old John Brown as a madman and a murderer. Mr. Redpath, who had long been on terms of intimacy with Brown, published a series of articles in his defence, and indorsed the step he had taken. These letters were followed by a “Life of John Brown,” which was written in three weeks. It was published in December, 1859, and had a sale of forty thousand copies. It was followed by the “Echoes of Harper’s Ferry,” which was a collection of the best speeches, sermons, articles, etc., relating to John Brown’s raid, and by “Southern Notes for National Circulation,” a large pamphlet exhibiting the character of the Southern people as seen by their acts following the execution of John Brown and some of his captured followers.

In 1863 Mr. Redpath began business as a publisher; but finding it uncongenial to his tastes, he soon abandoned it. His life from the fall of 1864 to 1866 was spent in the South, chiefly as army correspondent of Northern journals. He was at Atlanta with General Sherman, at the battle of Nashville with General Thomas, and with General Steadman and Colonel Rousseau in their movements to flank General Hood. Having accepted an offer from the New York _Tribune_ to join Sherman’s army, Mr. Redpath arrived in South Carolina in time to send the first report of the capture of Charleston to the North. General Sherman having gone forward, Mr. Redpath was appointed to superintend the white and colored schools of that city, and resigned his office as correspondent. During his three or four months’ stay in Charleston he organized all the day schools, and established night schools for adults; he instituted a public reading-room and library for the freedmen, recruited the first colored militia companies, founded an asylum for colored orphans, and established the custom, which has since become national, of decorating the graves of those who fell in the war. _He was the founder of Decoration Day._ On its first celebration, which occurred in Charleston, S. C., on the first day of May, 1865, upward of ten thousand persons, with a full battalion of soldiers, were present, and advantage was taken of the occasion to consecrate the ground where the martyrs of the Civil War were buried, the ground having been previously enclosed by the colored people of the district. Mr. Redpath was afterward appointed General Superintendent of Education of the Freedmen for the “Department of the South,” which included South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; but he did not accept the position, as business affairs obliged him to leave that part of the country.

On his return to the North, Mr. Redpath devoted himself exclusively to journalism, and contributed to the leading newspapers of New York and Boston until 1868. In that year he established the Boston Lyceum Bureau--now the Redpath Lyceum Bureau--in conjunction with Mr. George L. Fall, and up to October, 1874, was engaged chiefly in this sphere of labor. The bureau, it is now generally admitted, has done more than any other agency to revive the lecture system, which was rapidly dying out all over the country. Since the establishment of the bureau, the number of lectures given in the United States has increased tenfold, chiefly under the impulse which it gave to the system. It has more than quadrupled the number of lectures that were given in New England when it was organized.

“Jim” Redpath did several first things, to some of which I have already made reference. He was also the first “interviewer” in the United States, as his “interview” (as he called it in the _Tribune_) with old John Brown, which I witnessed, giving the Puritan leader’s account of the fight with Henry Clay Pate at “Black Jack”--one of the memorable events of the “Free State” struggle--was the earliest of actual newspaper interviews. He afterward popularized this form of getting at public men’s opinions in an easy way by calling those he had early in the Civil War days with Charles Sumner, “Stump Speeches in Slippers.”

As I think of my friend, whose name to the public was perhaps written in water, I wonder why he was not wider, better, and more enduringly known.

Some one has told me of an old clergyman who in his later years had slipped from all organization and yet managed to keep actively engaged in sermonizing and teaching. Some one asked him what church he was “ministering to.” His reply was, “The Church of Divine Fragments.” The last words seem to me always to fit the years and career of James Redpath. His days and his intellect were made indeed of “divine fragments.” Every ethical breath or cause seemed to draw him, but he did not remain to round out either the cause or his own work. But what a lot of service, according to his light, he rendered! The anti-slavery struggle captured his clear-brained youth. His courage, moral and physical alike, was beyond compare. The remarkable series of letters that he wrote, “unsigned,” from the slave States in the winter of 1855-56, of the long journeys “a-foot” that he made among the slaves and non-slave-holding whites, would have made him world-famous could they have fitted to and happened in these days. Then his equally remarkable journeys in Ireland, nearly thirty years later, during the early Land League agitation, the account of which also appeared in the New York _Tribune_, were almost equal to them for the peril encountered and the high courage displayed. Between these two points Redpath had been the first superintendent of non-racial public schools in Charleston, S. C., and had also been the first Northern journalist to interview Jefferson Davis, whom he invited to a lecture tour in the Union States. His life was full of large beginnings and alive with “divine fragments,” dramatic contrasts, and active with vigorous work, so that while he moved, and where he did so, he for the time being filled the centre of the stage. Yet he has left little behind him, and that little is fading. He published “The Roving Editor,” a record of his audacious journeys and insurrectionary agitation in the seaboard slave States--a book that is quite forgotten and of which copies are not easily to be found. He wrote “The Public Life of John Brown,” which was published within twenty days of the latter’s execution in Virginia, and during the last year of his life he wrote “The Life of Jefferson Davis.”

At one time Redpath entered the service of “The Black Republic”--Hayti--planning an exodus to it of our free colored people and, _sub rosa_, it has been said, an extended slave insurrection, which Fort Sumter made nugatory. Yet he had no war record, civic or military, except for a brief space as a recruiting officer of colored troops. It is reported that he got possessed with some Tolstoian views against war, yet there never lived a braver man than James Redpath. In his last years he identified himself with Henry George’s single-tax views, after he had been managing editor, under Thorndyke Rice, of _The North American Review_.

But his enduring public monument is the early shaping of the American lecture-platform system as we now see it, and the enduring personal, even tender regard with which all who knew James Redpath continue to hold him in memory. No man was more loved and admired by those who knew him well. Even those who in later years differed widely from him on personal grounds speak of him still in terms of lingering affection and loving regret.

THE LYCEUM.

The lyceum platform stands for ability, genius, education, reform, and entertainment. On it the greatest readers, orators, and thinkers have stood. On it reform has found her noblest advocates, literature her finest expression, progress her bravest pleaders, and humor its happiest translations. Some of the most gifted, most highly educated, and warmest-hearted men and women of the English-speaking race have in the last fifty years given their best efforts to the lyceum, and by their noble utterances have made its platform not only historic, but symbolic of talent, education, genius, and reform.

Until the Redpath Lyceum Bureau was founded by James Redpath in Boston, in 1867, lecture committees were in the habit of applying to lecturers or readers direct. These committees were usually made up from the leading citizens of the town, with a view to securing the services of the ablest men and women of letters for the entertainment of their public. The fee was generally nominal, but sufficient to cover the actual expenses of the star and furnish a small honorarium. Edward Everett, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John B. Gough, Wendell Phillips, George William Curtis, Garrison, Sumner, Lowell, Edward Everett Hale, Bayard Taylor, Frederick Douglass, Dr. Chapin, Henry Ward Beecher, Julia Ward Howe, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anna E. Dickinson, and Mary A. Livermore were the principal men and women of letters obtainable on these conditions.

Among the great readers who could attract large metropolitan audiences year after year were George Vandenhoff and James E. Murdoch--famous Shakespearian actors in their day--Professor Churchill of Andover, Prof. Robert R. Raymond, and Charlotte Cushman. All of these were attractions wherever they appeared. Mr. Shillaber (“Mrs. Partington”) as a humorous lecturer was also very popular. Of course there were many lesser lights, but the platform stars available before the war could almost be numbered on one’s fingers.

The lyceum had never been regarded by these gifted advocates of reform and progress from the point of view of “revenue only.” In every city and village there was a lyceum, sustained by the people for the purpose of furnishing the best courses of lectures and entertainments. The expenses for talent being light, and attractions of the highest class being popular, most lyceums were financially prosperous.

At that time music had not been introduced into the courses, which were at once the pride and the boast of every community. Then the music hall and town hall were considered the only proper places for wholesome entertainments, such as concerts and lectures. The religious element predominated in getting up courses of lectures. New England town and public halls were all arranged for lectures and concerts, with an express proviso that no entertainment should be given that required a drop-curtain. A year or two after the war, when over a million men had returned from military strife to civil pursuits, having been through four years of excitement that rendered it next to impossible to settle quietly down, there came an unprecedented demand for entertainments and amusements. The men and women nearest to the hearts of the public were those whose patriotism and ability had made their names household words during the war, and they were sought after for lectures all over the country.

It was about this time (1867) that James Redpath, one of the earliest founders of “The Freedman’s Bureau,” a journalist and father of many brilliant thoughts, conceived the idea of making and booking engagements for lectures. His bureau revolutionized the lyceum and lecture field. It created a profession, and made the management of the work a business requiring skill and systematic care. Redpath was the friend of Phillips, Garrison, Sumner, Gough, Emerson, Whittier, Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Anna Dickinson, and other patriotic platform heroes and heroines. Before that time our great lecturers were satisfied to receive from $50 to $100 a night and their expenses. Even John B. Gough never accepted a higher fee. When Charles Sumner was paid $500 for a lecture in Providence, such a fee was unprecedented. Even Wendell Phillips used to lecture for $25 or $50, and seemed to be willing to do so for that sum quite as readily as for $500 afterward. He wished the people to hear him, and he spoke for a cause. One morning Mr. Phillips came into our office in Boston to get his list of appointments. I said:

“Mr. Phillips, we have an open date. Springfield offers $250 for it. Natick wants it, but they can pay only $75.”

“What’s the population of the two towns?” asked Mr. Phillips.

We looked it up, and gave him the census report of each town.

“Natick offers more in proportion to its number of inhabitants than Springfield. Let Natick have it,” he said.

Mr. Redpath satisfied these lecturers that he could save them the trouble and annoyance of voluminous correspondence, and at the same time could obtain such fees as the lectures were worth, a suggestion which seemed to meet with general favor. By paying Redpath ten per cent. on all their business transactions they could be relieved of the care of bookings, and their income would not be diminished, to say the least. Redpath’s Bureau took charge of Mr. Gough’s business, and he cleared $40,000 for the season of 1871 and 1872, and during the last decade of his life his income was never less than $30,000, thus showing what could be done with experience and good management.

Mr. Redpath was the first manager to pay a lecturer a $1,000 fee. He paid it to Mr. Beecher for a lecture in Music Hall, Boston, in 1872. The gross receipts were over $3,000.

When the Redpath Bureau took Wendell Phillips’ business, he could easily get from $250 to $500 a night. There were several men who could command these figures. Men like Beecher, Chapin, Phillips, Sumner, Gough, and Emerson did not lecture merely for the money they made out of it. They put a good deal of love of their ideas, cause, or purposes into their work. There are men now who could make large incomes by lecturing if they would. There are almost daily calls for Seth Low, Chauncey M. Depew, Gen. Horace Porter, Bourke Cockran, and St. Clair McKelway, but they are not available.

Redpath would have been unsuccessful if he had depended upon himself for the management of the details of the business; but he was fortunate in associating with him his friend Mr. George Fall, a man of remarkable executive ability, who at once grasped the magnitude of the scheme and assumed the direction of the business details.

It was to be the Redpath Lyceum Bureau (Redpath & Fall, proprietors). Circulars were sent out over the country announcing the list of lectures to be secured. The newspapers talked about the plan, saying that every city, East and West, could have a lecture course of the best talent in the world by merely addressing the Redpath Lyceum Bureau. In the town in which I lived (Janesville, Wis.), John B. Gough and Anna Dickinson were secured. Each received $400 per night. Tickets sold at from $1 to $5, and the local lyceum cleared about $600, after paying all expenses. It was the same way all over the country. There was not a town which could not afford a great lecturer, but experience and ability were required to secure one.

About this time (1867-68) Petroleum V. Nasby was a great attraction and money-maker. Such a thing as losing money on a big lecture course seemed impossible. Carpenter & Sheldon, managers of the Star Course in Chicago, secured every lecturer and reader that the bureau had at its command, and they paid the highest prices. Their “Chicago Star Course” tickets invariably sold at a premium. Long before the date of the first lecture of the course there was not a ticket to be had. It was the same in Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, Rochester, Pittsburg, Columbus, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. Everywhere the star course was the fad. One Sunday in Rochester I attended a Baptist Sunday-school. Two of the prizes for some specially meritorious object were tickets to the Athenæum Star Course, in Corinthian Hall, where the holders could hear John B. Gough, Mary A. Livermore, Mrs. Scott-Siddons, the Rev. George Dawson of England, and the Hon. William Parsons of Ireland, and Ann Eliza Young of Utah. The list of lecturers was printed on the ticket and read off by the superintendent.

T. B. Pugh’s Star Course in Philadelphia was considered a greater property than any theatre in that city. He gave an annual course of ten lectures and concerts, and sold every seat in the great Academy of Music, from orchestra to amphitheatre (all reserved), just as soon as the tickets could possibly be passed out to the waiting crowd. The prices ranged from $3 to $8. It was the same with Hathaway & Pond’s Star Course in Music Hall, Boston, and with the Franklin Lyceum in Providence; in fact, all the large cities looked to the star lecture courses for the highest class of entertainments, and they surely had them. Lyceum treasuries were full, the people were liberal in their patronage, and the public was satisfied. It was a marvellous intellectual movement, and that it no longer exists in this shape must be looked upon with sincere regret by those who watch the progress of the age.

The first hard blow that the lecture platform got was from the clear, humorous light operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. People went to hear them who would not previously go to the theatre. To a large extent they took the place of the lecturers in New England, causing the public halls to be remodelled; and the curtain went up where previously it had been forbidden. The fun and the good music were popular, wholesome, and profitable; but when less gifted imitators sent out poor companies, not so clean, with poor music, there was a reaction, and the lecture-concert system began to regain some of its lost ground, and the poor trash of the show business had to go under.

During the years between 1871 and 1877 the lyceum flourished. It began to show weakness in 1874-75. There were not enough good lecturers. The war-horses of the platform were disappearing. Sumner died. Emerson was worn out. Curtis had assumed the editorship of _Harper’s Weekly_. Gough’s throat was thickening up, and it was an effort to listen to him. Douglass had gone as minister to Hayti. Henry Ward Beecher’s lecture engagements must bend to his church obligations at home. He was a preacher and the pastor of a church. Anna Dickinson got to scolding her audiences; besides, she had a craze for the stage. Mrs. Livermore could lecture only six nights a week. She had over eight hundred applications for a single season, more than she could accept, not only from lyceums, but from churches, colleges, temperance and women’s societies. About the same conditions obtained with Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. There were over five hundred lyceums to be supplied. The great champions of woman’s right had said and told all that there was to say. Nast had abruptly stopped in the very zenith of his popularity. Spurgeon, Gladstone, and John Bright refused to consider fabulous offers inviting them to come to America. There must be something to make the courses attractive or they would go under. It was determined to augment them with music. I went to New York and arranged for a grand concert company to open the principal courses in the large cities. It had to be composed of the leading stars in the profession, and nothing but the very best would do. One season we paid Max Strakosch $10,000 for ten concerts to be given in the leading star courses in Boston, Portland, Providence, Worcester, Springfield, Hartford, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. That company consisted of Clara Louise Kellogg, Anna Louise Cary, George Conley, basso, Brignoli, tenor, Alfred Pease, pianist, George W. Colby, accompanist. We used one of these concerts for the star course in Boston. I ran one independently on Sunday night in the Boston theatre. They were sold to each of the other courses for $200 more than we paid Strakosch. It was the finest vocal quartette available in America, and I would like to see it “bested” now under conditions similar to those then existing.

Next came a great lyceum star, Ole Bull, the most popular violinist ever known. His name assured the success of almost any course where there was an auditorium of ample capacity. I paid him $500 a concert every time he played for me. The great Norwegian “fiddler,” as musicians called him, had not appeared in public for several years. It was almost accidental that I secured him. He was at the Parker House, Boston, on his way from his home in Norway to Madison, Wis., his American home. I met him in the elevator, and asked if he were not going to play in Boston. His wife, who was with him, replied that he would not play in Boston until he could receive $500 a concert. Boston had never appreciated him.

[Illustration]

I was looking for a substitute for one of the attractions that had disappointed us for the star course in Boston, the date being the following Tuesday. I told Mr. Bull that our house was sold out, being in the star course, and that there was no way of making it possible for him to draw a great crowd on his merits. The audience, however, would be of more than average intelligence, and would be appreciative. I offered to give him $250 and all the money taken in at the door on the night of the concert. He accepted at once, saying that was fair enough. Mrs. Bull did not like it, and was persistent in insisting that her husband ought to have $500. We left the matter as Mr. Bull and I had agreed. They returned to New York that day (it was Friday). I announced in the papers that Ole Bull would play in the star course the Tuesday following. The next evening I got a note from the manager of Music Hall asking me to send around the tickets for the Ole Bull concert. He said that over four hundred applications had come in, and one especially, from Henry W. Longfellow, for six seats. What were we to do? There were four rows of seats under the back gallery that we had never put on sale, because no one could ever hear a speaker from that part of the hall. We concluded to number and sell those seats at $1.50 each. We also figured that we could put three hundred chairs on the stage, and four hundred “standees” wherever they could get in. On Sunday before the concert, Mr. and Mrs. Bull arrived in Boston. I called and found Mrs. Bull still determined that Mr. Bull must have $500. I did not tell her that under the present arrangement he would get twice that sum, but I gave her a check for $500, and took her receipt. The sale, in addition to the course tickets, was over $1,100. I afterward paid Ole Bull $25,000 for fifty concerts, and made a handsome profit.

Concerts and novelties were now called for in courses. In consequence, the call for lectures was much diminished. Gilmore’s band was a strong attraction for large cities, but too expensive for the average lyceum, so we made a feature for two seasons of Mme. Camilla Urso, the violinist, and a supporting company, which proved very profitable, not only to lyceums, but to the star. Adelaide Phillips, the popular contralto, was another great lyceum favorite, supported by Tom Karl, then the handsomest young tenor, and with the ladies the greatest favorite in the profession. It was found necessary that a new attraction for a feature of courses must be produced every season, and that feature music. Redpath had another thought--opera; English opera in lyceums, so “The Redpath English Opera Company” was organized with this original announcement:

“To meet a long-felt want in lyceums for an entertainment which would combine exquisite music and dramatic situations, to take the place of the miscellaneous concerts which have become almost as unpopular as readings,” etc.

This little company consisted of a quartette of young singers. They gave Flotow’s opera, “Martha,” complete, omitting the choruses. The orchestra was a piano only. They were beautiful singers. Miss Clara Nichols, soprano; Flora E. Barry, contralto; George H. Clark, tenor; Edward Payson, basso; John Howard, piano.

This was the most delightful hit of that season (1875-76). We could give a whole opera, without a chorus, for $250, and if necessary for much less. Every lyceum applied for it. In many places it could not be given, because the drop-curtain was the dividing line in classifying the character of the entertainment to be given in the public halls. In Worcester, Providence, Salem, Clinton, Natick, and suburban cities, where we could not use scenery, we produced the opera without. It gave great delight, and seemed to whet the appetite for richer feasts of real opera, and the advancement of the drama, which now so largely occupies the field of amusements. The bureau made about eighteen thousand dollars for that little opera company the first season it was out. It was the pioneer English opera company outside of the largest cities. In less than two years there were scores of English opera companies.

But the intellectual character of the lyceum entertainments has been gradually falling. There is seldom a lecture course nowadays that can get support from the general public as in former times. There will always be some one person more famous and universally popular than all the rest. Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) is such a man. His books are in every home, and his name has been a household word for a generation, wherever the language is English. He could command a greater fee now than ever before in his life, but he says “No.”

Of those who are actively engaged in platform work, the one who to-day (1900-01) has reached the highest point of popularity--and that, too, by a sudden bound--is Ernest Seton-Thompson, the author of “Wild Animals I have Known.”

To be attractions, heroes must make the history they relate. There will never be another Stanley, unless Peary finds the North Pole. I doubt if there will be another George Kennan, who delivered two hundred lectures on two hundred consecutive secular nights, the season after his return from Siberia, and who is about as good a lecturer as we now have. Peary’s adventures have been the most hazardous and the most successful of any of our Arctic explorers. Here is Dr. Cook, the first man to set foot on the Antarctic continent. But his unique success does not create the excitement it merits. Times have so changed that it is impossible to bring this, one of the bravest of our young heroes, into public demand. Of late our people have had so much to read about and to talk about that even heroes are common.

In the palmy days of the lyceum great magazines were of limited circulation. Now their circulations are incalculable. The Sunday newspapers employ a hundred writers where they had one twenty years ago, and the facilities for the manufacture of printing paper have increased in proportion to the writers. The machinery for printing one thousand newspapers an hour was considered wonderful twenty-five years ago. Now a hundred thousand is expected to be printed in the same space of time, and all this paper contains almost everything to be said on the subjects of progress, genius, education, reform, and entertainment that was formerly the function of the lyceum.

Opera houses have taken the places of magnificent halls. The greatest actor has been knighted, thereby compelling recognition of the acted drama as a peer of all other arts; the minister’s family goes to the theatre while he attends his prayer meeting up-town, and then calls for his family on his way home, and sees the last act of the play. The theatre is attractive, and its prices are no higher than the prices of the best lecture, while the public halls receive so little patronage that it does not pay to make them inviting by keeping them in order.

Right here I quote from United States Senator Albert J. Beveridge’s article on public speaking, recently printed in the _Saturday Evening Post_, Philadelphia:

“What nonsense the repeated statement that public speaking has had its day, that the newspaper has taken its place, and all the rest of that kind of talk. Public speaking will never decline until men cease to have ears to hear. How hard it is to read a speech--how delightful to listen. Speaking is nature’s method of instruction. It begins with the mother to child; it continues with teacher to pupil; it continues still in lecturer or professor to his student (for the universities are all going back to the old oral method of instruction); and it still continues in all the forms of effective human communication.

“The newspapers are a marvellous influence, but they are not everything and they do not supply everything. For example, it is commonly supposed that they absolutely and exclusively mould and control public opinion. But they do not. When all has been said, the most powerful public opinion, after all, is that from mouth-to-mouth public opinion--that living, moving opinion which spreads from neighbor to neighbor, and has fused into it the vitality of the personality of nearly every man--yes, and woman, don’t forget that--in the whole community.”

The veteran theatrical manager, Mr. J. H. McVicker, was in my office about twelve years ago, and said to me: “Pond, have you any idea how many travelling operatic and theatrical combinations are on the road?” I replied that I had not, but possibly there might be fifty. “Well,” he said, “there are over eighty!” It surprised me. To-day there are probably fifteen hundred travelling shows going from town to town doing “one-night stands,” though most of them are making little or nothing.

In cities like New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, Worcester, Holyoke, Lowell, Fitchburg, Salem, Fall River, and all over the country, theatres book time solid with these “combinations” from August to May. It is only through accident to some standard attraction or some disappointment that a big lecturer or concert company can find an open date. The best theatres will not risk losing a week for any good lecturer or concert company, consequently the lyceum attraction must secure a church, rink, armory, or some unfrequented barracks, or stay away. This overdoing of the “show business” has proved poor judgment on the part of local managers, with disastrous results to many of the combinations, and a loss of faith on the part of the public.

The men and women who have long been able to hold the public attention on questions outside such subjects as literature, historical themes, poetry, drama, exploration, adventure, science, or their own writings and personality, have been those who with eloquence and learning, or exceptional capacity and repute of some kind, have devoted themselves to a cause or question which, while it aroused public interest, did not at the time command access to the ordinary channels of discussion by the press partisan or other conventional procedure and methods. In fact, the lyceum and lecture platform, outside of its instruction and entertainment features, has always been more or less a field of propaganda. It illustrates the broadness of the American character that the people are willing to pay largely for the best presentation to them of causes and issues, even isms, which are held only by the minority. Intellectual curiosity, as well as an active sense of mental fairness, has a good deal to do with this fad. It is one that was more apparent thirty years since than it is to-day, yet it is still strong enough to be an important factor on the business side of the lecture management.

There is still a demand for good lecturers, as may be seen from the fact that I am regularly corresponding with some three thousand different persons associated with the management of lectures and platform entertainments, and at least sixty per cent. of them are women. Lecturers who interest people and do not offend the public taste (which I have always found to be very nearly a correct measurement also, apart from the rule of profit) can find constant occupation.

Clergymen are quite naturally among the successful lecturers. Of Americans, Dr. Hillis is now in the lead, Talmage next, and Gunsaulis next--the present triumvirate of American lecture kings. The Rev. Dr. John Watson (“Ian Maclaren”) is the best England has yet produced, and his popularity is still very great; and there are clerygmen of the Church of England that would be as successful as any yet imported if they would only accept the invitation to come. There is no other profession or occupation which has given more brilliant and scholarly minds to this division of the people’s university, the lecture platform, than the ministry.

Going back briefly to the decade preceding the Civil War, in which the early lyceum obtained its largest development, memory recalls most readily, as among formative and directing minds, both in civic and educational influence, the names of such preachers and teachers as Theodore Parker, Thomas Starr King, Henry Ward Beecher, his brother Edward, Edward Everett Hale, John Lord, Robert Collyer, Dr. Chapin, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dr. Vincent, Robert Laird Collier, and Bishop Simpson, among others who are also worthy of remembrance. The war period did not lessen the lyceum’s influence, but it vastly intensified the power of those who had become its leading lecturers and orators.

The church bodies and the associated religious societies which have grown from them have, from the earliest lyceum beginnings, been among its chief mainstays. During the culminating period of the slavery debate, the churches were, as a rule, conservative, and as such did not lend themselves heartily to either side of the great agitation. There were, as all know, many clergymen who did, and who, in so doing, were strong enough to carry their congregations with them. But at that date religious denominations were not lecture and platform builders. They are now. Nor were colleges and educational institutions then, in general, favorable to the secular teacher. Now the reverse is the case. The old star courses have mainly passed away. The dependence of the average and smaller lecture and entertainment courses to-day throughout the land, though largely arranged by individuals, may be found in the churches and colleges, or in the active bodies grouped around them. The Young Men’s Christian Associations, the Christian Endeavor Societies, Epworth Leagues, Women’s Clubs, and Societies of Sons and Daughters of the Revolution, with many literary and educational societies which pastors now so carefully foster, are active centres of support to systematic lecturing and entertainments throughout the United States, and the same is largely true also of Great Britain and Canada. The Australian colonies appear to depend more directly upon individual enterprise for such forms of mental catering as I am considering. One result of this condition is seen in the increased attention to personal character on the platform. The ethical need is marked by the social one. The old and enthusiastic agitating spirit has virtually departed. Instruction and amusement of a worthy character are more sought for. There is one result, however, in later days which is to be regretted, and that is in the very marked decrease of the scale of remuneration among the large number of small lyceum organizations that call for such service.

These two factors, the lessened interest in the discussion of disturbing public questions, and the decreased financial remuneration, have worked notable changes. What has taken the place of the aggressive spirit is a desire for an intelligent, broad, ethical insight on disputed issues. Controversial subjects are not popular. The platform teaching to-day must be imbued with the scientific spirit. Audiences want to know the why and wherefore of things set forth or brought before them. Lecturers are thrown back not only upon their eloquence of advocacy and sincerity of conviction, but upon comprehensive experiences and the thoroughness of knowledge. Lecturers do not succeed as pessimists merely. American audiences, if critical, are optimistic also. The merely grotesque, odd, or unusual, unless related to live interests, does not hold them long. All this is not due to indifference. It comes in reality from knowing more--at least more thoroughly--what they do assume to know.

After the Civil War and the era of strife that political reconstruction produced, there was a period of several years when even the soberest of lecture audiences desired far more to be amused than instructed. Yet live characters and strong brains that had learned, seen, and known the wider forces in the world’s activities, soon began again to have ample recognition. The men who tried to wrest the secrets of Polar seas from the grip of cosmic ice and snow; those who toiled under equatorial suns to win the unknown areas to the service of man; soldiers and sailors who dared all in supreme struggle for their several causes; all who had some genuine theme to offer, so that the minds of their hearers might grow, received an abounding welcome. The men of action are especially in demand. Thus there has grown again, slowly but surely, that new life of the platform that is now beginning to be more clearly seen and felt. Audiences are eager to hear those who tell of the great historical past, as well as of the living present. The platform compels illustration by voice and picture alike. But the mere pictorial lecture is losing popularity. Poets and novelists are drawn from personal retirement as never before. The humorists and wits are at the service of delighted thousands who listen just as they read, with enthusiasm guided by an increasing critical acumen. There is a healthy, gracious, normal loosening, too, of Puritan harness. The lyceum brings wholesome laughter and pleasure to vast audiences throughout the land. It is clean and human; it clears the brain while it cheers the heart. You cannot fit scandal to this platform, but you can make its audiences grow jolly and laugh with wholesome glee. There is no room for innuendo, and there is little of false modesty either.

Nearly a quarter of a century of work in supplying the demands of such bodies as gather about the lyceum and the platform has enabled me to judge clearly of a decided growth of keen intelligence and solid morality. The American lyceum entertainers are more than a popular match for the London music-hall artists or the Parisian chansonists. Excellent music is required, only good singers are the vogue, while those who read or give recitals must be of the best type. More than all do I find a steady growth on the ethical side of things. A man or a woman who, like Mrs. Booth, has a cause to present which appeals to human sympathy is sure of a hearing. But the public demands of even such a lecturer accurate information and wealth of illustration. Only a clear demonstration of the fitness of the appeal, with positive evidence of the due relation of the cause to common needs and daily requirements, will command continued attention. More than all these, there must be a looking forward to growth and upward to the sunlight. Such a speaker must believe as well as know, and must link his cause to the historical past as well as to the evolutionary future. The spirit of our lecture audiences demands inquiry with hope, knowledge with faith. An examination of themes and topics, as well as of names and capacity during my managerial experience, covering, as it does, so long a time, convinces me of the correctness of the cheering vein thus taken.

* * * * *

Concerning the business side of my life, I would like to say that the object of my work has never been simply to make money. If it had been money alone that I sought in my dealings with the talented people whose tours and business I have managed, I would very soon have found myself falling short of my ambition. A manager must be kind and liberal, and as far as he himself is concerned, the money consideration must be kept in the background. I have never desired to make great money. My object has been the approbation of those I served. I can say honestly that that has been the height of my ambition, and is at present as much as ever. That is why I am in love with my business, I suppose. I am thoroughly satisfied with the results, and would not exchange the friends that I have made for the wealth of many of our merchant princes.

INDEX

Abbott, “Honest Little Emma,” 166; her success, 168

Abbott, Rev. Lyman, when I first met him--his love for Mr. Beecher--Mr. Beecher’s appreciation of his friend--his wonderful resources as a preacher, writer, lecturer, editor, and business manager, 77-83; surprised religious world, 83, 84, 411, 412

Adams, Major, 49

Aide, Hamilton, 275

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 183

Allen, James Lane, 482, 508, 522

Allon, Rev. Dr. Henry, 65, 67, 116

Anderson, Finley, meets Stanley on _Teutonic_, 275

Anderson, Major Thomas, 47

Anthony, Susan B., 144-146, 539, 540

Arnold, Brother of Sir Edwin, 127

Arnold, Lady, 378

Arnold, Matthew, 116, 323-325, 487, 497

Arnold, Mrs., 378

Arnold, Sir Edwin, 375-404; where educated, 375; editor London _Telegraph_, 375; Lotos Club speech, 385; last appearance in America, 398; visited him in London, 401; last letters from him, 402-409, 497; visits Walt Whitman, 498

Austen, Colonel, Brooklyn 13th, 58

Austin, George Lowell, on Phillips, 8

Bailey, Banks, and Biddell, 57

Balch, Reporter, 277

Barnaby, Frederick, War Correspondent, 291

Barnum, P. T., xxiv, 92, 94, 96; as a lecturer, 350-354

Barr, Robert, 477, 481

Barry, Flora, 547

Barton, Clara, 141

Baxter, Rev. Dr., of London, 106, 107, 108

Beecher, Col. H. B., 313; and family, 73

Beecher, Dr. Lyman, 39

Beecher, Henry Ward, Plymouth pulpit, 1; on Depew, 17, 19; Major Pond’s tribute to, 37-75; when he came to Plymouth Church, 38; doctrine of forgiveness, 38; earliest recollection of the man, 39; first lecture for me, 39; in Nashville and Memphis, 40-42; speech in Plymouth prayer meeting on the first visit South, 42-44; last photograph taken of him, 41; in Richmond, his first lecture South of Mason and Dixon’s line, 41; his triumph in Richmond, 44-47; in Davenport, Iowa--meeting former Brooklyn friends on the cars--collecting of hairs on his overcoat collar, 47-49; in Topeka, Kans., meets former old servants, 48-50; baptizes baby in Butte, Mont., 52; in Bloomington, Ill., 54; red-hot poker, 55; marries C. P. Huntington, 65, 66; Chaplain Brooklyn 13th Regiment, 58-60; his Peekskill home and farm dairy, 61-62; in England, 1863, 63-65; last visit England, 1886, 64; Friday evening meeting night before sailing, 64; in Liverpool--hear Gladstone, 65; first lecture in England, 65; first sermon in London, 67; addresses theological students in London, 68; closes English tour in Dublin, 70-72; arrives home from England, 72; last days and death--entries in my diary, 72-74; Dr. Abbott’s relations with him, 77-82, 84, 85, 86; comparison with Parker, 87-112, 115; first sermon in London, July 4, 116; charged with preaching the Gospel for money, 116, 117, 153, 168, 210; advised me to get Stanley, 257; 306, 357, 358, 366, 406, 427, 490, 492-494, 539, 544, 551; dead, 74

Beecher, Mrs. Henry Ward, 55, 211, 313

Beecher, Rev. Dr. Edward, 551

Beecher, William C., 314

Bell, Alexander Graham, invents telephone, 466

Bellows, Henry W., 155

Benefit experience, 527

Berry, Rev. Charles, 79

Billings, Josh, his lecture, 185-187, 226

Black, Alexander, guilty of a new invention, 512

Blaine, Speaker James G., xxii, 21

Bonner, Robert Edwin, 384

Booth, Edwin, 309

Booth, Maud Ballington, 177

Boutwell, L. J., 164

Boutwell, Secretary of Treasury, 190

Bowers, Arthur F., 384

Bradley, Dean of Westminster, 67

Briggs, R. R., 202

Bright, John, on Beecher as an orator, 38

Brignoli, the great tenor, 544

Brooks, Arthur, 123, 126

Brooks, Phillips, 137

Brown, Col. Gratz, 190

Brown, George McL., 223

Brown, John, xx, 39, 535, 537, 538

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, 269

Buffington, Colonel, 425

Bull, Mrs. Ole, 555, 556

Bull, Ole, the violinist, 455, 456

Bunner, H. C., 382

Burt, Lieutenant-Colonel, 215

Byers, Major, 334

Cable, George W., 337, 340, 427, 486; first appearance in Brooklyn, 491; how I met him, 490, 527, 528; visits Beecher’s church and hears him preach for the first time, 493; letters on Beecher’s death, 494; suggestions as to platform, 496

Caine, Hall, remarkable personality, 452; his reading tour, 454; lunch with Zangwill, 471

Cameron, J. A., 291

Cameron, John, 415

Campbell, Isaac, 415

Carleton, Henry Guy, 387

Carlyle, Thomas, 368

Carnegie, Andrew, 396-398, 428

Carpenter & Sheldon’s star course, 315

Carpenter, Bishop Boyd, of Ripon, 14, 130

Cary, Anna Louise, 143, 551

Cary, William, 485

Casati, with Emin in Africa, 279

Chapin, Rev. Dr., 539, 551

Charles, W. G., 218

Chase, W. G., 224

Childs, George W., 384, 389

Christie, Gerald, 170, 174

Churchill, Professor, of Andover, 539

Chute, G. Y.,

Clark, James Edward, _Christian World_, 116

Clarke, James Freeman, 147, 148

Clay, Henry, 13

Clemens, Miss Clara, 200, 207, 208, 214

Clemens, Mrs., 206, 213, 218, 219, 224

Clemens, S. L. (Mark Twain), 197; a genius, 197; how a lecture manager swindled him, 197; General Grant and Mark great friends, 197; a printer, 198; Mark Twain becomes a lecturer, 198; starts on tour around the world to pay his debts, 200; diary of the tour across the continent, 200-220; great crowd in Cleveland, 200; on steamer, 199; in Mackinac, 203; Petosky, 204; in Duluth, 205; Minneapolis, 206; St. Paul to Winnipeg, 206, 207; Crookston, 207; Great Falls, 209; Butte, 210; Anaconda, 210; Helena, where old friend comes to settle old score, 212; arrested at Fort Missoula, 213; Spokane receivers everywhere, 215, 216; Seattle, the “Flyer” to Tacoma, 217; Portland and Olympia, 215, 216; Tacoma Press Club, 219; arrival in Vancouver--Mark ill, 221-223; sails from Victoria, 224, 225; as a letter writer, 226, 228, 229, 333, 427, 523, 547; introduces Nye and Riley in Boston, 247, 248; entertains Stanley and introduces him, 257

Cleveland, President Grover, 33, 431

Clifford, Rev. Dr., Westborn Park Chapel, 116

Cluff, David, of Provo, Utah, xxiii

Cockerell, Col. John, 527, 528

Cockran, W. Bourke, 506, 542

Colby, George W., 544

Cole, Dr. C. K., 213

Collis, Gen. H. C., 384

Collyer, Rev. Dr. Robert, 551

Conly, George, 544

Cook, Dr. Frederick A., Antarctic explorer, 293, 294

Cooper, J. Fenimore, 125

Corwin, Thomas, 166

Craigie, Mrs. (“John Oliver Hobbes”), 127

Crawford, F. Marion, xxiv, 148; a man I love very much, 455; how he travels and works, 455, 456; his lecture tour, 457-459; Dr. Abbott on his lecture, 457; reception and lectures in Utah, 458; in an earthquake, 460, 461; letters to me from Italy, 485-489

Crickson, Rev. Dr., 434

Curtis, George William, 341, 381, 384, 390, 539

Cushman, Charlotte, 141, 309; her career, 315-318, 539

Daly, Augustin, 309

Dana, Charles A., 279, 345

Dana, Paul, 384

Daniels, George H., of New York Central Railroad, 355, 356

Davis, J. Clark, 389

Davis, Jefferson, 538

Dawson, Rev. George, 118

De Freece, A. B., 389

Depew, Hon. Chauncey M., 17, 390, 394, 412, 542; as an orator, 19, 21; lecture before Twentieth Century Club in reply to John Fiske, 22; introduced Matthew Arnold, 323

Dewey, Admiral, Stanley refers to, 287

Dickens, Charles, 123, 124

Dickens, Charles, Jr., 207

Dickinson, Anna E., xxii, 152, 540, 544

Dix, Rev. Morgan, rector Trinity Church, 123-126

Dodd, Frank H., 411

Donald, Rev. Dr., 137

Douglass, Frederick, 8; tribute, 29, 30; 143, 539

Doyle, Dr. A. Conan, came to America, 503; described, 503-505; dined and speech at Lotos Club, 504; in Boston, 507; letter to _The Critic_, 508; letter to Major Pond, 509

Drummond, Dr. William Henry, author of “De Habitant,” 519, 520

Eccentricities of Genius, 1

Eggleston, Edward, 508, 528, 529

Elderkin, John, 411

Eliot, President of Harvard College, 391

Ellingwood, T. J., stenographer, 491

Ellsworth, W. W., sketch of, 474; as a lecturer, 474, 475

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 330, 539; last lecture, 331, 386

Everett, Edward (mention), 329, 539

Explorers, travellers, and war correspondents, 262

Fall, George L., 33, 542

Farrar, Canon, 116, 120

Field, Mrs. James T., 434

Finley, John, President Knox College, 425

Finney, Charles G., Jr., xx

Finney, F. N., 420

Finney, President Charles G., of Oberlin College, 39, 420

Fisher, Professor, 410

Fiske, John, 19, 20

Florence, W. J., 309, 383, 394

Foss, Sam Walter, poem on Walt Whitman, 500

Foster, George F., 485

Foster, M., 160

Fox, John, Jr., 482, 522; tribute, 523, 524

Frame, W. F., Scotch singing comedian, 175

Gage, Hon. Lyman J., 426, 482

Gardner, Mrs. Jack, 359

Garrison, William Lloyd, sketch, 13, 147, 226, 534

Gates, Lizzie Young, of Utah, xxiii

George, Henry, single tax, 538

Gibson, Charles Dana, 481

Gibson Brothers, 208

Gilbert, John, 309

Gilder, Richard Watson, 382, 384, 390, 495

Gilfillan, Judge, of Minneapolis, 421

Gilman, President Johns Hopkins University, 432, 433

Gilmore, P. S., greatest manager of his time, 361; organizes Gilmore’s band, 361; conceives and carries to success the World’s Great Peace Jubilee, 361-369

Gladstone, 65; my three visits to him, 348, 349

Gordon, Capt. W. H., 291

Gordon, Rev. Dr. George H., 434

Gough, Beecher, and Philips, triumvirate of lecture kings, 1

Gough, John B., xxii; as a lecturer, 1-6, 420, 427; as a man, 5, 141, 170, 193, 539, 540, 541, 542

Grant, General U. S., xxi, 20, 21, 323-325

Grant, Principal, 415, 417

Greeley, Horace, 189, 190, 191, 346

Greer, Rev. Dr. David H., 123, 126

Grey, Annie, Scotch minstrelsy, 172; many American triumphs, 174-176; made Scottish chief in Boston, 174

Grey, Madame Ogilvie, 172

Grey, Rev. Dr. Richmond, 45

Gunsaulus, Rev. Dr., 418, 551

Halderman, J. A., 384

Hale, Edward Everett, 391, 482, 539, 551

Hall, Rev. Dr. Charles H., 74

Hall, Rev. John, 384

Halsted, Murat, 277, 383, 384

Harper, President Chicago University, 395

Hathaway and Pond, 543

Hathaway, George H., xxv, 38, 40

Hawthorne, 125, 386

Henson, Peary’s servant, 298

Herbert, M. Ledyer, 31

Heron-Allen, London barrister, 357; heard him in London, 357; New York society favorite, 358; chirosophist, 358; novelist, 359; pet of Putney, 360

Hewitt, Abram S., 506

Higginson, T. W., 174, 391-551

Hill, James, 422

Hillis, Rev. Newell Dwight, 82, 83; estimate, 83, 84, 139, 550

Hinton, Richard J., 190

Hoge, Jane O., 155

Hole, Dean of Rochester--his visit to America--visits Sarony--king of rose growers, 122; speech at Lotos Club dinner, 124; Mrs. Pond and I visit Rochester, 127; a dean behind the scenes, 128

Holmes, John, Editor Boston _Herald_, 391

Holmes, Judge, 482

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 125, 384, 483

Hood, General, 536

Hooper, Franklin W., 512

Hope, Anthony, how discovered, 477; first American appearance, 478; incidents of tour, 479-481; in Detroit, 481; speech before Lotos Club, 483; Chinese dinner, 485; letters to Major Pond, 486, 487, 522

Houston, Col. Sam, 147

Hovey, Rev. Alva, 434

Howard, John, pianist, 547

Howe, Julia Ward, 143, 147, 539, 544; tribute to, 147-151; speech at Medal of Honor Legion, 149, 150, 228; “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” 151, 330

Howells, William Dean, Mark Twain’s prophecy, 333; his Western success, 340, 524; letters to Major Pond, 336, 384

Howland, William B., 81

Howson, Dean of Chester, 68

Hubbard, Elbert, described, 368-371

Hudson, “Sol,” 30

Hughes, Rev. Hugh Price, 273

Huntington, C. P., 55, 56, 57

Huxley, Professor, 116

Ingersoll, Robert G., tribute, 27, 28

Irving, Sir Henry, 132; advancement to knighthood, 312; visits Beecher, 309, 313

Irving, Washington, 123

Isaacs, Prospect House, Niagara Falls, 428

James, Col. E. C., 384

Jefferson, Joseph, 229, 305, 309, 383, 482

Jephson, Lieutenant, 272

Jerome, Jerome K., 477, 478

Jordan, Ebin, 362

Johnson, Governor of Alabama, 32

Johnston, R. U., 382

Karl, Tom, 169

Kellogg, Clara Louise, 143; first appearance in opera, 163; her home, 163; her brilliant career, 164, 207, 427

Kendall, Mr. and Mrs., 128

Kennan, George, 289, 290, 548

King, Thomas Star, 551

Kingsley, Canon Charles, 118, 123, 188

Kipling, Rudyard, 227, 525; letter to Pond, 526

Klaw and Erlanger, managers, 466

Klopsch, Talmage’s Boswell, 111

Knowles, Judge, 213

Knowles, Rev. Ottawa, 414, 415

Knox, Col. Thomas W., 384

Kruger, Stanley’s letter on, 285, 289

Labouchere, London _Truth_, 117

Latham, Owner Gad’s Hill, 127

Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 414, 415

Lawrence, Frank R., 123, 384, 411, 436, 504

Lee, William, 105

Leech, John, artist, 123

Le Sage, of London _Daily Telegraph_, 175

Letitia, old servant, 50, 51

Lincoln, Abraham, 155, 194

Literary lecturers, 323

Livermore, Mary A., xxii, 143; first saw her, 155; her great work, 155-160; letters to J. B. Pond, 159, 160, 228, 330, 539, 540, 544

Livingstone, Colonel William, of Detroit _Journal_, 481

Lobb, John, 92, 94

Lombard, Frank, 166

Longfellow, Henry W., 125, 556

Lord, Dr. John, lecturer, 551

Low, Seth, President Columbia University, 384, 390, 411, 506, 542

Lowell, James Russell, 135, 138, 382, 390, 539

Mabie, Hamilton W., 81; as a lecturer and orator, 329, 411, 507

McArthur, Rev. Dr. James, 123

McCarthy, Justin, 175

McConnell, C. H., 426, 427

McCullagh, John, 309

McElroy, William H., 384, 506

McGill, James, 345

McKean, Chief Justice Utah, xxi

McKean, James, 149

McKelway, St. Clair, 383, 384, 387, 542

McKinley, President, at Tuskegee, 32, 481

McLean, Iowa State University, 334

McMeakin, 49

McQuade, Hugh, 213

McVicker, J. H., 549

Maginnis, Major, 213

Matthews, Brander, 390

Mayo, Frank, 228, 229

Miller, Joaquin, poet and lecturer, 510, 511

Moffett, Sam, 221

Moretti’s, at dinner, 238

Morrison, Rev. S. G., 70, 210

Morton, O. P., 8

Murdoch, James E., 539

Murphy, John Miller, 216

Murray, David Christie, 506

Nansen, explorer, 299

Nasby, Petroleum V. (David S. Locke), 192, 226, 542

Nast, Thomas, caricaturist, 188; how he came to lecture, 189-192

Neil, Father, 330

Neilson, Adelaide, 309

Nelson, Captain, 272

Nichols, Miss Clara, 547

Nicoll, Dr. Robertson, 406, 407

Norton, Lillian, singer, 467

Nye and Riley, 242-259; scene on cars, 250

Nye, Bill (Edgar Wilson Nye), 237; first meeting--Laramie _Boomerang_, 237; first visit to New York, 237; lecture in Bridgeport, 238; autobiography, 241; Nye’s letters to me, 244-249, 508, 527

O’Donovan, Edward, 290

Ogden, Willis L., 149

Olivier, Herbert, artist, 123

Olney, Secretary of State, 283, 432

O’Rell, Max (M. Paul Blouet), 234, 235, 384, 527; his Chicago surprise, 227, 408

O’Reilly, John Boyle, 326-328

Osborn, Gov. Thomas A., 49

Page, Thomas Nelson, 227, 482, 508, 521, 522, 523

Park, Dr., with Stanley, 272

Parker, Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Joseph, 63, 114

Parker, Rev. Dr. Joseph, City Temple, 65, 67, 85; Mr. Beecher’s friend--eulogy on Beecher in America, 79; lecture tour, 85-89; comparison with Beecher, 87, 95, 108, 112, 276

Parker, Theodore, 1, 11, 39, 147, 551

Parnell, Charles Stewart, 365

Parsons, Hon. William, 347

Pasha, Emin, 270, 278

Pate, Henry Clay, 537

Payson, Edward, 547

Peary, Mrs., 297, 298

Peary, Robert E., explorer, 293, 295, 296, 297, 299, 548

Peck, George R., to whom this book is dedicated, 49

Peel, Sir Robert, 9

Perry, Thomas Sargent, 337-339

Peschka, Leutiner, Mme., 364

Phillips, Adelaide, 364, 556

Phillips, Walter P., 384

Phillips, Wendell, xxii, 1; tribute as lecturer and orator, 7-12; his memory, 8; his door-plate, 8; tablet to his memory on site of old homestead, 10; repertoire of lectures, 11, 13, 141, 226, 539, 540, 541

Pierce, Harold, 430

Pond, J. B., autobiography, xvii; printer’s devil, xvii, xix; journeyman printer, xx; letter to _The Baptist_ on Spurgeon and Beecher, 115

Pond, Mrs., 279

Poor, Ben Perley, 190

Porter, Gen. Horace, as an orator, 23-26; speech before Lotos Club, 24-26, 411, 527, 529, 542

Potter, Bishop Henry C., 121

Potter, Helen, 143; Lyceum impersonator, 170

Powell, W. T., Richmond theatre, 43, 44, 45

Prescott, C. H., 215

Proctor, Miss Mary, 143, 178; her sudden fame, 179; her many charms, 180, 181

Proctor, Richard A., great astronomer, 178

Pugh, T. B., 543

Raymond, Henry J., 345

Raymond, Robert R., 539

Raymond, W. W. V., 436

Redpath, James (Lyceum Bureau), xxi, xxv, 12, 39, 40, 188, 189, 194, 220, 226, 330, 331; tribute to, 199, 533-538, 540

Reed, Thomas, 411

Reid, Whitelaw, 345

Richards, John Morgan, 127

Riley, James Whitcomb, author reader, 241; autobiography, 244; programme, 242, 519, 527, 529

Roosevelt, Theodore, 482, 522

Rosseau, Colonel, 536

Rossington, 49

Rudersdorff, Mme., 364

Ruggles, Adjutant-General, 214, 215

Ruskin, John, 368

Ryan, Archbishop, 430

Sanders, Senator of Montana, 211-213

Schley, Admiral, 285

Schurman, President Cornell University, 125; speech at Dean Hole dinner, 126

Scott, Benjamin, presides in London, 66

Scott, Lady John, author of “Annie Laurie,” 171

Searle, Dr. W. S., says “He is dead,” 74

Seligman, A. J., 213

Seton-Thompson, Ernest,--Wild Animals--515, 516, 517, 518, 547

Shatter, General, 285

Shaftesbury, Lord, 98

Shearman, Thomas G., 81

Sherman, Father, John, 460

Sherman, Gen. W. T., 460, 535

Shillaber (“Mrs. Partington”), 539

Simon, Rev. Dr., Westminster Chapel, 116

Simpson, Benjamin, of Kansas, 49

Sizer, Frank L., 208, 213

Sloan, John, 408

Slocum, Capt. Joshua, 299, 300

Smith, Ballard, 384

Smith, F. Hopkinson, 222, 227, 508, 521

Smith, Joseph, Mormon prophet, xx

Smith, Rev. M’Kaye, 431

Smith, Roswell, 289, 490, 527

Sousa, J. Philip, 367

Spencer, Herbert, 118

Spurgeon, Rev. C. H., portrait, 112; attempt to see the great preacher--his letter, 113; hear him preach in tabernacle, 114; letter refusing to see me, 115, 119, 544

Spurgeon’s tabernacle, 95

Stairs, Lieutenant, 272

Stanley, Dean of Westminster, 118

Stanley, Henry M., African explorer, how I first met him, 263; first proposition to lecture in America, 264; comes to America to lecture, 264; guest of Mark Twain in Hartford, 265; Mark introduces him in Boston, 265, 266; recalled to Africa--stops lecturing, 267; Karagua Club, 269; returned to Africa--three years roll by, 261, 271, 273, 276, 278, 279; letter, 281-285; letters, 286-288; interest in Arnold, 378

Stanley, Mrs., first meets Major Pond, 275, 279

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 141, 142

Steadman, General, 535

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 384, 387, 390

Steele, A. J., 213

Stoddard, John L., 302

Stoddard, Richard Henry, 384, 390

Stokes, Fred A., 485

Stone, Lucy, tribute, 161, 162

Storrs, Rev. Dr. R. S., 78, 391

Stratton, Rev. C. C., xx

Straus, Isidor, 471

Strauss, Johann, 364

Stubbs, Rev. Charles William, Dean of Ely, 130, 132; speech at Lotos Club, 133, 134; in Chicago, 139, 140, 159; in Columbus, Ohio, 138; letter to Pond, 140; Hubbard on, 369; course of lectures, 370

Sulzberger, Judge, 471

Sumner, Charles, 8, 9; “Hon. Charles,” 14, 15, 147, 195, 539

Swinton, John, 345

Talmage, Miss, 98, 99

Talmage, Mrs. Dr., 93, 98, 102, 103

Talmage, Rev. T. De Witt, 88, 89; lecture tour in England, 91-110; telegraphs from Birmingham “stop everything,” 103; strikes for second increase of salary, 105; revulsion of public opinion; its cause, 108; means of disseminating sermons, 109; _The Congregationalist_ on, 111, 550

Taylor, Bayard, 539

Tennant, Dorothy, 267, 273

Tennant, Mrs. Stanley’s mother, 275-279

Tennyson, quoted by Dean Hole, 126

Terry, Ellen, 309, 312, 313; the greatest actress of the time, 319

Thackeray, 123, 124

Thomas, Chester, 49

Thomas, Gen. George H., 535

Thompson, Denman, 128

Thorn, Charles, 92

Thorn, Henry, 92, 94, 97

Thurber, H. T., 432

Tipoo Tib, 262

Toombs, Robert, 147

Tourjie, Dr., 364

Twain and Cable, 291

Twain, Nasby, and Josh Billings, 232, 233

Urso, Camilla, 546

Vanderhoff, George, 539

Van Wagneu, Bleeker, 411

Villiers, Frederick, war artist and lecturer, 291

Vincent, Bishop, 551

Wadhams, Lieutenant-Commander, 214

Walker, L. A., 208

Wallace, Gen. Lew, soldier, lawyer, orator, novelist, 465-467

Wallack, Lester, 309

Wanamaker, John, 430

Ward, Artemus, 125, 386

Ward, Herbert, 175

Warner, Charles Dudley, 508

Warsham, Mrs., 55

Washington, Booker T., president Tuskegee Normal Industrial Institute, with portrait, 31-33

Watson, Mrs., 408, 409, 411

Watson, Rev. Dr. John (Ian Maclaren), 132; account of first American tour, 405-445; description of the man, 405; “You are in Meriden,” 410; in Montreal, 413; in Chicago, 418, 419; in Appleton, 420; in Minneapolis, 421; in Des Moines, 423; in Galesburg, 425; in Pittsburg, 428; Niagara Falls, 429; Washington--lunch with President Cleveland, 431, 432; in Boston, 433; Lotos Club speech, 436-440; in Poughkeepsie, 444; last week in America, 447; sails for England, 449; letter from Liverpool, 450, 551

Watterson, Henry, 345, 346

Webster, C. L. & Co., 197, 198

Webster, Daniel, 13

Weed, Thurlow, 39

Weeks, Barlow S., 506

Wellcome, Henry S., 269, 270, 272, 274

West, Colonel, of West Hotel, Minneapolis, 421

Wetherel, Eugene, 168

Whipple, Rev. E. P., 147

White, Deacon S. V., 86, 412

Whitman, Walt, 386, 388; “Gone,” poem, Sam Walter Foss, 500; described, 497-499; gave readings, 497

Whitney, J. W., 422

Whittier, John G., 125, 377, 384

Wilder, Marshal P., 324

Williams, Barney, 309

Willis, 125

Winde, Frederick, 70

Winter Memorial Library, 306

Winter, William, 136, 138, 175, 176; tribute to, 306, 307, 384, 390, 411, 440; farewell to Iona, 142, 143; letter, 308; “Died,” Augustin Daly poem, 309

Wood, Rev. Charles, 108

Woods, Governor of Utah, xxi

Young, Ann Eliza, xx; portrait, xxi, xxiv

Young, Brigham, xx; normal college, xxiii, 176

Young, John Russell, 387, 388, 430, 481, 498

Zangwill, Israel, 175; author, 469; I visit him in London, 469; arrives in America, 470; first lecture, 471; lecture tour, 472, 473

Zarrhan, Carl, 364