ENGLISH AND SCOTCH READINGS.
I have another vast volume before me, recounting my English and Scotch Reading Tours, with full details of innumerable home kindnesses and hospitalities, from Ventnor in the South to Peterhead in the North, which I need not particularise. I gave twenty-one "Readings from my own Works" southward, in a dozen towns with a regular entrepreneur, who was my avant courier everywhere, making all arrangements, placarding, advertising, hiring halls, engaging reporters, and the like; when all was ready, I used to come forward, as the General does at a review,—and then succeeded the sham-fight and division of the spoils of war—if any; for, to say truth, our partnership did not prove lucrative, so we parted with mutual esteem, and I resolved to accomplish all the rest of my projected tour alone; a great effort and a successful one, for I "orated" all through Scotland, from Ayr to Peterhead (far north of Aberdeen), often to very large audiences (as at Glasgow, where the number was said to be three thousand) and always to fair ones, the Scotch being much more given to literature than the West of England. I could give innumerable anecdotes of the splendid as well as kindly welcome I received from great and small,—for as I now had no attending agent I was all the more eagerly treated as a solitary guest,—and I found myself handed on from one rich host to another all through the land, with numerous book friends everywhere ready and willing to make all arrangements freely at each town and city. So the tour paid better every way, albeit the toil and excitement of being always to the front, either on platforms or at dinner-parties, was excessive though not exhausting. It is astonishing what one can do if one tries, and if the sympathy of friends and a really good success are at hand to cheer one. I wish there was space here to say more about all this; but the great book before me would print up into several volumes. I will only, add, as below, an interesting extract from this diary, just before I had parted with my worthy agent aforesaid:—"He has told me some curious anecdotes about eminent artistes whom he has chaperoned, e.g. Thackeray came to Clifton to give four readings on the Georges; the first reading had only three auditors, the second not one; so Thackeray went away. Bellew is uncertain; sometimes having empty benches, sometimes overflowing ones, according to the programme, whether serious or laughable. Tom Hood gave a lecture on Humour, which was so dull that the audience left him. Miss Glyn Dallas often reads 'Cleopatra,' magnificently too, to empty benches. Sims Reeves draws a vast audience, but sometimes at the last moment refuses to sing (probably paying forfeit) because he is always afraid of something giving way in his throat. Dickens, though with crowded audiences, was not liked, nor nearly so good as Mr.—— expected: he carried about with him a sort of show-box, set round with lights and covered with purple cloth, in the midst of which he appeared in full evening costume with bouquet in button-hole, and, as Mr.—— said, 'very stiff.' Mr.—— has just engaged Madame Lemmens Sherrington and six others for sixty-three concerts at a cost of £4000, for he says that good music—after low humour—is the best thing to pay. May his spirited speculation prosper!" Thus much for my quotation of Mr.—— 's experiences.
It may interest a reader if I give, quite at haphazard, a list of one of my readings: "Welcome; Adventure; Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow; All's for the Best; Energy; Success; Warmth; Be True; Of Love; The Lost Arctic; The Way of the World; Cheerfulness." All these may be found in my Miscellaneous Poems and "Proverbial Philosophy." I varied the programme—of about an hour and a half each (sometimes two)—frequently through my fifty readings on this side of the Atlantic, as well as through my hundred over there. How strange that the stammerer should have so become the orator!—I thank God for this.
Before a final end to this brief record of my home-readings, I will add another page of short extracts from this diary: "Though I continually read for nearly two hours at a stretch (and that sometimes twice a day too) I take no intervals, and hardly anything but a sip of water. Energy and electrical effort are stimulants enough." "I always exert myself quite as much for few as for many; perhaps more so." "No one ever can read well or hold his audience if he doesn't feel what he reads." "Some of the clergy are no great friends of mine; one told me to-day that 'perpetual dearly beloved brethren had spoilt him for eloquence, and he didn't care to hear mine.'" This was at Salisbury, in a coffee-room. "Cathedral towns are always dullest and least sympathetic with lecturing laymen; for example, at Bristol, Salisbury, Worcester, Gloster, and the like. Are the clerics jealous of lay spouters? Dissenting ministers and Presbyterians seem far more genial." "I travelled about fifteen hundred miles by rail, besides coaches and carriages. My aggregate of paying hearers was about sixteen thousand, the bulk being old book-likers. The gain was nearly four times as much as the cost, good hospitality having been the rule." "I read publicly (private readings additional, as often asked after dinners, &c.) twenty-nine proverbial essays and thirty-eight poems; repeated according to popularity by request to two hundred." I only do not name some of my generous Scotch and English hosts for fear of seeming to have forgotten others by omission; and the list is too lengthy for full insertion; as also is the long story of my adventures and experiences in the hospitable North.