“Prof. A. J. Armstrong, head of the English Department of Baylor University, Waco, Texas, heard G. K. C. in England,
“He talked to the members of my group for more than an hour on Browning. He referred to his own life of Browning as an immature work, although he said it was necessary for him to do a great deal of hack work when he was young, about the time of this publication.
“When one of the ladies present interrupted and said,
“‘Mr. Chesterton, the Browning work has some wonderful things in it,’ he only laughed and went on. In his thoughts he stayed close to the things that he had said in his book. His general conversation, of course, was delightful and was filled with the paradoxes for which he was so famous.
“He took dinner with us at the Hotel Victoria, off Trafalgar Square, and Mrs. Chesterton was with him. I sat next Mrs. Chesterton the whole evening and she was a lovely woman, quiet, refined, a poetess, with a great many experiences which she told delightfully.
“Mr. Chesterton had a delightful wit, was a vigorous speaker, and was a man of great power,—although—and I believe that this is not given with what one usually knows of him—he had a shy way of looking under his glasses that was charming.
“A little later we had our symposium in London where Mr. Chesterton addressed a group of friends. I do not know whether you ever heard of Mrs. French-Sheldon or not. Before her death all the “Who’s Who” carried her. She was an American who learned her ‘A B C’s’ from Washington Irving, and from that time until her death her life was one long spectacle. She told me that at one time she was the guest of George Sand, and that Chopin came in, and Victor Hugo later joined them. Just imagine such a coterie!
“Mrs. French-Sheldon was one who did a great deal of exploring in Africa, and was the first white woman to enter one side of the African Continent and come out on the other. Later under the direction of J. B. Pond, she made twenty-three addresses in America and received $23,000 in cash for them, that is, one thousand dollars a night.
“When I was interested in getting Mr. Chesterton to speak in Waco his fee was one thousand dollars. So in London when I introduced Mrs. French-Sheldon in the charming coterie, I said to Mr. Chesterton: ‘Probably when you were a little boy in short trousers this lady was touring American cities at one thousand dollars a night, so you can see that you are not the only one that gets that price, and she got it twenty years before you did.’ Mr. Chesterton answered with a smile. But he seemed tremendously impressed, for in the social hour that followed the symposium, he showed Mrs. French-Sheldon a number of courtesies.”
Mrs. Lillian Curt heard a lecture in London,