Amongst those kind friends I must be allowed at present to mention the names of the Hon. C. A. Murray, Sir Augustus d’Este, Charles D. Archibald, Esq., Sir James Clark, Sir Thomas Phillips, Mr. Petty Vaughan, Dr. Hodgkin, Capt. Shippard, Sir Francis Head, Lord Monteagle, John Murray, A. M. Perkins, and Sir David Wilkie; and there were many others with these who were very frequently at my rooms; and for their friendly and constant efforts to promote my interest they have my sincerest thanks.
Several of these gentlemen, and others, whose visits were so frequent to my rooms, having formed an acquaintance with the Indians in their own country, or, from feelings of sympathy for them, taken so deep an interest in the subject, relieved me much of my time from the fatiguing task which I had adopted of explaining around the rooms such subjects as I considered most curious and instructive, and of answering the thousands of questions which were naturally put in every part of the room for information on so novel and exciting a theme.
I had entered upon this, at first, not as a task but an amusement, from which I drew great pleasure whilst I was entertaining my visitors and cultivating their pleasing acquaintance. From an over desire and effort on my part to explain the peculiar and curious modes of those wild people, and from a determination on the part of my visitors to get these explanations from my own lips (although I had my man Daniel and several others constantly in the rooms for the same purpose), I was held in my exhibition rooms almost daily from morning until night.
My men were able to explain the meaning of everything in the collection, but this did not satisfy the public whilst I was present. All inquired for me: “Where’s Mr. Catlin? he’s the Lion; his collection is wonderful; but I would give more to see him than all the rest.” “He is yonder, Madam, at the farther end of the room, where you see a crowd of people around him.”
I was generally in the midst of a crowd, who were densely packed around me; moving about the rooms whilst, with a rod in my hand to point with, I was lecturing or answering the numerous questions which were naturally put relative to these strange people and their modes. To lecture or to explain all day, following the current of one’s thoughts, would have been a thing feasible, though fatiguing; but to stand upon one’s feet and all day long to answer to interrogations, and many of those fifty times over, to different parties who were successively taking me in tow, I soon found was far more fatiguing than my travels and labours in the Indian wilderness; and I at length (at a much later period than my friends and my physician advised) gradually withdrew from the scene and this suicidal course, just before it might have been too late to have saved anything useful of me.
I followed the advice of my physician by going to my rooms at stated hours, but soon departed from it by failing to leave them with punctuality, and take recreation in the open air. The partial change I had adopted, however, was of advantage to me—talking part of the day and breaking off and leaving my men to do the talking for the other half.
Like most adventurers in wilderness life I was fond of describing what I had seen; and, having the works of several years around me, in their crude and unfinished condition, spread before the criticising world, and difficult to be appreciated, I was doubly stimulated to be in the collection, and with all the breath I could spare, to add to the information which the visitors to my rooms were seeking for. Under these conflicting feelings I struggled to keep away from my rooms, and did so for a part of the day, and that, as I soon found, only to meet a more numerous and impatient group when I re-entered.
All of the above-mentioned kind friends, and many others, repeatedly called to impress upon me the necessity of leaving my exhibition to my men, “to save my lungs—to save my life,” as they said. Some snatched me away from the crowd, and in the purest kindness hurled me through the streets in their carriages, still yelling answers to their numerous questions as we were passing over the noisy pavements; and then at their kind and festive boards, to which I had been brought as places of refuge and repose, I was, for an instance, presented as—“My dear, this is Mr. Catlin! ([Plate No. 3], next page.)—Mother, you have heard of Mr. Catlin?—Cousins Lucy and Fanny, here’s the celebrated Mr. Catlin you have heard me speak of so often. Poor fellow! I have dragged him away from his exhibition, where they are talking him to death—he must have repose—and here we can entertain and amuse him. Here, my little chicks—come here all of you—here’s Mr. Catlin!—here’s the man who has been so long among the wild Indians! he will tell you a great many curious stories about them. Where’s sister Ellen, and Betty?” “Oh, they are in the garden with Mr. S. and his son, who has just returned from New Zealand.“ “Good, good; run for them, run for them, quick! Send the carriage for aunt W——n as swift as possible, and don’t let her fail to stop on the way and bring Lady R——e: you know how fond she is of the Indian character—she was three years, you know, in Canada—and the poem she is now writing on the Indians! What a treat this will be to her! Won’t it be delightful to see her and Mr. Catlin come together? She told me the other day she had a thousand questions she wished to put to Mr. Catlin—how interesting! Have the dinner up at six—no, say at seven; it will give us the more time for conversation, and for Professor D., the phrenologist, to get here, and whom I have invited—he’s always behind the time—and this treat will be so rich to him—I would not miss him for anything in the world.”
My lecturing lungs and stomach being under a running engagement for dinner at three o’clock, the sound of “six”—then, “no, seven,” with the words “Indian poem,” “phrenologist,” &c., produced a most rebellious and faltering sensation in my chest; the one entirely exhausted from its customary exertions until three o’clock, and the other, at that moment, completely in a state of collapse. The difficult trials I had lived through with the latter, however, in my wild adventures in the Indian wilderness, and the more recent proofs in the Egyptian Hall, of the elasticity of the other, inspired me with courage to enter upon the ordeal that was before me, and (even in distress) justly to appreciate what was so kindly preparing for me.
I here instantly forgot my troubles as the party entered from the gardens, when I was thus presented by my good friend:—“Ellen, my dear, and Betty, here’s Mr. Catlin; and, Mr. S——n, I have the extreme pleasure of presenting to your acquaintance the famous Mr. Catlin, whose name and whose works are familiar to you: and now, Catlin, my dear fellow, I introduce you to Mr. J. S., the son of the gentleman with whom I have just made you acquainted. Mr. J. S. has just returned from amongst the natives of New Zealand, where he has spent three or four years; and your descriptions of all the modes and customs of the North American Indians, compared with his accounts of the New Zealanders, will be so rich a treat to us!——But, Catlin, you look pale! Are you not well? You look so fagged!” “Yes, yes; I am well.” “Oh, that plagued exhibition of yours—it will be the death of you! You must keep away from it, or you will talk yourself to death there! My good friends, come, take seats! Catlin, my dear fellow, come, join us in a glass of good old sherry—it will give you an appetite for your dinner—Is it to your liking?” “I thank you, it is very fine.” “Will you take another?” “No, I am much obliged to you.” “My dear, look at the clock—what time is it?” “Quarter past five.” “Ah, well, I didn’t think it was so late—be sure to have the dinner up at seven—do you hear?”