In addition to that, he delivered over seven hundred public lectures which were attended in the aggregate by 1,300,000 persons, and wrote three books of reminiscences. Is it to be wondered at, that such a well-known character should receive a letter from New Zealand addressed simply, "Mr. Barnum, America"?
SOME REMINISCENCES OF P. T. BARNUM
My first recollection of Mr. Barnum goes back to the period of my small-boyhood, when he came to the country village near my home to lecture upon temperance. I still remember the animation of his discourse on that occasion; its humor and its anecdote; and, with what absorbing interest the large audience sat out the hour and a half or more which the speaker so well filled. In describing the drunkard and the illusions which master him, he showed a keen perception of human nature; and, in every part of his address there was no end of spirited appeal and analysis, mingled with unbounded mirth and pathos, as the fluctuating argument went on.
A few years later, when I had grown old enough to visit the metropolis, I made it one of the chief items of my concern to visit the old museum on the corner of Ann Street and Broadway, where the Herald Building now stands. There was, even then, no curiosity there more impressive than its proprietor, who was the very embodiment of life, kindly feeling, and wholesome joy. I noticed that he was in all parts of the museum in very rapid succession, and that nothing escaped his attention. Something in his manner caught every eye. It was said of Daniel Webster that when he walked through the streets of London, strangers who met him turned around for another look after he passed by. And, I confess I yielded in Mr. Barnum's presence, as others did, to this same sight-seeing inclination. It was not merely that he was so well known, and that his name had gone about the world with the circuit of the sun; it was because the force that made this thing possible worked also in other ways, and compelled you to give its owner attention.
He had a kind word or an entertaining one for everybody who came near him, as occasion offered, whether he was an old acquaintance or a stranger. The occasion did not come to me, though I remember wishing it had, when I left the museum. Probably I should have deliberately sought it if I had had more assurance and experience at that time; and if I had known, too, that we were afterward to meet intimately, and that for more than twenty years the latch-string of his different homes, in Bridgeport and New York, was to respond so many dozens of times to my touch, for days and weeks of remarkable hospitality.
My opportunity for knowing Mr. Barnum personally came about when I was, as a young man, conducting, almost single-handed, a lecture course in a very small country town in the later sixties, soon after the close of the war. The night for Mr. Barnum to come to us was a very cold and forbidding one in February. A snow-storm, the most formidable one of the winter, sprang up to apparently thwart the success of the performance; and so certain was Mr. Barnum that nobody would appear to hear him, he offered not only to release me from the contract between us, but, in addition to that, would pay me the price I was to pay him, or more, to be permitted to return to New York. "There is nothing on earth I hate to do so much," said he, "as to lecture to empty benches."
I said to him: "Please trust me for the avoidance of that. If it had been a pleasant night, instead of this howling storm, I would have filled the hall and the yard in front to the front gate. But, as it now is, I will still guarantee to fill the hall." And filled it was, to our equal delight.
Before entering and discovering this fact, I ventured to say to Mr. Barnum that, owing to the general untowardness and inclemency of the night, I would introduce him in my own way, and not in the conventional one, if he did not object. "By all means," said he; "if you can awaken any warmth or hilarity on as sorrowful an outlook as this, do not spare ME, or hesitate for a moment."
On arriving at our seats on the platform, I arose and said, in some such words as these:
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:—You will bear me out in saying it has been my usual custom to introduce the speaker of the evening in the briefest way possible, and not to trouble you with any talk of my own. To-night, in view of the storm, and while Mr. Barnum is resting for a moment, I will break my rule and tell you a story. Some years ago a queer fellow from the country went to New York, and, among the sights and experiences he had planned for, he went to Barnum's Museum. Mr. Greenwood was then its manager, and noticed with some interest his patron's rusticity when he called for a ticket. He asked Mr. Greenwood, after having paid for the card of admittance, 'Where is Barnum?' As Mr. Barnum happened to be in sight on the entrance floor, Mr. Greenwood, pointing to him said, There he is.'