Of course in all these reflections I am speaking merely of the lecturer who seeks popular rather than academic favor, which is frankly my own case. I should infinitely prefer to find myself liked by a miscellaneous audience rather than by a limited company of scientificos who are professionally more interested in things of the head than of the heart. It is better to be human than great, and I care more for Humanity than for the Humanities.
At a rough estimate I should say that in the last ten years I have been the beneficiary of the services of not less than eight hundred chairmen, and in that whole list I can recall but one that I did not like, and no doubt he was a most likable fellow. He was a clergyman and a man of information, if not education; but he seemed to think that because somebody had once intimated that I was a "humorist" (a title that I have neither laid claim to, nor specially desired to win) I must naturally be reached only by a downward climb from his own dignified heights. There are individuals in this world who conceive humor to be a somewhat undignified pursuit, their own education in that branch of human action having been confined to a study of the antics of the circus clown, and they are likely to deny to humorists even the right to the use of correct English.
"Well," said this special chairman unctuously when we met for the first time, "you are from New York, I understand."
"I have been a New Yorker," I said noncommittally.
"I suppose you know Howells, and Mark Twain, and all that bunch?" he went on, condescending to use the kind of language with which he of course assumed I was most familiar.
And it was just there that I took a violent dislike to the man. The word bunch, as applied to Mr. Howells and Mark Twain by one of his presumed education was not pleasing to my soul, though I should have loved it from a cowboy. It was as if somebody had referred to "those talented cusses, Carlyle and Emerson," and I simmered slightly within.
"Well," I replied, "I've known Howells and his gang for ages—bunked with the whole kit and caboodle of 'em for nearly twenty years—and you can take it from me they're a nifty herd! But the other—who was the other man?"
"Mark Twain," said he.
"I seem to have heard the name somewhere," said I; "but I don't think I've ever met him, or at least I don't remember it. New York's a pretty big place, you know, and you can't be expected to know everybody. What was his line?"
I am not sure, but I think the reverend gentleman woke up at that point. At any rate he gave me no clue as to Mark Twain's identity. He turned away, and excused himself on the ground that he wanted to see if the audience was "all in."