“‘The Aloysius Truth Society.’
“This is the first time any section of the Catholic Church has come into the fight. It is a good thing they denounce all the plays, not only The Playboy. On the other hand, the Gaelic Association, of which Monsignor Shahan, President of the Catholic University, is head, has asked me to address its meeting next Thursday, and, of course, I shall do so.
“This invitation was incorrectly reported in the papers, and Monsignor Shahan, who is just leaving for Rome, has denied having ‘invited the Irish Players to speak.’ The invitations sent out, printed cards with his printed signature, had asked people to come and hear me speak, and I did so and had a good audience; and a resolution was proposed, praising all I had done for literature and the theatre, and making me the first Honorary Member of the Association, and this was agreed to by the whole meeting with applause.”
For among the surprises of the autumn I had suddenly found that I could speak. I was quite miserable when, on arriving in Boston, I found it had been arranged for me to “say a few words” at various clubs or gatherings. I thought a regular lecture would be better. If it failed, I would not be asked again or I would have an excuse for silence. It would be easier, too, in a way than the “few words,” for I should know how long the lecture ought to be and what people wanted to hear about, and I would have the assurance that they knew what they were coming for instead of having a stranger let loose on them just as they were finishing their lunch. It was at one of these lunches that that wonderful woman who has in Boston, as the Medici in Florence, spent wealth and vitality and knowledge in making such a collection of noble pictures as proves once more that it is the individual, the despot, who is necessary for such a task—bringing the clear conception, the decision of one mind in place of the confusion of many—liked what I said and offered me for my first trial the spacious music room of Fenway Court.
I spoke on play-writing, for I had begun that art so late in life that its rules, those I had worked out for myself or learned from others, were still fresh in my mind; and I wrote home with more cheerfulness than I had felt during the days of preparation, that I thought and was assured my address had gone well; “what I was most proud of was keeping it exactly to the hour. I was glad to find I could fill up so much time. I had notes on the table and just glanced at them now and again but didn’t hesitate for a word or miss my points. It is a great relief to me and the discovery of a new faculty. I shan’t feel nervous again; that is a great thing.”
I had boasted of this a little too soon, for the next letter says: “I had a nice drive yesterday, twenty-five miles to B. A lady called for me in her motor, and we passed through several pretty little New England villages and through woods. Then a wait of an hour before lecture, keeping up small talk and feeling nervous all the time, then the lecture. I forgot to bring my watch and gave them twenty minutes over the hour! It was a difficult place to speak in, a private house,—a room to the right, a room to the left, and a room behind. However they seemed to hear all right.... I had a nice run home alone in the dark.”
I gave my ideas on “play-writing” again at Philadelphia, and was told just before I began that there were several dramatists in the room, including the author of Madame Butterfly. So I had to apologise on the ground of an inferior cook being flattered at being asked to give recipes, whereas a real chef keeps the secrets to himself. And sometimes at the end of all my instruction on the rules I gave the hearers as a benediction,
“And may you better reck the rede
Than ever did the adviser!”
Mr. Yeats, when lecturing in America, had written to me from Bryn Mawr: “I have just given my second lecture.... They are getting all our books here now. Do you know I have not met a single woman here who puts ‘tin-tacks in the soup,’ and I find that the woman who does, is recognised as an English type. One teacher explained to me the difference in this way: ‘We prepare the girls to live their lives, but in England they are making them all teachers.’”