CHAPTER XIV.
Marcus Aurelius in America—Chairmen I have had—American, English, and Scotch Chairmen—One who had Been to Boulogne—Talkative and Silent Chairmen—A Trying Occasion—The Lord is Asked to Allow the Audience to See my Points.
New York, January 22.
There are indeed very few Americans who have not either tact or a sense of humor. They make the best of chairmen. They know that the audience have not come to hear them, and that all that is required of them is to introduce the lecturer in very few words, and to give him a good start. Who is the lecturer that would not appreciate, nay, love, such a chairman as Dr. R. S. MacArthur, who introduced me yesterday to a New York audience in the following manner?
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” said he, “the story goes that, last summer, a party of Americans staying in Rome paid a visit to the famous Spithöver’s bookshop in the Piazza di Spagna. Now Spithöver is the most learned of bibliophiles. You must go thither if you need artistic and archæological works of the profoundest research and erudition. But one of the ladies in this tourists’ party only wanted the lively travels in America of Max O’Rell, and she asked for the book at Spithöver’s. There came in a deep guttural voice—an Anglo-German voice—from a spectacled clerk behind a desk, to this purport: ‘Marcus Aurelius vos neffer in te Unided Shtaates!’ But, ladies and gentlemen, he is now, and here he is.”
With such an introduction, I was immediately in touch with my audience.
What a change after English chairmen!
A few days before lecturing in any English town, under the auspices of a Literary Society or Mechanics’ Institute, the lecturer generally receives from the secretary a letter running somewhat as follow:
Dear Sir: