The way off the platform was more difficult than the way on. I had come through one little door, but there were six of them exactly the same. At the conclusion of my speech, I bowed, walked rapidly to one of the doors, and found it would not budge! I returned again and bowed to the audience before trying another door. No, by heaven it wouldn’t open! Again I returned and bowed, and made another shot for a swing door. At the fourth try I went through.... That experience of doors that wouldn’t open became a nightmare of mine in American sleeping cars when I suffocated from overheated pipes.
I have lectured a hundred times since then, made large numbers of speeches (sometimes as many as five a day) in American cities, faced every kind of audience from New York to San Francisco and across the Canadian border, in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, and never conquered my nervousness, so that, if I am called upon for a speech at a public dinner in England, now, I suffer all the pangs of stage fright until I am well under way. But at least my experiences in the United States helped me to hide behind a calm and tranquil mask, and not to give myself away so utterly as that first time in Carnegie Hall.
It was on my second visit, and at my opening lecture in the same great hall, that I obtained—by accident—the most wonderful ovation which will ever come to me in this life. It was my night out, as it were, most memorable, most astonishing, most glorious. For it is a glorious sensation, whatever the cynic may say, to be lifted up on waves of enthusiasm, to have a great audience of intelligent people cheering one wildly, as though one’s words were magic.
It was none of my doing. My words were poor commonplace stuff, but I stood for something which the finest audience in New York liked with all their hearts that night—England, liberty, fair play—and against something which that audience hated, disloyalty to the United States, discourtesy to England, foul play.
It was the Sinn Feiners who did it. A friend of Ireland, and advocate of Dominion Home Rule, I was one of the last men they should have attacked. But because I was an Englishman who dared to lecture before an American audience, they were determined to wreck my meeting, and make a savage demonstration. I was utterly unaware of this plot. I was not speaking on the subject of Ireland. I was talking about Austria, and was trying to tell an anecdote about an Austrian doctor—I never told it!—when from the middle gallery of the Carnegie Hall which was densely packed from floor to ceiling, there came a hoarse question in a stentorian voice with an Irish accent: “Why don’t you take the marbles out of your mouth?” Rather staggered, and believing this to be a criticism of my vocal delivery and “English accent,” I raised my voice, but it was instantly overwhelmed by an uproar of shouts, catcalls, whistlings, derisive laughter, abuse, and a wild wailing of women’s voices rising to a shriek.
For a few moments I could not guess what all the trouble was about. I stood there, alone and motionless, on the platform, suddenly divorced from the audience, which I watched with a sense of profound curiosity. All sorts of strange things were happening. Men were going at each other with fists in the gallery, where there was a seething tumult. In the stalls I was aware of a very fat man in evening dress wedged tightly in his seat and bawling out something from an apoplectic face. Two other men tried to pull him out of his chair. In scattered groups in the stalls were ladies who seemed to be screaming at me. Other ladies seemed to be arguing with them, hushing them down. One lady struck another over the head with a fan. People were darting about the floor or watching the scrimmage up above. From the front row of the stalls friendly faces were staring up at me and giving me good counsel which I could not hear.
Over and over again I tried to speak above the tumult. I carried on about that Austrian doctor, and then abandoned him for another line of thought. I stuck it out for something like half an hour before there was comparative silence—the police had come in and dragged out the most turbulent demonstrators—and then I continued my speech, interrupted frequently, but not overwhelmed. Everything I said was applauded tremendously. Some reference I made to England’s place in the world brought the audience to its feet, cheering and cheering, waving handkerchiefs and fans, and when I finished, there was a surge up to the platform, and thousands of hands grasped mine, and generous, excited, splendid things were said which set my heart on fire.
As I have said, it was not my doing, and it was not any eloquence of mine which stirred this enthusiasm. But that audience rose up to me because they were passionate to show how utterly they repudiated the things that had been said against England, how fiercely angry they were that a friendly visitor to the United States should be howled down like this in the heart of New York. Again it was my luck, and I was glad of it.
It was not the last time I had to face hostile groups. I decided to give a lecture on the Irish situation in which I would tell the straight truth, fair to Ireland, fair to England. The Sinn Feiners rallied up again. The fairer I was to Ireland, the madder they became, while the other part of the audience cheered and cheered. In the midst of the commotion, a tall black figure jumped on to the platform. “Hullo!” I thought. “Here I die!” But it was a Catholic priest, Father Duffy, a famous chaplain of the American Army, who announced himself as an Irish Republican, but pleaded that I should have a fair hearing. They just howled at him. However, by patience and endurance I broke through the storm and said most of what I wanted to say.
The next morning I was rung up on the telephone by an emotional lady. She had a great scheme, for which she desired my approval and collaboration. She had arranged to raise a bodyguard of stalwart society girls who would march to the hall with me, on the evening of my next lecture, and in heroic combat put to flight the Irish girls who were to parade with banners and insulting placards.... I utterly refused to approve of the suggestion.