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Page 40
On the way back from the lovely _campanile_ to the hotel, I stumbled over
a scattering of artificial hillocks surrounding two mud-puddles connected
by a gutter. This monstrosity turned out to be a relief-map of Palestine.
Little children, with uncultivated voices, shouted at each other as they
lightly leaped from Jerusalem to Jericho; and waste-paper soaked itself to
dingy brown in the insanitary Sea of Galilee.--Then I encountered a wooden
edifice with castellated towers and machicolated battlements, which called
itself (with a large label) the Men's Club; and from this I fled, with
almost a sense of relief, to the hotel itself, now sprawling low and dark
beneath its Boston-brown-bread cupola.
Thus my first impression of Chautauqua was one of melancholy and
resentment. But, in the subsequent few days, this emotion was altered to
one of impressible satiric mirth; and, subsequently still, it was changed
again to an emotion of wondering and humble admiration. I had been assured
at the outset, by one who had already tried it, that, if I stayed long
enough, I should end up by liking Chautauqua; and this is precisely what
happened to me before a week was out.
But meanwhile I laughed very hard for three days. The thing that made me
laugh most was the unexpected experience of enduring the discomfiture of
fame. Chautauqua is a constricted community; and any one who lectures
there becomes, by that very fact, a famous person in this little backwater
of the world, until he is supplanted (for fame is as fickle as a
ballet-dancer) by the next new-comer to the platform. The Chautauqua Press
publishes a daily paper, a weekly review, a monthly magazine and a
quarterly; and these publications report your lectures, tell the story of
your life, comment upon your views of this and that, advertise your books,
and print your picture. Everybody knows you by sight, and stops you in the
street to ask you questions. Thus, on your way to the Post Office, you are
intercepted by some kindly soul who says: "I am Miss Terwilliger, from
Montgomery, Alabama; and do you think that Bernard Shaw is really an
immoral writer?" or, "I am Mrs. Winterbottom, of Muncie, Indiana; and
where do you think I had better send my boy to school? He is rather a
backward boy for his age--he was ten last April--but I really think that
if, etc."
Then, when you return to the hotel, you observe that everybody is rocking
vigorously on the veranda, and reading one of your books. This pleases you
a little; for, though an actor may look his audience in the eyes, an
author is seldom privileged to see his readers face to face. Indeed, he
often wonders if anybody ever reads his writings, because he knows that
his best friends never do. But very soon this tender sentiment is
disrupted. There comes a sudden resurrection of the rocking-chair brigade,
a rush of readers with uplifted fountain-pens, and a general request for
the author's autograph upon the flyleaf of his volume. All of this is
rather flattering; but afterward these gracious and well-meaning people
begin to comment on your lectures, and tell you that you have made them
see a great light. And then you find yourself embarrassed.
It is rather embarrassing to be embarrassed.
One enthusiastic lady, having told me her name and her address, assaulted
me with the following commentary:--"I heard you lecture on Stevenson the
other day; and ever since then I have been thinking how very much like
Stevenson you are. And today I heard you lecture on Walt Whitman: and all
afternoon I have been thinking how very much like Whitman you are. And
that is rather puzzling--isn't it?--because Stevenson and Whitman weren't
at all like each other,--were they?"
I smiled, and told the lady the simple truth; but I do not think she
understood me. "Ah, madam," I said, "wait until you hear me lecture about
Hawthorne...."
For (and now I am freely giving the whole game away) the secret of the art
of lecturing is merely this:--on your way to the rostrum you contrive to
fling yourself into complete sympathy with the man you are to talk about,
so that, when you come to speak, you will give utterance to _his_ message,
in terms that are suggestive of _his_ style. You must guard yourself from
ever attempting to talk about anybody whom you have not (at some time or
other) loved; and, at the moment, you should, for sheer affection, abandon
your own personality in favor of his, so that you may become, as nearly as
possible, the person whom it is your business to represent. Naturally, if
you have any ear at all, your sentences will tend to fall into the rhythm
of his style; and if you have any temperament (whatever that may be) your
imagined mood will diffuse an ineluctable aroma of the author's
personality.
This at least, is my own theory of lecturing; and, in the instance of my
talk on Hawthorne, I seem to have carried it out successfully in practice.
I must have attained a tone of sombre gray, and seemed for the moment a
meditative Puritan under a shadowy and steepled hat; for, at the close of
the lecture, a silvery-haired and sweet-faced woman asked me if I wouldn't
be so kind as to lead the devotional service in the Baptist House that
evening. I found myself abashed. But a previous engagement saved me; and I
was able to retire, not without honor, though with some discomfiture.
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