Eccentricities of genius

Miss Potter’s personations of John B. Gough were so perfect, the wig, beard, and masculine garments so well chosen and so well arranged, and his peculiarities of voice and manner so faithfully represented, that the audience often forgot it was a personation and thought that they were listening to Gough himself.

Miss Potter made a fortune with her entertainment. She cleared over $20,000 in her second season, was a favorite for about eight years, and then retired. She has no successor.

ANNIE GREY came to America early in the summer of 1898 to give her Scottish song recitals before several of the Chautauqua assemblies. She appeared before a number of these large gatherings, at Monona Lake Assembly, Madison, Wis., at Rock River Assembly, Dixon, Ill., at Bay View Assembly, Mich., and at the Ocean Grove (N. J.) Assembly, where she kept over four thousand people charmed for nearly two hours solely by her singing and recital of the old Scotch ballads. It was a unique entertainment, which captivated and charmed all these assemblies. There had never been anything like them before in this country.

At each recital Annie Grey sang one or two songs in Gaelic, to illustrate the beauty of that language, accompanying herself on the clarsach or ancient Scottish harp, once the national instrument, before it was supplanted by the bagpipes. The instrument she used was made especially for her, and had stops so arranged that the key could be quickly changed. It was a great favorite everywhere she went. Her mother, Madame Ogilvie Grey, an eminent pianist, travelled with her, filling two numbers on the programme with Scotch melodies on the piano and also playing many of her daughter’s accompaniments in a really wonderful way.

The subjects of Annie Grey’s song recitals were: “The Lays, Lilts, and Legends of Scotland,” “Robert Burns: His Pathos and Humor Told in Poetry and Song,” and “The Gathering of the Clans.” In the latter she graphically told in song and story the stirring incidents connected with the Jacobite rising in 1745, to which period Scotland owes many of the best of her ballads.

In the musical world Annie Grey holds a position of unique importance, and enthusiastic audiences and appreciative remembrances are hers by right of conquest in her chosen field of Scottish minstrelsy. Here no one can touch her: she is supreme. In Scotland, in all parts of England, on the Continent, and in the United States, the delightful entertainments of her own devising and her own single-handed performance have brought the wealth of Scottish minstrelsy, with its marvellous power over the emotions of men and women, home to the understanding and hearts of thousands. Being in love with her subject, she carries her audience with her from first to last, making it laugh or thrill or sadden as she wills. Her voice is perfectly modulated for lecturing and reciting purposes, and her singing of Scottish songs stands apart and above anything that has ever been attempted in the same line in this country. Certainly at the present time it would be difficult to name any professional woman who can sing “The Auld Scots Sangs,” grave and gay, patriotic and humorous, with more fervor and feeling than Annie Grey. Her distinct enunciation of the words, and the expression she puts into them, make her singing most enjoyable. Where necessary, she also infuses a good deal of dramatic passion into her performance.

She gave interesting accounts of the composition of various ballads and songs, and told graceful and pathetic details of the lives and circumstances of their authors. Of “Annie Laurie,” which she sang with remarkable expression, she said: “I am surprised to find in America the thought that ‘Annie Laurie’ was written two hundred years ago, for I have the honor of a personal acquaintance with Lady John Scott, its author, who is now in her ninetieth year, and who, I can assure you, has no thought of being an antiquity.”

Annie Grey invariably received ovations at the conclusion of her entertainments, and hundreds flocked to the platform to attest their appreciation of her efforts. Her manner was not in the least bit affected, and she received all praises with the utmost grace.

Annie Grey has sung before Queen Victoria and her court at Balmoral, on which occasion her Majesty presented Miss Grey with a diamond bracelet. She has sung before many other of the crowned heads of Europe, and with many of the Italian opera singers well known to American audiences. She was the original Buttercup in Pinafore when that opera was produced in Edinburgh. For many years she was the favorite pupil of the famous master Randegger.

I had first heard of Annie Grey through Mr. Christy, her London manager, then when I saw her unbroken success and popularity with the refined, and therefore somewhat critical, audiences at the Chautauqua assemblies, where she first appeared in America, I felt confident that she would be a success wherever she went in the United States, and so secured her for a supplementary tour.

After the Chautauquas she gave three recitals before crowded audiences in New York, and received most generous praise from the entire New York press. The Chickering Piano Company showed their friendly interest by offering the gratuitous use of Chickering Hall, and supplied her with a grand piano both at her recitals and in her hotel.

Having captured New York, she laid siege to Boston, where four recitals won a capitulation, as the press notices show. The civic and military authorities appeared in full uniform at her first recital there, the Clan Mackenzie, in Highland costume, was present and made her a Scottish Chief, and the White Rose Society publicly decorated her with their order set in gold.

From Boston she went to Montreal, then to Cleveland, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Saratoga, and to many of the large cities and towns of the United States. Everywhere she was received with the greatest kindness and enthusiasm, and her admirers made her many presents. The practical wife of a Scottish millionaire handed her a box of oatmeal cakes and a card informing her that she had had them specially baked for Annie Grey and her mother.

Some of her most delightful experiences, as she afterward said, were connected with the recitals she gave at leading colleges for women. She spoke of the students she met there as “such charming girls,” and said she should “never forget the sound of those lovely, fresh American voices, as we all sang together ‘Auld Lang Syne’ before parting.”

Annie Grey and her mother, while in this country, were frequently guests at my house, and there met Hall Caine, Zangwill, Justin McCarthy, Lieut. Herbert Ward, of Stanley expedition fame, and Mr. Le Sage, the New York representative of the London Daily Telegraph.

One evening she and her mother gave the Burns Lecture-Song Recital in our drawing-rooms. It was a grand success. One of our neighbors, a well-known critic, who has been a regular attendant at these functions for years, declared in the presence of the audience that it was the most delightful entertainment of all we had ever given.

Zangwill took dinner with us another evening, and gave in our parlors the finest lecture we had yet heard from him. The house was crowded. Mr. W. F. Frame, the celebrated Scotch singing comedian, and Mr. Booth, the musical director, were spending that night with us. After the lecture we had singing by Frame and Annie Grey—a triple bill. At the close of the evening all the company joined hands and danced around a circle, singing “Auld Lang Syne.” Zangwill joined hands with us and entered into the spirit of the whole affair, as much a Scotchman as any of them. It was jolly, indeed.

Her last appearance in America was on the afternoon of February 2, 1899, when she gave her “Lilts, Lays, and Legends of Scotland” for the Winter Memorial Library at the Staten Island Academy. Mr. William Winter declared it one of the best he remembered in all his experience among public gatherings, and shortly afterward referred to it again in the following letter:

“Home, February 17, 1899.

“My Dear Mr. Pond: I have your kind and welcome letter of February 12, and I am indeed glad to know that Annie Grey was pleased with her visit to Staten Island. Her coming to us was an honor and a benefit, and she made a deep and lasting impression on the minds of her audience. For my own part, I shall always remember her, and also her venerable mother, with the greatest kindness and pleasure.

“Faithfully yours,
“William Winter.”

MRS. MAUD BALLINGTON BOOTH is another great woman, as much in demand at the present time (1900) as any of those before mentioned were in their palmiest days.

Mrs. Booth is the ablest woman orator in America. Her cause is one of the most worthy. She has something to say and knows how to say it. She is also one of the most loved women in the land, as well as the most attractive of all our public speakers—as great intellectually as she is simple and devoted spiritually.

Possessing fire and magnetism, with oratorical gifts of the highest order, deep convictions, high purpose, and burning earnestness, she has all the essentials for the highest of success. It has been difficult to induce her to enter upon the lecturer’s work, for she feels, as all know, so high a devotion to those labors of religion and philanthropy that her name is associated with as to dread the fascination of a work that might divert her energies in ever so slight a degree. But, realizing also possibilities in the winning of new channels of influence and the earning of means that may largely help her own work forward, Mrs. Booth has taken up the task with all her powers, and she fascinates and wins on all occasions.

MISS MARY PROCTOR, in her excursions to the heavens, comes of a line of astronomical ancestry. Richard A. Proctor, the great English astronomer, gave his first lectures in America in the early seventies. His coming was widely heralded by the newspapers and no scientific lecturer ever met with a more hearty welcome from the best public. I remember I went from Leavenworth, Kansas, where I then lived, to Chicago, on purpose to see and hear him, and paid three dollars for a ticket.

That was before the stereopticon had been invented, and his illustrations, consisting of maps and charts drawn on canvas, were at that time counted as marvels, though they would attract no attention in these modern days. The scholarly attainments of the man and his simple, eloquent descriptions were an additional revelation to the audiences, which were composed of the most select and intelligent of the general public.

It was a great season for Professor Proctor, and as fruitful to the public as it was lucrative to the lecturer, for it created a general interest in astronomy, which to-day is almost as universally studied as Brigham Young’s three R’s—“readin’, ’ritin’ and ’rithmetic”—which, he insisted, was all the education any person needed who had fair common sense.

I know I date my first interest in astronomy to Professor Proctor’s lectures, and I know, too, that the interest in the subject became so widespread that it was then a common theme in the family, at public assemblies and on the cars.

Two prosperous seasons and the professor returned to England, but not to remain there long. He had met with such hearty appreciation over here, and had made so many friends, that he decided to return and make his home in America. He selected St. Joseph, Mo., one of the richest and, as seemed to him, one of the many Western cities that must have a great future. There he moved with his family, consisting of two daughters and three sons.

After a tour in the South, Professor Proctor returned to New York, put up at the Westminster Hotel, and was taken ill there with yellow fever, which he had contracted in Florida. He died after a very brief illness on September 12, 1888, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, where a monument was erected over his grave by the late George W. Childs.

During the World’s Fair, in Chicago, at kindergarten meetings for teachers and children, a young lady gave a lecture on “Astronomy for Children” before representatives of the kindergarten schools all over the country. Her audience was fairly electrified by the simplicity, eloquence, and marvellous knowledge displayed in this address.

After the lecture, many came forward to congratulate the fair speaker, and to ascertain who she was and whence she came. It proved that she was Miss Mary Proctor, of St. Joseph, Mo., where she had a kindergarten school, and that she was the daughter of the late Richard A. Proctor, the famous English astronomer.

Representatives of newspapers from all parts of the country happened to be present. They telegraphed to their home papers accounts of this young woman’s wonderful address, and she awoke the next morning to find herself famous.

I at once proposed that she enter the lecture-field, but it was with great hesitancy that she could think of leaving her work with the children, whom she loved so dearly, at her home in St. Joseph. She was interviewed by reporters, and asked to write on astronomy for the leading magazines and the great Sunday newspapers. She also prepared lectures on astronomy, with elaborate illustrations, and was invited to lecture before the literary societies and clubs, colleges and public schools. She has held the very first place as a woman in the profession up to the present time. She has written a book on astronomy entitled “Stories of Starland,” for children, and her name has become a household word. Her great ambition is to be known as “The Children’s Astronomer.”

She looks young to stand before an audience and deal with such weighty topics, but she does so in a manner that holds the attention and interest of every hearer, young or old.

Her voice is clear, forcible, pleasant and well modulated; her delivery, graceful and easy. She never refers to notes of any kind while on the platform. Her talks are full of simple example and metaphor, and free from all technical terms. She has inherited her father’s gift of popularizing the most abstruse subjects and illustrating their vastness by comparisons associated with daily life.

Her lectures for children, “Giant Sun and His Family” and “Legends of the Stars,” and her more advanced lectures on “Other Worlds than Ours,” “Wonders of the Star Depths,” and “Mars, the Planet of Romance,” are all beautifully illustrated by stereopticon views that are quite as wonderful for this day as her father’s cruder pictures were thirty years ago.

Miss Mary Proctor is one of the rare examples of the heredity of genius.

Outshining her charms as a lecturer are the charms of her private life, where, of course, very few are privileged to know her. She is the attraction of the household. Children as well as grown up folks love her, and she is queen of the situation wherever she happens to be.

It has been our privilege to entertain her in our home several times. Her theme was usually the skies and the heavens. The stories she tells about the stars when conversing with little children on these topics fix in their young minds a knowledge of the geography of the heavens as long terms of study from books could never do.

And yet this little lady whom the children love so much, when surrounded by great scientists and scholars, is perfectly at her ease. It is a charming intellectual display and a wonderful lesson and privilege to see Miss Mary Proctor under any of these conditions.

HUMORISTS

His lecture was a shower of “Josh Billings’s” epigrams, sparkling as they tumbled over each other in falling from his lips, reflected from his bright eyes over his spectacles.

“Ladies and gentlemen:

“I hope you are all well.”

“There’s lots of folks who eat well and drink well, and yet are sick all the time. These are the folks who always ‘enjoy poor health.’”

“People who agree with you never bore you.”

“The shortest way to a woman’s heart is to praise her baby and her bonnet.”

“A man is a bore when he talks so much about himself that you kant talk about yourself.”

“Still I go on talking.”

“Comik lecturing is an uncommon pesky thing to do.”

“There ain’t but phew good judges of humor and they all differ about it.”

“If a lecturer trys to be phunny he iz like a hoss trying to trot backwards, pretty apt to trod on himself.”

“Humor must fall out uv a man’s mouth like musik out uv a bobolink, or like a young bird out uv its nest, when it iz feathered enuff to fly.”

“In delivering a comic lecture it iz a good general rule to stop sudden; sometimes before you git through.”

“This brings me to the mule—the pashunt mule. The mule is pashunt because he is ashamed of hisself. The mule is haf hass and half jackass, and then kums to a full stop, natur discovering her mistake. They weigh more according to their heft than enny other creeter except a crowbar. They kant heer enny quicker nor further than the hoss, yet their ears are big enuff for snow shoes. You kan trust them with enny one whose life ain’t worth more than the mules. The only way to keep them into a paster is tu turn them into a medder jining and let them jump out. Tha are reddy for use just as soon as tha will do to abuse. Tha are a modern invention. Tha never have a disease that a good club wont heal.”

“There is but one other animal that kan do more kicking than a mule, and that is a quire singer. A quire singer giggles during the sermon and kicks the rest ov the week.”

“This brings me to suggest the bumble-bee.”

“The bumble-bee iz more artistic than the mule, and as busy as a quire singer.”

“The hornet is an inflammable buzzer, sudden in his impreshions and hasty in his conclusion, or end.”

“Kindness iz an instinckt, politeness only an art.”

“Remember the poor—it costs nothing,” and so it goes on between the intervals of laughter until the hour is up and laughter won’t come any more because it is completely laughed out.

“I lecture for nothing, with $100 thrown in,” he said.

We never had the slightest difficulty in filling all the time that he could give us. He was a delightful man to know personally—kind, gentle, sincere and very sympathetic, with an intense fondness for children. A child riding in the same car with him could hardly escape his patronage and attention, and what was especially peculiar about him, as with Mr. Beecher, he always attracted children to him.

When “Josh” passed away, I know that I lost a very dear friend, and that all who had known and heard him felt the same way. His was a noble spirit.

I find but two of “Josh Billings’s” (Henry W. Shaw) letters among my collection, as most of his correspondence was with the Redpath Lyceum Bureau, and were filed away with the mass of other correspondence. I find one, directed to me personally, in reply to an invitation to witness the exposé of spiritualism by Harry Kellar, at Horticultural Hall in Boston, and it is as follows:

“New York, January 16, 1878.

“Major mi deer: I regret, (i may say that, i fairly mourn,) that i kant be present to witness yure friend Kellar’s expozure ov spiritualism in Horticultural Hall in Boston, the hub ov the univers. Altho not present in the flesh (mi actual weight iz 186 pounds), in spirit i shall be thare (mi spirit on this partiklar matter ways 642 pounds), the whole ov which yu are welkum to. Thare are a fu spiritualists whom i pity; these are the phools,—thare are a greater number whom i dispize; theze are the frauds, and ded beats ov the profeshion.

“Enny man who kan bring a kounterfitter to justiss, enny man who kan beat a thimble rigger at his own game, enny man who kan probe a Three Kard Monte wretch, and dispoil him ov hiz little joker, i look upon az a child ov genius, at work in the vinyard ov truth and morality. The only spiritualizm that haz suckceeded yet iz the kind that haz got the most fraud in it. Tell Harry i pray that suckess may crown hiz noble efforts.

“Good-by Major
“Yours unto deth—
“‘Josh Billings’
“(Henry W. Shaw).”

THOMAS NAST—up to his time, caricature had been a minor branch of art. He made it one of the most potent agencies for creating and influencing public opinion.

No editor, no orator, no division commander in our army, no captain in our navy, did more to put down the rebellion with pen, tongue, or sword than did Mr. Nast with his pencil.

It was said of Luther that his words were half battles. With equal truth Nast’s war pictures were military assaults. They stirred the patriotic blood in the North, and sent battalions of youth to rally round the flag.

Like many famous artists, Mr. Nast was personally shy, and would sooner go on a forlorn hope than face an audience. After trying to induce him to join the army of lecturers, and getting reply after reply declining even to consider the subject, my predecessor, Mr. Redpath, adopted a course that showed enterprise, and was successful in inducing Mr. Nast to enter the lecture field.

Finding that Mr. Nast had quarrelled with the Harpers, and was going to Europe, Mr. Redpath took passage on the same steamer, and introduced himself to Mr. Nast. Mr. Nast laughed and said:

“Well, you have got me where I cannot run away; but it’s no use—I won’t lecture.”

Mr. Redpath, nevertheless, got his chance to set forth the advantages of lecturing, went with Nast to London, and before coming away got his consent, if Mrs. Nast would agree to it. Returning to New York, he secured Mrs. Nast’s approval, and the next fall Thomas Nast made his début as a lecturer. His lectures were illustrated—that is, he drew on large sheets of paper crayon pictures and pictures in oil in presence of his audiences. The crayons were both plain and colored, and he drew with such amazing rapidity that the people were delighted.

On one occasion, in Philadelphia, he went to his blackboard and began the outlining of a building. When the sketch was finished, he turned and said with apparent simplicity, “I can draw a house.” As the theatre was packed, the double meaning conveyed “brought down the house” at once.

He had a long list of engagements, six nights a week, with a certainty of from $200 to $500 a lecture. He earned $40,000 that season, and, as he got homesick, cancelled about $5,000 worth toward the close. Nevertheless, it is an illustration of the thorough honesty of the man that he insisted that the bureau should receive its full commission on the fees of the cancelled lectures.

Although he met with great success, Mr. Nast had such a distaste for the work that he could not be induced to try another season. At first he had stage fright in the worst form. When he was to make his first appearance in a country town in Massachusetts—Peabody, I believe—he asked Mr. Redpath to go with him, and, when he arrived at the hall, said: “Now, Redpath, you got me into this scrape and you will have to go on the platform with me.” Mr. Redpath, who never had that sort of fever, readily enough consented, and sat on a chair close behind the artist. He said that Mr. Nast was so nervous that he dug his nails into the reading desk. A few months afterward, Mr. Nast faced a New York audience in Steinway Hall as jauntily as if he had been a veteran comedian.

At the time that Horace Greeley became a candidate for President of the United States, it was said that Mr. Nast’s cartoons killed the great editor. Be that as it may, we remember in that campaign Mr. Nast’s cartoons attracted universal attention—Horace in the old white coat with the Gratz Brown card appended to his coat-tails; and this was the way that card came there.

Mr. Nast had prepared a cartoon of a number of the candidates on the ticket, with Greeley at the head. It had been sent into the engraver’s room, when somebody remarked to Nast that he had omitted the name of the Vice-President.

“Oh,” he said, “is somebody a candidate for Vice-President? Oh, yes; Brown of Missouri.”

He simply wrote the name and tacked it to the coat-tail of Greeley, and that went through the papers.

Brown of St. Louis was a delightful man. He signed the pledge after he was nominated for Vice-President, but during the campaign tour in the East it was reported that Brown drank too much at a banquet in New Haven, and the Good Templars’ Society telegraphed to some persons in New Haven to ask whether the report were true. Word came back that they did not know whether he were drunk or not, but he ate butter on his watermelon. One of the cartoons had Brown as Bacchus a-straddle of a big watermelon, in the act of buttering a slice.

Another and possibly even a more telling one was the cartoon which depicted Mr. Greeley as consuming his own broth—that is, feeding himself from a bowl filled with the denunciations and criticisms he had, during his long career as the leading Whig and Republican editor of the United States, fulminated against the Democratic party and its policies. As he was that party’s nominee the point was obvious.

The way that the cartoon came to be was something like this: Once Ben: Perley Poor, the famous correspondent of the Boston Journal, and Richard J. Hinton, a Washington journalist, were both active and earnest on the side of the Republican ticket. Hinton was the press secretary of the Congressional and National committees of his party, and is fond nowadays of asserting that the “campaign of education,” then carried on under his direction, was the active cause of the destruction of the franking privilege that followed during the first session of Congress in Grant’s second term. Between these two keen-witted “Knights of the Quill,” it was decided to prepare and publish a campaign document containing choice extracts from all the various denunciations of the Democracy which had appeared in the columns Mr. Greeley edited. Major Poor was clerk of the Printing Records Committee of Congress; he knew where the files were. A score of searchers and copyists were employed, and in a few days a huge document of nearly two hundred pages was put into type. A bundle of revises was sent to Nast by the press secretary with a request for a cartoon. They were returned at once with the famous picture of Mr. Greeley with the bowl and the long handled Tribune spoon, from which he was, politically speaking, thus made to sup sorrow of his own making.

PETROLEUM V. NASBY’S letters—to these, next to the cartoons of Thomas Nast, will the historian undoubtedly give credit in their influence in inspiring people with enthusiasm for the cause of the Union. Indeed, a member of Mr. Lincoln’s cabinet, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Boutwell, said in a public speech shortly after the war:

“The rebellion was put down by three forces: the army and the navy of the United States, and the letters of Petroleum V. Nasby.”

Petroleum V. Nasby was the nom de plume of David R. Locke of Ohio. At the beginning of the Civil War he was a young and obscure man, editing a little country paper in the interior of Ohio. It occurred to him that it would be a good idea to write a series of letters, one a week, exposing and ridiculing the Democratic party. These letters pretended to be written in earnest by a Confederate War office-seeker. They succeeded in deceiving even the County Democrats for a time.

One meeting of the faithful framed a resolution commending the fidelity to Democratic principles shown in the Nasby letters, but urging Mr. Nasby, for the sake of policy, not to be so outspoken. The sarcasm was so broad that it is difficult, if one reads them to-day for the first time, to understand how the most illiterate partisans could mistake them. But at a time when men’s passions were red hot, and their prejudices volcanic, they were universally applauded by the upholders of the Union.

The circulation of Locke’s paper rose rapidly, and he became one of the most famous men in America in less than a year. He soon bought an interest in the Toledo Blade, then in a dying state. He moved to Toledo, supervised the paper, and its circulation increased until it rivalled the most popular journals of the continent both in its sale and its influence. When he died, in 1888, the Blade for several years had had a circulation of over one hundred thousand.

From being a poor country editor Locke had become one of the wealthiest men in the West, and died a millionaire.

Of course, as soon as he had won a national reputation, he was invited to lecture. He used to boast that he made, during his first lecture season, the longest and most lucrative lecture tour recorded in the annals of the lyceum.

He lectured every secular night for nine or ten months, and made over $30,000 by the tour. His lectures until some time after the war were very popular; but he had none of the graces of the orator, and as the war fever abated, he gradually lost his hold, and retired from the field.

One day Nasby came into our office in Boston just as Gough was passing out. Nasby said to me:

“I suppose Gough’s mad at me. I was in St. Paul, at the Merchants’ Hotel, and hard up for a letter. I saw Gough was registered there, and I ordered two whiskey cocktails sent to his room. Then I wrote my letter on what I saw.”

Nothing that was said could make “Nasby” see at the time the outrage he had perpetrated. It is probable, however, that when his own habits changed, some years later, he realized the offence committed and the wrong done to a man of honorable life and pure purposes.

His intense Republicanism made him hate the Irish and Irish-Americans, and as he afterward said:

“If I ever missed a chance to get a dig at the Irish for twenty years before I went to Ireland, I can’t remember it.”

He used to sneer at the Irish for clamoring for freedom at home, and supporting the pro-slavery party when they came to America. A few years before his death he made a tour of Europe, and in coming back reached Belfast and got among the Orangemen of the North. These men intensified his prejudices, and when he reached Dublin he had made up his mind to write a series of Nasby letters ridiculing Parnell and the Irish movement for home rule. Mr. Redpath happened to meet him there, but found it impossible to convince him that the Irish were wholly in the right in their struggle for home rule. Finally, finding that he could not make Nasby understand the tyranny of the Irish landlords, he offered to make a bet to convert him. And a curious bet it was. Redpath said:

“Take a map of Ireland and pitch a sixpence on any part of the West, and whether I have been there or not, if you and Bob (his son) will go there with me, I will convince you by what I shall show you that I am right and the Irish are right, and I will pay your expenses if you don’t come back a worse Irishman than I am, but you will pay mine if you are converted.”

The offer was accepted, and Nasby fixed on the Killarney Lake region. In going there from Cork the party stopped over at the Galter Mountains, and Nasby was so shocked at the horrible poverty he saw there, and at the stories he heard from the people, that in coming back he offered to send the best Winchester rifle in America to the jaunting-car driver if he would promise to shoot a landlord.

“Which landlord, your honor?” asked the driver.

“Oh, any one, I don’t care,” replied Nasby, “so long as he is an Irish landlord.”

On returning to America Locke astonished his old friends by becoming a more radical champion of Irish rights than even his friend Redpath, whom the Irish-Americans had already christened “the adopted Irishman.”

President Lincoln telegraphed to Toledo: “For the genius to write like Nasby I would gladly give up my office.” Of all publications during the Civil War none had such a charm for him. It was a delight to see him surrender himself completely to their fascination.

Of his letters Charles Sumner says, in the preface to Nasby’s book, “it is impossible to measure their value.”

SAMUEL L. CLEMENS (Mark Twain) I consider one of the greatest geniuses of our time, and as great a philosopher as humorist. I think I know him better than he is known to most men—wide as his circle of acquaintances is, big as is his reputation. He is as great a man as he is a genius, too. Tenderness and sensitiveness are his two strongest traits. He has one of the best hearts that ever beat. One must know him well fully to discern all of his best traits. He keeps them entrenched, so to speak. I rather imagine that he fights shy of having it generally suspected that he is kind and tender-hearted, but many of his friends do know it. He possesses some of the frontier traits—a fierce spirit of retaliation and the absolute confidence that life-long “partners,” in the Western sense, develop. Injure him, and he is merciless, especially if you betray his confidence. Once a lecture manager in New York, whom he trusted to arrange the details of a lecture in Steinway Hall, swindled him to the amount of $1,500, and afterward confessed it, offering restitution to that amount, but not until the swindle had been discovered. They were on board ship at the time, and “Mark” threatened to throw the fellow overboard, meaning it, too, but he fled ashore. In “The Gilded Age” “Mark” immolated him. (Mr. Griller, Lecture Agent, page 438, London Edition). The fellow died soon afterward, and James Redpath, who was a witness to the scene on the steamboat, and who knew the man well, insisted that “Mark’s” arrow killed him; but he would have fired it all the same had he known what the result would be.

General Grant and “Mark Twain” were the greatest of friends. C. L. Webster & Co. (Mark Twain) published “General Grant’s Memoirs,” yet how like and unlike are the careers of the soldier and the citizen!

Grant: poor, a tanner, small farmer, selling cordwood for a living, with less prospect for rising than any ex-West Pointer in the army; then the greatest military reputation of the age; twice President of the United States; the foremost civilian of the world; the most honored guest of peoples and rulers who ever made the circuit of the earth.

“Mark Twain”: a printer’s apprentice in a small Missouri River town; then a “tramping jour” printer; a Mississippi roustabout guarding freight piles on the levee all night for pocket money; river pilot; a rebel guerilla; a reporter in a Nevada mining town; then suddenly the most famous author of the age; a man of society, with the most aristocratic clubs of America, and all around the civilized globe, flung open to him; adopted with all the honors into one of the most exclusive societies on this continent, the favored companion of the most cultivated spirits of the age, welcomed abroad in all the courts almost as a crowned head. “Peace hath its victories,” etc.

There is indeed another parallel between Grant and Twain. Grant found himself impoverished two years before his death, when was left for him the most heroic part of his lifework, to write his memoirs (while he knew he was dying), for which, through his publishers, C. L. Webster & Co. (Twain), his family received nearly half a million dollars. That firm failed in 1894, leaving liabilities to the amount of $80,000 over and above all it owned for “Mark” to pay, and which he has earned with his voice and pen in a tour around the world, paying every creditor in full, in one year’s less time than he calculated when he started at Cleveland on the 15th day of July, 1895. Yes, there is a parallel between the two great heroes in courage and integrity; they are more like than unlike.

“Mark Twain” became a lecturer in California in 1869, after he had returned to San Francisco from the Sandwich Islands. He had written from there a series of picturesque and humorous letters for the Sacramento Union, a California journal, and was asked to lecture about the islands. He tells of his first experience with great glee. He had written the lecture and committed it to memory, and was satisfied with it. Still, he dreaded a failure on the first night, as he had had no experience in addressing audiences. Accordingly, he made an arrangement with a woman friend, whose family was to occupy one of the boxes, to start the applause if he should give the sign by looking in her direction and stroking his moustache. He thought that if he failed to “strike” the audience he would be encouraged by a round of applause, if any one would start it after he had made a good point.

Instead of failure, his lecture was a boundless success. The audience rapturously applauded every point, and “Mark” forgot all about his instructions to the lady. Finally, as he was thinking of some new point that occurred to him as he was talking, without a thought of the lady at all, he unconsciously put his hand up to his moustache, and happened to turn in the direction of the box. He had said nothing just then to cause even his appreciative audience to applaud; but the lady took his action for the signal, and nearly broke her fan in striking it against the edge of the box. The whole house joined her applause.

This unexpected and malapropos applause almost knocked “Mark” off his pins; but he soon recovered himself, and became at once one of the favorites of the platform. He lectured a year or two in the West, and then, by Petroleum V. Nasby’s advice, in 1872-73, James Redpath invited him to come East, and he made his first appearance in Boston, in the Redpath Lyceum Music Hall. His success was instantaneous, and he has ever since remained the universal platform favorite to this date, not only in America, in Australia, in India, in the Cape Colonies, and throughout Great Britain; but in Austria and in Germany, where large crowds pay higher prices to see and to hear “Mark Twain” than any other private citizen that has ever lived.

In his tour around the world “Mark Twain” earned with his voice and pen money enough to pay all his creditors (Webster & Co., publishers) in full, with interest, and this he did almost a year sooner than he had originally calculated. Such a triumphal tour has never before been made by any American since that memorable tour around the world by General Grant. Samuel L. Clemens has been greeted in France, Switzerland, Germany, and England almost like a crowned head.

He wrote me from Paris, May 1, 1895: “I’ve a notion to read a few times in America before I sail for Australia. I’m going to think it over and make up my mind.” On May 18th he arrived in this country, and I made arrangements for him to lecture in twenty-one cities on his way to the Pacific, beginning in Cleveland, July 15th, and ending in Vancouver, British Columbia, August 15th. From that place he was to sail for Australia, via Honolulu, where it was planned that he should speak while the ship was waiting; but owing to yellow fever no landing was made there, and over $1,600 was returned to the disappointed people of Honolulu.

June 11th he wrote me from Elmira that if we have a circular for this brief campaign, the chief feature, when speaking of him should be, that he (M. T.) is on his way to Australia and thence around the globe on a reading and talking tour to last twelve months; that travelling around the world is nothing, as everybody does it. But what he was travelling for was unusual; everybody didn’t do that.

“I like the approximate itinerary first rate. It is lake all the way from Cleveland to Duluth. I wouldn’t switch aside to Milwaukee for $200,000.” His original idea was to lecture in nine cities, besides two or three others on the Pacific Coast. I was to have one-fourth of the profits except in San Francisco, where he was to have four-fifths. But we did not go to San Francisco.

There were five of us in the party: Mr. and Mrs. Clemens, Clara (one of their daughters), Mrs. Pond and myself. During the journey I kept a detailed journal, from which I shall quote:

“Cleveland, July 15, 1895.

“At the Stillman with ‘Mark Twain,’ his wife, and their daughter Clara. ‘Mark’ looks badly fatigued.

“We have very comfortable quarters here. ‘Mark’ went immediately to bed on our arrival. He is nervous and weak. Reporters from all the morning and evening papers called and interviewed him. It seemed like old times again, and ‘Mark’ enjoyed it.

“The young men called at 3 p.m. and paid me the fee for the lecture, which took place in Music Hall. There were 4,200 people present, at prices ranging from 25 cents to $1. It was nine o’clock before the crowd could get in and ‘Mark’ begin. As he hobbled upon the stage, there was a grand ovation of cheers and applause, which continued for some time. Then he began to speak, and before he could finish a sentence the applause broke out again. So it went on for over an hour on a mid-July night, with the mercury trying to climb out of the top of the thermometer. ‘Mark Twain’ kept that vast throng in convulsions.

“Cleveland, Tuesday, July 16th.

“Ninety degrees in the shade at 7:30 a.m. Good notices of ‘Mark Twain’s’ lecture appear in all the papers. ‘Mark’ spent all day in bed until five o’clock, while I spent the day in writing to all correspondents ahead. If Sault Ste. Marie, the next engagement, turns out as well in proportion as this place, our tour is a success. ‘Mark’ and family were invited out to dinner with some old friends and companions of the Quaker City tour. He returned very nervous and much distressed. We discover a remarkable woman in Mrs. Clemens. There’s a good time in store for us all.

“Wednesday, July 17th, S.S. Northland.

“Our party left Cleveland for Mackinac at seven o’clock. ‘Mark’ is feeling very poorly. He is carrying on a big fight against his bodily disability. All that has been said of this fine ocean ship on the Great Lakes is not exaggerated. Across Lake Erie to Detroit River, Lake St. Clair, and the St. Clair River is a most charming trip. ‘Mark’ and Mrs. Clemens are very cheerful to-day. The passengers have discovered who they are, and consequently our party is the centre of attraction. Wherever ‘Mark’ sits or stands on the deck of the steamer, in the smoking room, dining room, or cabin, he is the magnet, and people strain their necks to see him and to catch every word he utters.

“On this lake trip occurred an incident of which I have already written. It was the second day out on Lake Huron, and ‘Mark’ was on deck in the morning for the first time. Many people made excuses for speaking to him. One man had stopped off in Cleveland on purpose to hear him. Another, from Washington Territory, who had lived forty years in the West, owned a copy of ‘Roughing It,’ which he and his wife knew by heart. One very gentle, elderly lady wished to thank him for the nice things he has written and said of cats. But the one that interested ‘Mark’ the most was a young man who asked him if he had ever seen or used a shaving stone, handing him one. It was a small, peculiar, fine-grained sand-stone, the shape of a miniature grindstone, and about the size of an ordinary watch. He explained that all you had to do was to rub your face with it and the rough beard would disappear, leaving a clean, shaven face.

“‘Mark’ took it, rubbed it on his unshaven cheek, and expressed great wonder at the result. He put it in his vest pocket very unceremoniously, remarking at the same time: ‘The Madam (he generally speaks of Mrs. Clemens as ‘The Madam’) will have no cause to complain of my never being ready in time for church because it takes so long to shave. I will put this into my vest pocket on Sunday. Then, when I get to church, I’ll pull the thing out and enjoy a quiet shave in my pew during the long prayer.’

“Friday, July 19th, Grand Hotel, Mackinac.

“We came by steamer F. S. Faxton, of the Arnold Line. It was an ideal excursion among the islands. Although it was cold, none of our party would leave the deck until the dinner bell rang. ‘Mark’ said: ‘That sounds like an old-fashioned summons to dinner. It means a good, old-fashioned, unpretentious dinner, too. I’m going to try it.’ We all sat down to a table the whole length of the cabin. We naturally fell in with the rush, and all got seats. It was a good dinner, too; the best ever I heard of for 25 cents.

“We reached the Grand Hotel at 4:30. I saw one of ‘Mark’s’ lithographs in the hotel office, with ‘Tickets for Sale Here’ written in blue pencil on the margin. It seemed dull and dead about the lobby, and also in the streets. The hotel manager said the Casino, an adjoining hall, was at our service, free, and the keeper had instructions to seat and to light it. Dinner time came; we all went down together. It was ‘Mark’s’ first appearance in a public dining room since we started. He attracted some attention as he entered and sat down, but nothing especial. After dinner the news-stand man told me he had not sold a ticket, and no one had inquired about the lecture. I waited until eight o’clock and then went to the hall to notify the man that he need not light up as there would be no audience. The janitor and I chatted until about half-past eight, and I was about to leave when a man and woman came to the door and asked for tickets. I was on the point of telling them that there would be no lecture when I saw a number of people, guests of the hotel, coming. I suddenly changed my mind and told them: ‘Admission $1; pay the money to me and walk right in.’ The crowd kept rushing on me, so that I was obliged to ask everybody who could to please have the exact amount ready, as I was unable to change large bills without a good deal of delay. It was after nine o’clock before the rush was over, and I sent a boy for ‘Mark.’ He expressed his pleasant surprise. I asked him to walk to the platform and introduce himself, which he did, and I don’t believe an audience ever had a better time of an hour and a half. ‘Mark’ was simply immense.

“I counted my money while the ‘show’ was going on and found I had taken in $398. When about half through, two young men came to the door and wanted to be admitted for one dollar for the two. I said: ‘No; one dollar each; I cannot take less.’ They turned to go; then I called them back and explained that I needed two more dollars to make receipts just $400, and said:

“‘Now, if you’ll pay a dollar each and complete my pile, you can come in and enjoy the best end of the performance, and when the ‘show’ is out, I’ll take you down-stairs and blow you off to twice that amount.’

“They paid the two dollars, and after the crowd had left, I introduced them to ‘Mark,’ and we all went down to the billiard room, had a good time until twelve o’clock, and ‘Mark’ and I made two delightful acquaintances. This has been one of our best days. ‘Mark’ is gaining.

“Saturday, July 20th, Mackinac to Petoskey.

“‘Mark’ is feeling better. He and I left the ladies at the Grand, in Mackinac, and went to Petoskey on the two o’clock boat and train. The smoke, from forest fires on both sides of the track, is so thick as to be almost stifling. There is a good hotel here.

“There was a full house, and for the first time in a number of months I had a lecture room so crowded at one dollar a ticket that many could not get standing room and were obliged to go away. The theatre has a seating capacity of five hundred, but over seven hundred and fifty got in. ‘Mark’s’ programme was just right—one hour and twenty minutes long. He stopped at an hour and ten minutes, and cries of ‘Go on! Go on!’ were so earnest that he told one more story. George Kennan was one of the audience. He is going to give a course of lectures at Lake View Assembly, an auxiliary Chautauqua adjoining Petoskey, where about five thousand people assemble every summer. Mr. Hall, the manager, thought that ‘Mark Twain’ would not draw sufficient to warrant engaging him at $250, so I took the risk outside, and won.

“Sunday, July 21st.

“‘Mark’ and I left Petoskey for Mackinac at 5:30 this morning, where we joined the ladies and waited five hours on the dock for S.S. Northwest to take us to Duluth. It was severe on the poor man, but he was heroic and silent all the way. He has not tasted food since the dinner on the Faxton Friday.

“Monday, July 22d.

“On Lake Superior; S.S. Northwest. I was on deck early and found the smoke all gone. In its place was bright sunshine, but it has been so cold all day that few of the other passengers are on deck. Captain Brown and Purser Pierce are doing all they can to hurry us on, for we are eight hours late.

“We landed in Duluth at just 9 p.m. Mr. Briggs, our correspondent, met us at the wharf with a carriage. As our boat neared land Briggs shouted:

“‘Hello, Major Pond!’

“‘Hello, Briggs!’

“‘Is Mark Twain all right?’

“‘Yes; he is ready to go to the hall; he will be the first passenger off the ship.’

“‘Good. We have a big audience waiting for him,’ said Mr. Briggs.

“‘We’ll have them convulsed in ten minutes,’ said I.

“‘Mark’ was the first passenger to land. Mr. Briggs hurried him to the church, which was packed with twelve hundred and fifty warm friends (100 degrees in the shade) to meet and greet him. It was a big audience. He got through at 10:50 and we were all on board the train for Minneapolis at 11:20.

“It was my busy night. The train for Minneapolis was to start at twelve o’clock. The agents in New York who had fitted me out with transportation and promised that everything should be in readiness on our arrival in Duluth, had forgotten us, and no arrangements for sleeper or transfer of baggage had been made. I had all this to attend to, besides looking after the business part of the lecture, which was on sharing terms with a church society. Everything was mixed up, as the door-tender and finance committee were bound to hear the lecture. I could get no statement, but took all the money in sight, and was on board the train as it was starting for Minneapolis.

“Tuesday, July 23d, Minneapolis.

“We are stopping at the West Hotel; a delightful place. Six skilled reporters have spent about two hours with ‘Mark.’ He was lying in bed, and very tired I know, but he was extremely courteous to them, and they all enjoyed the interview. The Metropolitan Opera House was filled to the top gallery with a big crowd of well-dressed, intelligent people. It was about as big a night as ‘Mark’ ever had to my knowledge. He introduced a new entertainment, blending pathos with humor with unusual continuity. This was at Mrs. Clemens’s suggestion. She had given me an idea on the start that too much humor tired an audience with laughing. ‘Mark’ took the hint and worked in three or four pathetic stories that made the entertainment perfect. The ‘show’ is a triumph, and ‘Mark’ will never again need a running mate to make him satisfactory to everybody.

“The next day the Minneapolis papers were full of good things about the lecture. The Times devoted three columns and a half of fine print to a verbatim report of it. The following evening in St. Paul ‘Mark’ gave the same programme, which was commented on in glowing terms by St. Paul papers.

“Friday, July 26th, Winnipeg—The Manitoba.

“We have had a most charming ride through North Dakota and southeastern Manitoba. It seems as if everything along the route must have been put in order for our reception. The flat, wild prairies (uninhabited in 1883) are now all under cultivation. There are fine farmhouses, barns, windmills, and vast fields of wheat—‘oceans of wheat,’ as ‘Mark’ said—as far as eye can reach in all directions, waving like as the ocean waves, and so flat! Mr. Beecher remarked to his wife when riding through herein 1883: ‘Mother, you couldn’t flatter this country.’

“We had a splendid audience. ‘Mark’ and I were entertained at the famous Manitoba Club after the lecture—a club of the leading men of Winnipeg. We did not stay out very late, as ‘Mark’ feared Mrs. Clemens would not retire until he came, and he was quite anxious for her to rest, as the long night journey in the cars had been very fatiguing. On our arrival at the hotel we heard singing and a sound of revelry in the parlors. A party of young gentlemen of the lecture committee had escorted our ladies home. They were fine singers, and, with Miss Clara Clemens at the piano, a concert was in progress, that we all enjoyed another hour.

“Saturday, the 27th, we all put down as the pleasantest day thus far. Several young English gentlemen who have staked fortunes in this northwest in wheat ranches and other enterprises, brought out their tandems and traps and drove the ladies about the country. They saw the largest herd of wild buffalo that now exists, in a large enclosure. They were driven to various interesting suburban sights, of which there are more than one would believe could exist in this far northwest new city. Bouquets and banks of flowers—of such beautiful colors!—were sent in; many ladies called, and all in all it has been an ovation. ‘Mark,’ as is his custom, did not get up until time to go to the lecture hall, but he was happy. Several journalists called, who he told me were the best informed and most scholarly lot of editors he had found anywhere; and I think he was correct. There was another large crowd at the lecture, and another and final reception at the famous Manitoba Club. We were home at twelve, and all so happy! We’re on the road to happiness surely.

“Monday, July 29th.

“We have been in Crookston, Minn., all day, where we were the first and especially favored guests of this fine new hotel. ‘Mark Twain’s’ name was the first on the register. We are enjoying it. ‘Mark’ is as gay as a lark, but he remained in bed until time to go to the Opera House. This city is wonderfully improved since I was here in 1883 with Mr. Beecher, in 1885 with Clara Louise Kellogg, and in 1887 with Charles Dickens, Jr. The opening of this hotel is a great event. People are filling up the town from all directions to see and hear ‘Mark,’ and taking advantage of the occasion to see the first new hotel (The Crookston) in their city with hot and cold water, electric lights and all modern improvements.

“Tuesday, July 30th, en route.

“We left Crookston at 5:40 A.M.; were up at 4:30. Everybody was cheerful; there was no grumbling. This is our first unseasonable hour for getting up, but it has done us all good. Even Clara enjoyed the unique experience. It revived her memory. She recollected that she had telegraphed to Elmira to have her winter cloak expressed to Crookston. Fortunately the agent was sleeping in the express office, near the station. We disturbed his slumbers to find the great cloak, which was another acquisition to our sixteen pieces of hand baggage. Our train was forty-five minutes late. ‘Mark’ complained and grumbled; he persisted that I had contracted with him to travel and not to wait about railway stations at five o’clock in the mornings for late trains that never arrived. He insisted on travelling, so he got aboard the baggage truck and I travelled him up and down the platform, while Clara made a snap shot as evidence that I was keeping to the letter of my contract.