The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-01-22

.Goodby, Johnnie; see you later, in my
lecture
Speaking of lecturing, have an ear
nest and sincere letter from a young man
at sRaccoon Summit, Tenn. asking about
nv own early experience and how like it.
America is one of alternate elation and
depression. 1t is a history of alternate
failure and success, written with the
hearts blood of the lecturer. 1t is record
of hope and Indigestion, of exhllarating
applause and nipping frosts.
1t Is easy in America to say: 81 will be
lecturer. l will train my voice and
warm the cold hearts of my fellows with
my nice new upper register. l will train
myself from an Evolutionary point of view,
and will write myself lecture to fiji the
gestures that l have thought. up. 1 will
win for myself place in the hearts of my
countrvmen at 500 per pop, and commit
tees shall say, 'Lo! he is indeed corkerp
and the leading people of the town shall
take me to their homes and give me of
their preserves, and the committee shall
meet me at the depot with livery team"
1t is easy to say all this, but it is not
easy to do it. Before all this can happier
the long, dusty road that leads to public
approval must be sprinkled with tears.
The amateur lecturer must contribute
many sobs and three-sheet posters, and
MANY an amateur manager must meet
with reverses of his fortunes while the
lecturers cuffs are going through the same
process.
Our best lecturers are too wealthy to
lecture, and so far the field is occupied
pretty extensively by those whose fame
is superior to their lectures, or whose
lectures are superior to their fame. So
too often it is either "a small but de-
lighted audience" or "a large and disap-
pointed one"
Sometimes the lecturer entirely escapes
criticism while the audience gets a terri
Die roasting for its apparent enjoyment.
This is one of the saddest sights'l have
ever witnessed. A bright young critic.
who has had sometimes as high as a year
and half of experience as thought
molder, takes an audience of more or
less mature people across his knee and
gives it q well Inherited rebuke. ] have
known an audience after such an expert
ence TO change its name and go somew here
else No one who has never been an audi
ence under such circumstances can imagine
its chagrin when il finds by the paper that
il has enioyed a lecture which was bitter
disappointment 10 biase young critic.
Judicious advertising twenty-five years
ago would have made any lecturer tinan-
clal success, but now il will not. 1t is a
queer combination of fame--ability to en-
terrain and business sagaCity-which to-
gether make no the sum of success from a
box office standpoint now, and that has
to he the test at least, for lecture commit
tees and local managers do not love one
who cannot draw. You are therefore to
combine your talents as talker and as q
craftsman.
To start out as a lecturer and win
wealth and fame in this way is an uphill
job, even though your lecture was written
by some one in whom you have the ut
most conf dence. Generally originality of
thought and expression. which through
the medium of the public press have at
tracted attention, are the first and strong
est elements of success in the makeup Of
a lecture tour. Then should follow a COM
plete study of the average audience and an
effort 10 please its peculiar taste
In the autumn OF the year 1854 / met
with Il severe accident in the northern
woods of Wisconsin, by which nv leg was
very much broken at the. knee. The acct
| dent was due largely 10 an error in judg-
| ment by which my own ecliptlc blsected
| the orbit of a grown-up cyclone at a time
| when the cyclones orbit was IN use.
stepping on bright, new peal OF thun-
| der" to quote from myself. tell quite q
| long distance with very little obstruction
| until | reached the earth. when | vas
! shocked TO find that | could proceed no
! farther.
| Starting mp, however. | was hOrritied 70
! find before I mad proceeded two steps that
| nv choicest leg had been broken just be-
! low the knee After weeks of suffering at
| a village, 10 which | vas carried ~ admir-
| ing friends. was led To believe from the
| large number of people who came long
| distances to view the shattered limb that
| if | could get it on the stage, together with
! g few explanatory remarks regarding at
/ mosphering phenomena, L would enter
! tam and instruct while possibly detract-
| ing attention from the accursed ballet and
| thus eleYating the stage.
| \ New York manager had previously
/ written me regarding the possibility oil my
/ lecturing, and had been just COY enough
| TO keep him interested. Thus as | began
10 get around on clutches could not over
| come the desire TO appear IN public, so that
| those who had read after NE" could also