Part 19 (2/2)
”A last Farewell--O my few foes!
I fear'd you not, by ht his fight with auntlet I have run You shall not say he fail'd or fell, Truly recording when I'ht and won his victories well
”My last Farewell--O brothers both!
No foes at all, but friends all round; Albeit now holand I am bound-- Accept this short and si knell), To every one and everywhere My thankful blessing, and Farewell!”
CHAPTER xxxIV
ENGLISH AND SCOTCH READINGS
I have another vast volu Tours, with full details of innumerable home kindnesses and hospitalities, from Ventnor in the South to Peterhead in the North, which I need not particularise I gave twenty-one ”Readings froular _entrepreneur_, as e reporters, and the like; when all was ready, I used to come forward, as the General does at a review,--and then succeeded the shaht and division of the spoils of war--if any; for, to say truth, our partnershi+p did not prove lucrative, so we parted with mutual esteem, and I resolved to accoreat effort and a successful one, for I ”orated” all through Scotland, froe audiences (as at Glasgohere the number was said to be three thousand) and always to fair ones, the Scotch being land I could give innumerable anecdotes of the splendid as well as kindly welcoreat and sent I was all the uest,--and I found h the land, with nu to ements freely at each town and city So the tour paid better every way, albeit the toil and excite always to the front, either on platfor It is astonishi+ng what one can do if one tries, and if the syood success are at hand to cheer one
I wish there was space here to say reat book before me would print up into several volu extract froent aforesaid:--”He has told me some curious anecdotes about e_ Thackeray caes; the first reading had only three auditors, the second not one; so Thackeray went away Bellew is uncertain; so ones, according to the prograave a lecture on Humour, which was so dull that the audience left hinificently too, to empty benches Sims Reeves draws a vast audience, but so forfeit) because he is always afraid of soh with crowded audiences, was not liked, nor nearly so good as Mr---- expected: he carried about with hihts and covered with purple cloth, in thecostume with bouquet in button-hole, and, as Mr---- said, 'very stiff' Mr---- has just engaged Madaton and six others for sixty-three concerts at a cost of 4000, for he says that goodto pay May his spirited speculation prosper!” Thus much for my quotation of Mr---- 's experiences
It ive, quite at haphazard, a list of one of s: ”Welcome; Adventure; Yesterday, To-day, and To-y; Success; Warmth; Be True; Of Love; The Lost Arctic; The Way of the World; Cheerfulness” All these may be found in my Miscellaneous Poeramme--of about an hour and a half each (sos on this side of the Atlantic, as well as through e that the stammerer should have so become the orator!--I thank God for this
Before a final end to this brief record of e of short extracts froh I continually read for nearly two hours at a stretch (and that someti but a sip of water Energy and electrical effort are stih” ”I always exert myself quite as much for few as for many; perhaps more so” ”No one ever can read well or hold his audience if he doesn't feel what he reads” ”Soreat friends of mine; one told me to-day that 'perpetual dearly beloved brethren had spoilt him for eloquence, and he didn't care to hear mine'” This was at Salisbury, in a coffee-room
”Cathedral towns are always dullest and least sy laymen; for example, at Bristol, Salisbury, Worcester, Gloster, and the like Are the clerics jealous of lay spouters?
Dissenting enial” ”I travelled about fifteen hundred ate of paying hearers was about sixteen thousand, the bulk being old book-likers The gain was nearly four ti been the rule” ”I read publicly (private readings additional, as often asked after dinners, &c) twenty-nine proverbial essays and thirty-eight poe to popularity by request to two hundred” I only do not nalish hosts for fear of seeotten others by othy for full insertion; as also is the long story of my adventures and experiences in the hospitable North
Miscellaneous Poereat Scottish exploit (which, by the way, anticipated by three years my second American visit, but I would not disjoin that froive some account of the publication of h, and of soh not revealing do happened to lis's dinner-table, where I met several literary celebrities I had just read, and was loud in my praises of a then anonyhbour, an aged man, if he knew that extraordinary book?
Whereupon the whole table saluted the questioner with a loud guffaw; for I was speaking to its author, whom I had innocently so bepraised
However, ined I found that the said author was Mr Inglis's near relative, Mr Gall,--so my new publisher and I were immediately _en rapport_
There are two simultaneous editions of this book of my poetry--one called the Redlined and the other the Landscape; the first on thick paper, and with eight steel engravings, the latter having every page decorated in colours with beautiful borderings of scenery The volume contains about one-half or less of all thebeen in earlier books of my poetry, as Ballads and Poems, Cithara, Lyrics of the Heart and Mind, Hactenus, A Thousand Lines, &c &c; and they date, though not printed in systematic order, from my fifteenth year to beyondever since now to my seventy-sixth
Here are a few further random, extracts from my Scotch diary:--”Arbroath, _Sunday, Nov 2, 1873_--What a coage has only a raent to all appearance: really, it is quite a relief to be some one else than Martin Tupper”
”Read JS Mill's autobiography; poor wretch! froade father, he can have been hardly more responsible for his no faith than a born idiot However, in these infidel last tis, a man has only to be utterly Godless (so he be moral) to make hihtened Christian than such a false philosopher Let a Goldsreat wit, he believed in a God,' for I refuse to deny one, like the Psals, that I al, as it were, wakes me up,--and I feel every word I say: if I didn't, that ould fall dead There is a netism in earnestness,--an electric power; I a, and I ah theto ed Mr B---- conduct his fa like an old Covenanter the har the Bible(as only Presbyterians can pray) froy, earnestly and eloquently; he prayed also for me and mine, and I thank God and hionette to see the mausoleum at Hamilton Palace, with its wonderful bronze doors after Ghiberti, and its inlaid marble floor, much of which is of real verd antique in s the dead men, and inspected the coffins of nearly all the Dukes of Hae to have expended so much (100,000) on this senseless reat Grecian palace those filthy crowded streets of poverty and disease--the wretched town of Haance The last Duke, the very Lord Douglas as in the same class with me at Christ Church, and is supposed to have personated raceful temple of Vesta all to himself, with his bust in the middle: his father lies, of all heathenish absurdities, in a real antique Egyptian sarcophagus, into which it is said he was fitted by internal scoopings, the Duke being taller than its forh sonificent oaks,upon the farey, with black feet, ears, tail, and nose, and stated to be untareat satisfaction we did see a herd of thirty-four feeding quietly enough; had we been walking instead of driving we h I confess I saw at first no fierceness in the lot of thean ouidance of a terrible bull, we turned and fled, as the discreeter part of wisdoed us we lad to be out of such a fearful escapade as that” ”As to diversities in the Scotch Church, after seeing enerally) the Established Scotch gives itself the superior airs of the Established English; the Frees are the most intellectual; the UPs h; and so far too broad and pantheistic I don't wonder to hear Papists say that Protestantisreed on all points, some on none”
As for social hospitalities, I found them either splendid or kindly--or both--everywhere; and will only name Captain Haowan, Mr Boyd of Glasgow, Mr Gall and Mr
Nelson of Edinburgh, Mr Arthur of Paisley, and such other millionaire hosts as Ja uest for a week at Rozelle, I paid due hoe, his funeral cenotaph, Alloway Kirk, the Auld Brig, &c &c--all these in company with the millionaire iron-master and most enthusiastic admirer of Tanificent castle hard by, he said to me ”Ye're vera welcoallery of pictures: aruous subject for a painting, an ugly red factory in course of building, and a ainst it, with a hod on his shoulder To my inquiry about this, he replied, ”Yon's mysel',--I'm proud to say; that's what I was, and this is what I am” He had made, while yet a workman, some discovery about cold blast or hot blast (I don't knohich) and gained enorave half a million of money to the Scotch Established Church
CHAPTER xxxV
ELECTRICS
I have so of the electric telegraph across the Atlantic Sir Culling Eardley invited a nu thelish and A the cost other outsiders, had the honour of being asked I had written, and after dinner I read, the verses following, which had the good and great effect of originating the first e (see the seventh stanza) which was adopted by accla only preceded, for courtesy-sake, by a short friendly greeting fro runs in raph”
”World! what a wonder is this, Grandly and si of ti behind, In the flat race that is run, Won by a flash of the mind!