The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Discovery of England, by Stephen Leacock

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Title: My Discovery of England

Author: Stephen Leacock

Commentator: Owen Seaman

Posting Date: February 12, 2009 [EBook #3532]
Release Date: November, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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MY DISCOVERY OF ENGLAND

1922

By Leacock, Stephen

Introduction of Mr. Stephen Leacock Given by Sir Owen Seaman
on the Occasion of His First Lecture in London

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It is usual on these occasions for the chairman
to begin something like this: "The lecturer, I am sure, needs no
introduction from me." And indeed, when I have been the lecturer and
somebody else has been the chairman, I have more than once suspected
myself of being the better man of the two. Of course I hope I should
always have the good manners--I am sure Mr. Leacock has--to disguise
that suspicion. However, one has to go through these formalities, and I
will therefore introduce the lecturer to you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. Stephen Leacock. Mr. Leacock, this is
the flower of London intelligence--or perhaps I should say one of the
flowers; the rest are coming to your other lectures.

In ordinary social life one stops at an introduction and does not
proceed to personal details. But behaviour on the platform, as on the
stage, is seldom ordinary. I will therefore tell you a thing or two
about Mr. Leacock. In the first place, by vocation he is a Professor of
Political Economy, and he practises humour--frenzied fiction instead
of frenzied finance--by way of recreation. There he differs a good deal
from me, who have to study the products of humour for my living, and by
way of recreation read Mr. Leacock on political economy.

Further, Mr. Leacock is all-British, being English by birth and Canadian
by residence, I mention this for two reasons: firstly, because England
and the Empire are very proud to claim him for their own, and, secondly,
because I do not wish his nationality to be confused with that of his
neighbours on the other side.