good but ascetic gentleman, who gives me a glass of cold
water, talks until midnight, and then delivers me, more dead than alive,
to my bed. I am so sensitive in regard to the relation of guest and host
that I can do naught but submit. Astraea, I am told, always asks for what
she wants, and does what she feels inclined to do,--indeed, why
shouldn't she?--but I am cast in a more timid mould.

There are some small country places which I visit where I have other
sufferings to undergo. Being a Distinguished Character, it would be a
neglect and a slight if I were left alone for two minutes. And the
people seem to think that the most delightful topic of conversation
which they can select is--myself. How weary of myself I become! I have
wished, a thousand times, that my popular work, "The Tin Trumpet," had
never been written. I cannot blame the people, because there are ----
and ----, who like nothing better than to be talked about to their
faces, and to take the principal part in the conversation. Of course the
people think, in regard to lecturers, _ex uno disce omnes_.

In travelling by rail, the same thing happens over and over. When I
leave a town in the morning, some one is sure to enter the car and greet
me in a loud voice: "How are you, Mr. Green? What a fine lecture you
gave us last night!" Then the other travellers turn and look at me,
listen to catch my words, and tell the new-comers at every station,
until I'm afraid to take a nap for fear of snoring, afraid to read lest
somebody should be scandalized at my novel, or to lunch lest I should be
reported as a drunkard for taking a sip of sherry (the physician
prescribes it) from a pocket-flask. At such times I envy the fellow in
homespun on the seat in front of me, who loafs, yawns, eats, and drinks
as he pleases, and nobody gives him a second glance.

When I am not recognized, I sometimes meet with another experience,
which was a little annoying until I became accustomed to it. I am the
subject of very unembarrassed conversation, and hear things said of me
that sometimes flatter and sometimes sting. It is true that I have
learned many curious and unsuspected facts concerning my birth,
parentage, history, and opinions; but, on the other hand, I am
humiliated by the knowledge of what texture a great deal of my
reputation is made. Sometimes I am even confounded with Graves, whom, as
an author, I detest; my "Tin Trumpet" being ascribed to him, and his
"Drippings from th