ed to me before a week was out.

But meanwhile I laughed very hard for three days. The thing that made me
laugh most was the unexpected experience of enduring the discomfiture of
fame. Chautauqua is a constricted community; and any one who lectures
there becomes, by that very fact, a famous person in this little backwater
of the world, until he is supplanted (for fame is as fickle as a
ballet-dancer) by the next new-comer to the platform. The Chautauqua Press
publishes a daily paper, a weekly review, a monthly magazine and a
quarterly; and these publications report your lectures, tell the story of
your life, comment upon your views of this and that, advertise your books,
and print your picture. Everybody knows you by sight, and stops you in the
street to ask you questions. Thus, on your way to the Post Office, you are
intercepted by some kindly soul who says: "I am Miss Terwilliger, from
Montgomery, Alabama; and do you think that Bernard Shaw is really an
immoral writer?" or, "I am Mrs. Winterbottom, of Muncie, Indiana; and
where do you think I had better send my boy to school? He is rather a
backward boy for his age--he was ten last April--but I really think that
if, etc."

Then, when you return to the hotel, you observe that everybody is rocking
vigorously on the veranda, and reading one of your books. This pleases you
a little; for, though an actor may look his audience in the eyes, an
author is seldom privileged to see his readers face to face. Indeed, he
often wonders if anybody ever reads his writings, because he knows that
his best friends never do. But very soon this tender sentiment is
disrupted. There comes a sudden resurrection of the rocking-chair brigade,
a rush of readers with uplifted fountain-pens, and a general request for
the author's autograph upon the flyleaf of his volume. All of this is
rather flattering; but afterward these gracious and well-meaning people
begin to comment on your lectures, and tell you that you have made them
see a great light. And then you find yourself embarrassed.

It is rather embarrassing to be embarrassed.

One enthusiastic lady, having told me her name and her address, assaulted
me with the following commentary:--"I heard you lecture on Stevenson the
other day; and ever since then I have been thinking how very much like
Stevenson you are. And today I heard you lecture on Walt Whitman: and all
afternoon I have been thinking how very much like Whitman you are. And
that is