rather puzzling--isn't it?--because Stevenson and Whitman weren't
at all like each other,--were they?"

I smiled, and told the lady the simple truth; but I do not think she
understood me. "Ah, madam," I said, "wait until you hear me lecture about
Hawthorne...."

For (and now I am freely giving the whole game away) the secret of the art
of lecturing is merely this:--on your way to the rostrum you contrive to
fling yourself into complete sympathy with the man you are to talk about,
so that, when you come to speak, you will give utterance to _his_ message,
in terms that are suggestive of _his_ style. You must guard yourself from
ever attempting to talk about anybody whom you have not (at some time or
other) loved; and, at the moment, you should, for sheer affection, abandon
your own personality in favor of his, so that you may become, as nearly as
possible, the person whom it is your business to represent. Naturally, if
you have any ear at all, your sentences will tend to fall into the rhythm
of his style; and if you have any temperament (whatever that may be) your
imagined mood will diffuse an ineluctable aroma of the author's
personality.

This at least, is my own theory of lecturing; and, in the instance of my
talk on Hawthorne, I seem to have carried it out successfully in practice.
I must have attained a tone of sombre gray, and seemed for the moment a
meditative Puritan under a shadowy and steepled hat; for, at the close of
the lecture, a silvery-haired and sweet-faced woman asked me if I wouldn't
be so kind as to lead the devotional service in the Baptist House that
evening. I found myself abashed. But a previous engagement saved me; and I
was able to retire, not without honor, though with some discomfiture.

This previous engagement was a steamboat ride upon the lake. When you want
to give a sure-enough party at Chautauqua, you charter a steamboat and
escape from the enclosure, having seduced a sufficient number of other
people to come along and sing. On this particular evening, the party
consisted of the Chautauqua School of Expression,--a bevy of about thirty
young women who were having their speaking voices cultivated by an admired
friend of mine who is one of the best readers in America; and they sang
with real spirit, so soon as we had churned our way beyond remembrance of
(I mean no disrespect) the Baptist House. But this boat-ride had a curious
effect on the four or five male members of the party. We touc