Thackeray, always equal to the demand of American hospitality,
closed his eyes and swallowed the oyster, and the oyster went
down. When he had recovered he remarked: "I feel as if I had
swallowed a live baby."
We have been excited at different times to an absorbing extent
by the stories of explorers. None were more generally read than
the adventures of the famous missionary, David Livingstone,
in Africa. When Livingstone was lost the whole world saluted
Henry M. Stanley as he started upon his famous journey to find him.
Stanley's adventures, his perils and escapes, had their final
success in finding Livingstone. The story enraptured and thrilled
every one. The British Government knighted him, and when he
returned to the United States he was Sir Henry Stanley. He was
accompanied by his wife, a beautiful and accomplished woman, and
received with open arms.
I met Sir Henry many times at private and public entertainments
and found him always most interesting. The Lotos Club gave him
one of its most famous dinners, famous to those invited and to
those who spoke.
It was arranged that he should begin his lecture tour of the
United States in New York. At the request of Sir Henry and his
committee I presided and introduced him at the Metropolitan
Opera House. The great auditorium was crowded to suffocation
and the audience one of the finest and most sympathetic.
We knew little at that time of Central Africa and its people, and
the curiosity was intense to hear from Sir Henry a personal and
intimate account of his wonderful discoveries and experiences.
He thought that as his African life was so familiar to him, it must
be the same to everybody else. As a result, instead of a thriller
he gave a commonplace talk on some literary subject which bored
the audience and cast a cloud over a lecture tour which promised
to be one of the most successful. Of course Sir Henry's effort
disappointed his audience the more because their indifference
and indignation depressed him, and he did not do justice to himself
or the uninteresting subject which he had selected. He never again
made the same mistake, and the tour was highly remunerative.
For nearly a generation there was no subject which so interested
the American people as the adventures of explorers. I met many
of them, eulogized them in speeches at banquets given in their
honor. The people everywhere were open-eyed, open-eared, and
open-mouthed in their welcome and eagerness to hear them.
It is a commentary upon the fickleness of popular favor that the
time was so short before these universal favorites dropped out
of popular attention and recollection.