SUMMING UP
As I draw near to the close of this book I feel profoundly sad. There
comes over me a feeling like that of the invalid who takes to his bed
knowing that he will leave his room no more until he is carried out.
For I feel that I am now closing the door behind me upon a profession
which with all its manifold delights I did not enter upon until middle
age, and did not lay down until physical disability rendered it
impossible to carry it on any longer. I have never enjoyed anything
more than lecturing, except in America, where I felt that the people
might as well sit and chew gum anywhere else as sit there stolidly
before me and do so. For although in Great Britain and Australasia I
was always able to get on good terms with my audiences immediately I
never did succeed in doing so in America, and so that was the only
lecture season of which I grew thoroughly tired. Yet my experience may
be strictly personal; I have reason to believe that other men have
fared far differently--some, indeed, find it impossible to fill all
the lecture engagements they receive there and make very large sums of
money. I would rather then say that the fault is with me--some subtle
want of sympathy with the American character which reflects upon myself
in coldness and inattention.
Another matter upon which I must make a few remarks to avoid
misunderstanding is the avoidance in these pages of names, except in a
very few instances. I have purposely omitted names of fellow-lecturers
because I could not speak of them all from personal knowledge, and I
would not for the world cause any heart-burnings. It would be a pity,
for I firmly believe that lecturers as a class are the best of good
fellows, and never speak of each other but in the highest terms of
eulogy. They are naturally of many different talents, each a specialist
in his way, not all equally excellent or equally successful, that need
hardly be said, but all animated not only by a desire to please their
public, but to help one another. All of us have felt sincere difficulty
when asked by those who have the direction of societies and selection
of lectures which of our colleagues we would recommend for a succeeding
season. It is a tactless question, of course, but that does not make
the answer easier, and we are often driven to some quaint subterfuges
in reply. But when the secretary says, “We have got Mr. or Professor
or Miss ---- coming for the next lecture,” we get our opportunity,
and I know from much pleasant experience how eagerly those occasions
are seized and made full use of by all of us. And it is very pleasant
too--brings out the best that is in us. Sitting here beyond these
voices I rejoice to have none but pleasant recollections of those who
were on the “platform” at the same time as I was, of their helpfulness
and good-fellowship. Of course, we have all felt considerable annoyance
at the intrusion into the lecture sphere of the big fellows to whom
money was no object--they had already more than enough of that--who
could not want occupation, for Heaven knows they were busy enough, and
we could not help feeling that to those of us whose lecturing was our
business, our main support, they were not playing the game. In fact,
they were what the Trade Unionist would call blacklegs, and with far
greater reason than he ever uses the term.
And there were, nay there are others, not those who give up their
hard-won evenings to lecture to needy little societies, content if
they may only do some good and never asking for any recognition either
in money or praise, oh no, but those in high places whose names will
command an audience and who take money they do not need from those who
do. But except among ourselves we do not growl about these things. I
should not, were I still on the job; it’s only because I am now on the
further shore that I venture to say what has long been in my mind. It
has always seemed to me the sheerest injustice that any man who is
already earning a good income at a profession should butt into another
profession on the strength of his name and take from its genuine
professors so much of their hard earnings. But I suppose there will
always be a diversity of view upon this point, so I merely give mine
for what it may be worth; I ask no one to accept it.
But of those who belong to the inner circle whose names as I write
rise before me like welcome ghosts, how gladly would I, if it were
permissible, tell of your kindness to me on many occasions. That is
out of the question, however, because I do not know you all equally
well, and therefore I should be driven to make an unconscious selection
which would never do. I therefore speak in general terms, but only from
necessity of avoiding all appearance of discrimination, not because I
have any favourites.
As I sit here and muse of the few and stormy years of my past life I
remember with something approaching mild surprise how very easily I
have taken the many great changes that have overtaken me. Only the
first, when I was suddenly flung into a harsh and cruel world from
the sheltered haven of my aunt’s quiet home at the age of eight and a
half, was received by me with a storm of bitter grief. I remember how
fiercely I wept as I have never done before or since, and I now know
that could I but have foreseen what the next few years held in store
for me I should probably not have survived that sad night.
Then came at eleven and a half the sudden change from Street Arab to
Sea Waif, accepted with a philosophical calm that might have been
expected, I admit. Fifteen years later in my young manhood came the
great change from being first mate of a ship to holding a junior
clerkship ashore. Now that change by all the rules should have been
the hardest of all to bear calmly, but I protest that it came to me as
one of the most natural of transitions, and I never felt the slightest
desire to go to sea again. Only sometimes on a Saturday night, when my
means were all too small to furnish the Londoner’s sacrament, a nice
Sunday dinner for the family, I sighed for the irresponsible days at
sea where Saturday night was no different from any other night in the
week, for our bread was given us and our water was sure, even if both
were poor in quality and scanty in quantity.
Then came the great and momentous change at forty-two of resigning
my two-pound-a-week clerkship and embarking upon the stormy sea of
journalism and authorship. Late, very late in life, and indeed too late
to give me much joy, for the iron of poverty and struggle, of scorn and
failure had entered into my very soul. And to crown all, my youngest
son, my Benjamin, had died on the very day that my first book was
accepted. But such joy as I could feel I did. All my new acquaintances
and friends bade me welcome, helped me, said nice things about me, and
I earned a good deal of money. I paid all my debts and enjoyed to the
full what I had long sighed for, the power to pay cash for everything
as I received it, and the full determination that if possible to do so
should always be my rule while I lived. Most gratefully do I declare
that so far that rule has been realised.
But the change was easy, I felt no strangeness about it any more than
I had ever done since the first. And yet it was as great a change as
a man could well experience and live. Now, however, I have come to
another change which I feel is the final one, except, of course, the
closing of the book to which all of us must come. And as through this
month of November I sit by my fireside I do feel as I have never done
before, a sense of loss, of having looked my last upon the multitude of
friends I made while lecturing. I find myself recalling the upturned
faces in their serried rows, the bursts of applause, the involuntary
remarks made by some enthusiastic listener, the sense of power for good
in that I was interesting and amusing many of my fellow-creatures by
whom I should be remembered for many and many a day. Yes, even to their
lives’ end, for although thirty years have passed since I heard J.
Jackson Wray lecture, his image, his voice, his words are all as vivid
to me now as they were on that night in Sutherland Gardens Chapel when
I sat entranced to hear him.
And in like manner my heart has been rejoiced to be greeted in
Australia, in South America, in India, in Canada, by some friendly
voice telling me of keen recollections of my lecture at some place or
another long before. Now I often sit and think with mellow happiness
that scattered all over the world there are people who are thinking
kindly of me to-night as of one who spoke words to them pleasant to
recall, and the thought does in some measure compensate me for my very
great loss.
Yes, this is the greatest change of all, and the hardest to bear, and
that is principally why I have again taken up my now seldom used pen,
to recall and set down many of the well-remembered incidents of my life
and to bid all who loved me and knew me as a lecturer a quiet but tender
FAREWELL
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND
Transcriber’s Notes
In a few cases, obvious errors in punctuation and spelling have been
fixed.
Page 299: “interesting you you so much” changed to “interesting you so
much”