ils of innumerable home kindnesses and
hospitalities, from Ventnor in the South to Peterhead in the North,
which I need not particularise. I gave twenty-one "Readings from my own
Works" southward, in a dozen towns with a regular _entrepreneur_, who
was my _avant courier_ everywhere, making all arrangements, placarding,
advertising, hiring halls, engaging reporters, and the like; when all
was ready, I used to come forward, as the General does at a review,--and
then succeeded the sham-fight and division of the spoils of war--if any;
for, to say truth, our partnership did not prove lucrative, so we parted
with mutual esteem, and I resolved to accomplish all the rest of my
projected tour alone; a great effort and a successful one, for I
"orated" all through Scotland, from Ayr to Peterhead (far north of
Aberdeen), often to very large audiences (as at Glasgow, where the
number was said to be three thousand) and always to fair ones, the
Scotch being much more given to literature than the West of England. I
could give innumerable anecdotes of the splendid as well as kindly
welcome I received from great and small,--for as I now had no attending
agent I was all the more eagerly treated as a solitary guest,--and I
found myself handed on from one rich host to another all through the
land, with numerous book friends everywhere ready and willing to make
all arrangements freely at each town and city. So the tour paid better
every way, albeit the toil and excitement of being always to the front,
either on platforms or at dinner-parties, was excessive though not
exhausting. It is astonishing what one can do if one tries, and if the
sympathy of friends and a really good success are at hand to cheer one.
I wish there was space here to say more about all this; but the great
book before me would print up into several volumes. I will only, add, as
below, an interesting extract from this diary, just before I had parted
with my worthy agent aforesaid:--"He has told me some curious anecdotes
about eminent _artistes_ whom he has chaperoned, _e.g._ Thackeray came
to Clifton to give four readings on the Georges; the first reading had
only three auditors, the second not one; so Thackeray went away. Bellew
is uncertain; sometimes having empty benches, sometimes overflowing
ones, according to the programme, whether serious or laughable. Tom Hood
gave a lecture on Humour, which was so dull that the audience left him.
Miss Glyn Dallas often reads 'Cleopa