tra,' magnificently too, to empty
benches. Sims Reeves draws a vast audience, but sometimes at the last
moment refuses to sing (probably paying forfeit) because he is always
afraid of something giving way in his throat. Dickens, though with
crowded audiences, was not liked, nor nearly so good as Mr.----
expected: he carried about with him a sort of show-box, set round with
lights and covered with purple cloth, in the midst of which he appeared
in full evening costume with bouquet in button-hole, and, as Mr.----
said, 'very stiff.' Mr.---- has just engaged Madame Lemmens Sherrington
and six others for sixty-three concerts at a cost of L4000, for he says
that good music--after low humour--is the best thing to pay. May his
spirited speculation prosper!" Thus much for my quotation of Mr.---- 's
experiences.

It may interest a reader if I give, quite at haphazard, a list of one of
my readings: "Welcome; Adventure; Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow;
All's for the Best; Energy; Success; Warmth; Be True; Of Love; The Lost
Arctic; The Way of the World; Cheerfulness." All these may be found in
my Miscellaneous Poems and "Proverbial Philosophy." I varied the
programme--of about an hour and a half each (sometimes two)--frequently
through my fifty readings on this side of the Atlantic, as well as
through my hundred over there. How strange that the stammerer should
have so become the orator!--I thank God for this.

Before a final end to this brief record of my home-readings, I will add
another page of short extracts from this diary: "Though I continually
read for nearly two hours at a stretch (and that sometimes twice a day
too) I take no intervals, and hardly anything but a sip of water. Energy
and electrical effort are stimulants enough." "I always exert myself
quite as much for few as for many; perhaps more so." "No one ever can
read well or hold his audience if he doesn't feel what he reads." "Some
of the clergy are no great friends of mine; one told me to-day that
'perpetual dearly beloved brethren had spoilt him for eloquence, and he
didn't care to hear mine.'" This was at Salisbury, in a coffee-room.
"Cathedral towns are always dullest and least sympathetic with
lecturing laymen; for example, at Bristol, Salisbury, Worcester,
Gloster, and the like. Are the clerics jealous of lay spouters?
Dissenting ministers and Presbyterians seem far more genial." "I
travelled about fifteen hundred miles by rail, besides coaches and
carriag