of my first lecture, which I gave with such
signal success,--eighty-five times in one winter.

The crowds that everywhere thronged to hear me gave me a new and
delicious experience of popularity. How grand it was to be escorted by
the president of the society down the central aisle, amid the rustling
sound of turning heads, and audible whispers of "There he is! there he
is!" And always, when the name of Dionysius Green was announced, the
applause which followed! Then the hush of expectation, the faint smile
and murmur coming with my first unexpected flash of humor
(_unexpectedness_ is one of my strong points), the broad laugh breaking
out just where I intended it, and finally the solemn peroration, which
showed that I possessed depth and earnestness as well as brilliancy!
Well, I must say that the applauses and the fees were honestly earned. I
did my best, and the audiences must have been satisfied, or the
societies wouldn't have invited me over and over again to the same
place.

If my literary style was so admirably adapted to this new vocation, it
was, on the other hand, a source of great annoyance. Only a small class
was sufficiently enlightened to comprehend my true aim in inculcating
moral lessons under a partly humorous guise. All the rest,
unfortunately, took me to be either one thing or the other. While some
invited me to family prayer-meetings, as the most cheering and welcome
relief after the fatigue of speaking, the rougher characters of the
place would claim me (on the strength of my earlier writings) as one of
themselves, would slap me on the back, call me familiarly "Dionysius,"
and insist on my drinking with them. Others, again, occupied a middle or
doubtful ground; they did not consider that my personal views were
strictly defined, and wanted to be enlightened on this or that point of
faith. They gave me a deal of trouble. Singularly enough, all these
classes began their attacks with the same phrase, "O, we have a right to
ask it of you: you're a Distinguished Character, you know!"

It is hardly necessary to say that I am of rather a frail constitution:
so many persons have seen me, that the public is generally aware of the
fact. A lecture of an hour and a quarter quite exhausts my nervous
energy. Moreover, it gives me a vigorous appetite, and my two
overpowering desires, after speaking, are, first to eat, and then to
sleep. But it frequently happens that I am carried, perforce, to the
house of some