f him. The
lecture-committees understand this, and gauge the public taste or the
public humor as delicately as the most accomplished theatrical manager.
The man who receives their invitation may generally be certain that the
public wish either to see or hear him. Popularity is the test. Only
popularity after trial, or notoriety before, can draw houses. Only
popularity and notoriety can pay expenses and swell the balance of
profit. Notoriety in the various walks of life and the personal
influence of friends and admirers can usually secure a single hearing,
but no outside influence can keep a lecturer permanently in the field.
If the people "love to hear" him, he can lecture from Maine to
California six months in the year; if not, he cannot get so much as a
second invitation.

One of the noticeable features of the public humor in this matter is the
aversion to professional lecturers,--to those who make lecturing a
business, with no higher aim than that of getting a living. No calling
or profession can possibly be more legitimate than that of the lecturer;
there is nothing immodest or otherwise improper in the advertisement of
a man's literary wares; yet it is true, beyond dispute, that the public
do not regard with favor those who make lecturing their business,
particularly if they present themselves uninvited. So well is this
understood by this class of lecturers that a part of their machinery
consists of invitations numerously signed, which invitations are written
and circulated by themselves, their interested friends, or their
authorized agents, and published as their apology for appearing. A man
who has no other place in the world than that which he makes for himself
on the platform is never a popular favorite, unless he uses the platform
for the advocacy of some great philanthropic movement or reform, into
which he throws unselfishly the leading efforts of his life. Referring
to the history of the last twenty years, it will readily be seen that
those who have undertaken to make lecturing a business, without side
pursuit or superior aim, are either retired from the field or are very
low in the public favor. The public insist, that, in order to be an
acceptable lecturer, a man must be something else, that he must begin
and remain something else; and it will be found to-day that those only
who work worthily in other fields have a permanent hold upon the
affections of lecture-going people. It is the public judgment or ca