rnold did also.

"Do you keep on inventing new stories?" was asked.

"Yes, always. You can't lecture year after year unless you find new
stories, and sometimes these fail to crack. I had one nut which I felt
sure would crack and bring down the house, but try as I would it never
did itself justice, all because I could not find the indispensable
word, just one word. I was sitting before a roaring wood fire one
night up in Michigan when the word came to me which I knew would crack
like a whip. I tried it on the boys and it did. It lasted longer than
any one word I used. I began: 'This is a highly critical age. People
won't believe until they fully understand. Now there's Jonah and the
whale. They want to know all about it, and it's my opinion that
neither Jonah nor the whale fully understood it. And then they ask
what Jonah was doing in the whale's--the whale's society.'"

Mr. Shaw was walking down Broadway one day when accosted by a real
Westerner, who said:

"I think you are Josh Billings."

"Well, sometimes I am called that."

"I have five thousand dollars for you right here in my pocket-book."

"Here's Delmonico's, come in and tell me all about it."

After seating themselves, the stranger said he was part owner in a
gold mine in California, and explained that there had been a dispute
about its ownership and that the conference of partners broke up in
quarreling. The stranger said he had left, threatening he would take
the bull by the horns and begin legal proceedings. "The next morning I
went to the meeting and told them I had turned over Josh Billings's
almanac that morning and the lesson for the day was: 'When you take
the bull by the horns, take him by the tail; you can get a better hold
and let go when you're a mind to.' We laughed and laughed and felt
that was good sense. We took your advice, settled, and parted good
friends. Some one moved that five thousand dollars be given Josh, and
as I was coming East they appointed me treasurer and I promised to
hand it over. There it is."

The evening ended by Mr. Arnold saying:

"Well, Mr. Shaw, if ever you come to lecture in England, I shall be
glad to welcome and introduce you to your first audience. Any foolish
man called a lord could do you more good than I by introducing you,
but I should so much like to do it."

Imagine Matthew Arnold, the apostle of sweetness and light,
introducing Josh Billings, the foremost of jesters, to a select London
audience.