Читать книгу The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862 - Various - Страница 3

I gave up my lodgings in town, sold all my salable possessions, settled up with my landlord, paid my printers in the usual way (i.e., with promises), and, supplied with a satchel-full of hand-bills (from a rival establishment), started for the country. My ticket was for Sidon—a place I knew nothing whatever about; the only circumstance of a positive character connected with it was, that it was the farthest point from New York which I could reach by the Rattle and Smash Railroad for the net amount of funds in my pocket. I stepped into the streets of Sidon with a light heart, and looked out on the scene of my contemplated triumph. I made up my mind at once that if ancient Sidon was no more of a place than modern Sidon, it couldn't lay claim to being much of a town. The houses, including shops and stores, would not exceed one hundred. I walked to the tavern, and delivered my satchel to the custody of a rough-looking animal, whom I subsequently found to be landlord, hostler, bar-tender, table-waiter, and general manager-at-all-work. He was a very uninviting subject; but, being myself courteously inclined, and having also a brisk eye to business, I inquired if there was a public hall or lecture-room in the place.

'I've got a dance-hall up-stairs. Be you a showman?'

I said I was a lecturer by profession, and asked if churches were ever used for such purposes in Sidon.

'Never heard of any. 'Ain't got no church. Be you goin' to lecter?'

I replied that I thought some of it, and inquired if it was common to use his hall for lectures.

'Wal, Sidon ain't much of a place for shows anyhow. When they is any, I git 'em in, if they ain't got no tent o' their own.'

I would look at the hall.

We went up a rickety stairway, into a dingy room. The plaster had fallen from the ceiling in several places, and the room had a mouldy smell. There was a platform at one end, where the musicians sat when saltatory fêtes were held, and on this I mounted to 'take a view.' I didn't feel called upon to admire the hall in audible terms; but as I stood there an inspiring scene arose before my mental vision—a scene of up-turned faces, each representing the sum of fifteen cents, that being the regular swindle for getting into shows round here, the landlord said. I struck a bargain for the hall, at once—a bargain by which I was to have it for two dollars if I didn't do very well, or five dollars if I had a regular big crowd; bill-stickers and doorkeeper included, free.

In the evening, I went to the village post-office, which was merely a corner of the village store, and inquired if there was a letter there for Professor Green D. Brown. I knew very well there was not, of course, but I had the not unexpected pleasure of seeing the postmaster's eyes dilate inquiringly, so that I felt called upon to say:—

'I am a stranger, sir, in Sidon, at present, but I hope to enjoy the honor of making the acquaintance of a large number of your intelligent citizens during my brief stay with you. I propose lecturing in this village to-morrow evening, on a historical, or perhaps I should say biographical, subject.'

The postmaster, who appeared like an intelligent gentleman, said he was glad to see me, and glad to hear I was going to lecture; and he shook hands with me cordially. The store contained about half the adult population of the village, lounging about the warm stove, talking and dozing; and the postmaster introduced me to Squire Johnson, and Dr. Tomson, and Mr. Dickson, and Mr. Dobson and Mr. Potkins, who, five, constituted the upper ten of Sidon. With these gentlemen I held a very entertaining conversation, during which I remember I was struck with the extreme deference paid to my opinion, and the extreme contempt manifested for the opinions of each other. They all agreed, however, that my visit would be likely to prove of the greatest importance to Sidon in a literary and educational point of view.

I returned to the hotel, and retired with heart elate.

In the morning, it was with emotions of a peculiarly pleasurable nature that I observed, profusely plastered on posts and fences, the announcement, in goodly capitals:—

LECTURE!!

PROF. G.D. BROWN,

OF NEW YORK CITY,

WILL LECTURE THIS EVENING, DECEMBER 14,

IN JONES'S HALL, SIDON,

AT 7 O'CLOCK

SUBJECT: 'EURIPIDES, THE ATHENIAN POET.'

ADMISSION 15 CENTS. DOORS OPEN AT 6 O'CLOCK

The critical reader may experience a desire to propound to me a question:—'Professor of what?'

Now I profess honesty, as an abstract principle—being, perhaps the conscientious reader will think, more of a professor than a practicer herein. But the truth is, in the present mendicant state of the word 'Professor,' I conceived I had a perfect right and title to it, by virtue of my poverty, and so appropriated it for the behoof and advantage of Number One. Which explanation, it is hoped, will do.

Friday passed in cultivating still farther the acquaintance of the previous evening, and receiving the most cordial assurances of interest on their part in my visit and its object. I was candidly (and I thought kindly) informed by my good friends, not to get my expectations too high, as a very large house could scarcely, they feared, be expected; but I deemed an audience of even no more than fifty or seventy-five a fair beginning,—a very fair beginning,—and had no fears.

I retired to my room at five o'clock, and remained locked in, with my lecture before me, oblivious of all external affairs, until a few minutes past seven, when I concluded my audience had gathered. I then smoothed my hair, adjusted my spectacles, took my MS. in my hand, and proceeded to the lecture-room. The doorkeeper was fast asleep, and the long wicks of the tallow candles were flaring wildly and dimly on a scene of emptiness. Not an auditor was present!

I descended to the bar-room. It was full of loungers, smoking, dozing, and drinking. Without entering, I hastened across the way to the post-office. There was the courteous postmaster, engaged in a sleepy talk with Squire Johnson and Dr. Tomson and Mr. Dickson and Mr. Dobson and Mr. Potkins, who sat precisely as they sat the evening previous.

I returned to the hotel and called out the landlord.

'There's no audience, I perceive,' said I.

'Wal, I didn't cal'late much of anybody'd go in. They gen'ally go over to Tyre when they want shows. Tyre's quite a town. You'd do better over thar; 's on'y seven mile over to Tyre.'

I explained my position to the landlord at once, and threw myself on his mercy. I told him I had no money, but would walk over to Tyre that very evening, rather than task his hospitality longer. After making a little money in Tyre, I would return to Sidon and settle his little bill. To which the generous-hearted fellow responded,—

'Yas, I think likely; but ye see I'm some on gettin' my pay outen these show chaps that go round. I reckon that thar satchel o' yourn's got the wuth o' my bill in it. I'll hold on to it till ye git back, ye know.'

Remonstrance was in vain. I found that my sharp landlord had entered my room while I was looking in at the post-office door, and had taken my carpet-bag, with everything I had, even my overcoat, and stowed all in a cupboard under the bar, under lock and key. He would not so much as allow me a clean shirt; and I started for Tyre, wishing from the bottom of my heart that the inhuman landlord might engage in a washing-machine speculation, and involve with himself Mr. Potkins and Mr. Dobson and Mr. Dickson and Dr. Tomson and Squire Johnson.

I reached Tyre at ten o'clock, and found that I had not been deceived respecting its size. It was quite a large Tillage, with well laid out streets, handsome residences, two large hotels, and three or four churches. I took this inventory of the principal objects in Tyre with considerable more anxiety than I had ever supposed it possible for me to entertain concerning any country town in Christendom. I was interested in the prosperity of Tyre. I sincerely hoped that the hard times had not entered its quiet and beautiful streets. The streets certainly were both quiet and beautiful, as I looked upon them in the clear moonlight of ten o'clock at night, an hour when honest people in the country are, for the most part, asleep. I entered the handsomest of the hotels, and registered my name in a bran-new book on the clerk's counter.

'Beautiful evening, sir,' said the clerk, who was also the landlord, but not also the bar-tender and the hostler.

'You are right, sir,' said I; 'it is truly a lovely evening. I have rarely seen moonlight so beautiful. Indeed, such were the beauties of the evening, that I have positively been tempted so far as to walk over here from Sidon this evening, leaving my baggage to follow me in the morning.'

'Ah! lectured in Sidon perhaps?'

'Well, ah! um! yes; that is, I intend to do so, but unforeseen circumstances induced me to relinquish that purpose. Sidon is very small.'

'Yes, sir, small place. Never heard of a lecture, or any kind of a performance, there before. Fact is, they're a hard set over to Sidon, and the place is better known by the name of Sodom around here.'

I felt much encouraged at hearing this; for, to tell the truth, my cogitations as I tramped over the rough road between Tyre and Sidon had been anything but cheerful. This was a realization of my fond dreams of a ten-to-fifty-dollars-a-night lecture tour, such as I had hardly anticipated, and as I drew nigh unto Tyre I had been thinking whether I had not better try to get a situation as a farm-hand or dry-goods clerk before my troubles should have crushed me and driven me to suicide.

But the landlord cheered me. Tyre was a model town. Tyre had a newspaper, and Tyre patronized literary entertainments. There was a good hall in Tyre, and the Tyrians had filled it to overflowing last winter when Chapin spoke there. I went to bed under the benignant influence of my cheerful host, and dreamed of lecturing to an audience of many thousands in a hall a trifle larger than the Academy of Music, and with every nook and corner crowded with enthusiastic listeners, whose joy culminated with my peroration into such a tumult of delight that they rushed upon the stage and hoisted me on their shoulders amid cheers so boisterous that they awoke me. I found I had left my bed and mounted into a window, with the intention, doubtless, of stepping into the street and concluding my career at once, lest an anti-climax should be my fate.

In the morning, I called on the editor of the newspaper.

I desire to recommend my reader to subscribe at once to The Tyre Times, and thus aid to sustain the paper of a gentleman and a scholar, who was, as editors usually are, a plain-spoken, sensible man, conscious of the presence of talent in his sanctum, by 'sympathetic attraction.' The editor of the Times looked into the circumstances of my case with an experienced and kindly eye, and then said to me,—

'My dear sir, you can not succeed here with a lecture. We have had several in our village within a few years, but never one which 'paid,' unless it was one on phrenology, or physiology, or psychology, and plentifully spiced with humor of the coarsest sort. If you want to make money in Tyre, you'll take my advice and get a two-headed calf, a learned pig, or a band of nigger minstrels. Any of these things will answer your purpose, if you want money; but if you have ambition to gratify, if you want to lecture for the sake of lecturing, that's a different thing. At all events, you shall have my good wishes, and I'll do all I can to get you a house. But it won't pay.'

The reader knows that if I had not been a fool I would have understood and heeded a statement so plain as this, made by an editor. But then, if I hadn't been a fool, you know I should never have started on a lecture tour at all. So, being a fool, I had bills printed, hired a hall (at ten dollars), and was duly announced to lecture in Tyre on the coming Tuesday evening. The same afternoon, The Tyre Times appeared, and its editorial column contained the following notice, which I read with great interest, it being my first appearance in any periodical:—

LECTURE AT GRECIAN HALL.—We take pleasure in announcing that Prof. GREEN D. BROWN, of New York city, will favor the citizens of Tyre with a lecture on Tuesday evening next. From what we know of the gentleman, we are satisfied our citizens will not regret attending the lecture. We trust he may not be met with an audience so small as lectures have heretofore drawn out in Tyre. The apathy of our citizens in these matters, we have before stated, is disgraceful. Let there be a good turn-out.

But there was not a good turn-out. The receipts were two dollars and a half. The proprietor of the hall consented to take the receipts for his pay, and I returned to the hotel to muse over my unhappy fortunes.

The landlord took occasion the next morning, as I was passing out of the house, to remind me that my baggage had not arrived.

'No,' said I, 'but, as I soon leave Tyre, I shan't need it.'

The landlord looked at my dirty collar and bosom as if he doubted either my sanity or my decency, and remarked that perhaps I knew his rules compelled him to present the bills of strangers semi-weekly.

'O, yes! that's all right,' said I; 'I'll see you when I come back from the printing-office.'

I noticed that mine host stood watching to see that I entered the printing-office safely.

The editor remarked, after I had told him all the experience narrated here, commencing with the washing-machines,—

'It's a bad case, and I don't admire your experience at all, to speak candidly; but I have a little idea of my own to work out, and you can help me do it, perhaps. In the first place, though, I want to know whether you intend to continue in this line of business,—eh?'

'Not I,' was my fervent reply; 'I'm satisfied to leave lecturing to those who have a reputation, and to earn my bread and butter in a, for me, more legitimate way. But what is it you have in view?'

'Come and see me this evening, when I am at leisure, and I'll tell you what my enterprise is. Meantime, will you sell me your lecture? I can't afford to pay much for it, but I'll agree to settle your hotel bill if you'll part with it. Not that I think it's worth it, but you need to be helped somehow right away.'

I jumped at the chance, and thanked my friend heartily. He asked if I would please go and send the landlord to him, and I retired to perform that errand.

I was punctual to my appointment in the evening, and listened to the project my editorial angel had in view; a plan by which he proposed to inflict a lesson on the negligent Tyrians, and at the same time replenish my purse. He explained to me the part I was to perform in this enterprise, and I found I could enter heartily into the spirit of it. We shook hands in the best of humors, and parted that evening understanding each other perfectly.