A Frenchman in America Part 27

The most amusing part of all this is that the American sketches which I introduced into my lecture last night, and which seemed to have struck the Albany _Express_ so agreeably, were all extracts from the book "filled with deliberate misstatements and willful exaggerations of the traits of the American people." Well, after all, there is humor, unconscious humor, in the Albany _Express_.

Arrived at the Grand Central Station in New York at noon, I gave up my check to a transfer man, but learned to my chagrin that the vestibule train from Albany had carried no baggage, and that my things would only arrive by the next train at about three o'clock. Pleasant news for a man who was due to address an audience at three!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A LITTLE BIT STIFF."]

There was only one way out of the difficulty. Off I went post-haste to a ready-made tailor's, who sold me a complete fit-out from head to foot. I did not examine the cut and fit of each garment very minutely, but went off satisfied that I was presenting a neat and respectable appearance.

Before going on the stage, however, I discovered that the sleeves of the new coat, though perfectly smooth and well-behaved so long as the arms inside them were bent at the elbow, developed a remarkable cross-twist as soon as I let my arms hang straight down.

By means of holding it firm with the middle finger, I managed to keep the recalcitrant sleeve in position, and the affair pa.s.sed off very well. Only my friends remarked, after the lecture, that they thought I looked a little bit stiff, especially when making my bow to the audience.

My lecture at Daly's Theater this afternoon was given under the auspices of the Bethlehem Day Nursery, and I am thankful to think that this most interesting a.s.sociation is a little richer to-day than it was yesterday.

For an afternoon audience it was remarkably warm and responsive.

I have many times lectured to afternoon audiences, but have not, as a rule, enjoyed it. Afternoon "shows" are a mistake. Do not ask me why; but think of those you have ever been to, and see if you have a lively recollection of them. There is a time for everything. Fancy playing the guitar under your lady love's window by daylight, for instance!

Afternoon audiences are kid-gloved ones. There is but a sprinkling of men, and so the applause, when it comes, is a feeble affair, more chilling almost than silence. In some fashionable towns it is bad form to applaud at all in the afternoon. I have a vivid recollection of the effect produced one afternoon in Cheltenham by the vigorous applause of a sympathizing friend of mine, sitting in the reserved seats. How all the other reserved seats craned their necks in credulous astonishment to get a view of this innovator, this outer barbarian! He was new to the wondrous ways of the _Chillitonians_. In the same audience was a lady, Irish and very charming, as I found out on later acquaintance, who showed her appreciation from time to time by clapping the tips of her fingers together noiselessly, while her glance said: "I should very much like to applaud, but you know I can't do it; we are in Cheltenham, and such a thing is bad form, especially in the afternoon."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GOUTY MAN.]

Afternoon audiences in the southern health resorts of England are probably the least inspiriting and inspiring of all. There are the sick, the lame, the halt. Some of them are very interesting people, but a large proportion appear to be suffering more from the boredom of life than any other complaint, and look as if it would do them good to follow out the well-known advice, "Live on sixpence a day, and earn it."

It is hard work entertaining people who have done everything, seen everything, tasted everything, been everywhere--people whose sole aim is to kill time. A fair sprinkling are gouty. They spend most of their waking hours in a bath-chair. As a listener, the gouty man is sometimes decidedly funny. He gives signs of life from time to time by a vigorous slap on his thigh and a vicious looking kick. Before I began to know him, I used to wonder whether it was my discourse producing some effect upon him.

I am not afraid of meeting these people in America. Few people are bored here, all are happy to live, and all work and are busy. American men die of brain fever, but seldom of the gout. If an American saw that he must spend his life wheeled in a bath-chair, he would reflect that rivers are numerous in America, and he would go and take a plunge into one of them.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXIX.

WANDERINGS THROUGH NEW YORK--LECTURE AT THE HARMONIE CLUB--VISIT TO THE CENTURY CLUB.

_New York, March 1._

The more I see New York, the more I like it.

After lunch I had a drive through Central Park and Riverside Park, along the Hudson, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I returned to the Everett House through Fifth Avenue. I have never seen Central Park in summer, but I can realize how beautiful it must be when the trees are clothed. To have such a park in the heart of the city is perfectly marvelous. It is true that, with the exception of the superb Catholic Cathedral, Fifth Avenue has no monument worth mentioning, but the succession of stately mansions is a pleasant picture to the eye. What a pity this cathedral cannot stand in a square in front of some long thoroughfare, it would have a splendid effect. I know this was out of the question. Built as New York is, the cathedral could only take the place of a block. It simply represents so many numbers between Fiftieth and Fifty-first streets on Fifth Avenue.

In the Park I saw statues of Shakespeare, Walter Scott, and Robert Burns. I should have liked to see those of Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and many other celebrities of the land. Washington, Franklin, and Lincoln are practically the only Americans whose statues you see all over the country. They play here the part that Wellington and Nelson play in England. After all, the "bosses" and the local politicians who run the towns probably never heard of Longfellow, Bryant, Poe, etc.

At four o'clock, Mr. Thomas Nast, the celebrated caricaturist, called. I was delighted to make his acquaintance, and found him a most charming man.

I dined with General Horace Porter and a few other friends at the Union League Club. The witty general was in his best vein.

At eight o'clock I lectured at the Harmonie Club, and had a large and most appreciative audience, composed of the pick of the Israelite community in New York.

After the lecture I attended one of the "Sat.u.r.days" at the Century Club, and met Mr. Kendal, who, with his talented wife, is having a triumphant progress through the United States.

There is no gathering in the world where you can see so many beautiful, intelligent faces as at the Century Club. There you see gathered together the cleverest men of a nation whose chief characteristic is cleverness.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

VISIT TO THE BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC--REV. DR. TALMAGE.

_New York, March 2._

Went to hear Dr. T. de Witt Talmage this morning at the Academy of Music, Brooklyn.

What an actor America has lost by Dr. Talmage choosing the pulpit in preference to the stage!

The Academy of Music was crowded. Standing-room only. For an old-fashioned European, to see a theater, with its boxes, stalls, galleries, open for divine service was a strange sight; but we had not gone very far into the service before it became plain to me that there was nothing divine about it. The crowd had come there, not to worship G.o.d, but to hear Mr. Talmage.

At the door the programme was distributed. It consisted of six hymns to be interluded with prayers by the doctor. Between the fifth and sixth, he delivered the lecture, or the sermon, if you insist on the name, and during the sixth there was the collection, that hinge on which the whole service turns in Protestant places of worship.

I took a seat and awaited with the rest the entrance of Dr. Talmage.

There was subdued conversation going on all around, just as there would be at a theater or concert: in fact, throughout the whole of the proceedings, there was no sign of a silent lifting up of the spirit in worship. Not a person in that strange congregation, went on his or her knees to pray. Most of them put one hand in front of the face, and this was as near as they got that morning to an att.i.tude of devotion. Except for this, and the fact that they did not applaud, there was absolutely no difference between them and any other theater audience I ever saw.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LEADER OF THE CHOIR.]

The monotonous hymns were accompanied by a _cornet-a-piston_, which lent a certain amount of life to them, but very little religious harmony.

That cornet was the key-note of the whole performance. The hymns, composed, I believe, for Dr. Talmage's flock, are not of high literary value. "General" Booth would probably hesitate to include such in the _repertoire_ of the Salvation Army. Judge of them for yourself. Here are three ill.u.s.trations culled from the programme:

Sing, O sing, ye heirs of glory!

Shout your triumphs as you go: Zion's gates will open for you, You shall find an entrance through.

'Tis the promise of G.o.d, full salvation to give Unto him who on Jesus, his Son, will believe.

Though the pathway be lonely, and dangerous too, (_sic_) Surely Jesus is able to carry me thro'.

This is poetry such as you find inside Christmas crackers.

Another hymn began:

One more day's work for Jesus, One less of life for me!

I could not help thinking that there would be good employment for a prophet of G.o.d, with a stout whip, in the congregations of the so-called faithful of to-day. I have heard them by hundreds shouting at the top of their voices: