Perhaps the best idea of his lectures can be gleaned from the press notices that have appeared, though he never keeps a press notice himself, nor pays any attention to the compliments that may have been paid him.  These that have been collected at random by friends by no means cover the field of what has been said or written about him.

Speaking of a lecture in 1870, when he toured England, the London “Telegraph” says: 

“The man is weirdly like his native hills.  You can hear the cascades and the trickling streams in his tone of voice.  He has a strange and unconscious power of so modulating his voice as to suggest the roar of the tempest in rocky declivities, or the soft echo of music in distant valleys.  The breezy freshness and natural suggestiveness of varied nature in its wild state was completely fascinating.  He excelled in description, and the auditor could almost hear the Niagara roll as he described it, and listened to catch the sound of sighing pines in his voice as he told of the Carolinas.”

“The lecture was wonderful in clearness, powerful, and eloquent in delivery,” says the London “News.”  “The speaker made the past a living present, and led the audience, unconscious of time, with him in his walks and talks with famous men.  When engrossed in his lecture his facial expression is a study.  His countenance conveys more quickly than his words the thought which he is elucidating, and when he refers to his Maker, his face takes on an expression indescribable for its purity.  He seems to hold the people as children stare at brilliant and startling pictures.”

“It is of no use to try to report Conwell’s lectures,” is the verdict of the Springfield “Union.”  “They are unique.  Unlike anything or any one else.  Filled with good sense, brilliant with new suggestions, and inspiring always to noble life and deeds, they always please with their wit.  The reader of his addresses does not know the full power of the man.”

“His stories are always singularly adapted to the lecturer’s purpose.  Each story is mirth-provoking.  The audience chuckled, shook, swayed, and roared with convulsions of laughter,” says the “London Times.”  “He has been in the lecture field but a few years, yet he has already made a place beside such men as Phillips, Beecher, and Chapin.”

“The only lecturer in America,” concludes the Philadelphia “Times,” “who can fill a hall in this city with three thousand people at a dollar a ticket.”

The most popular of all his lectures is “Acres of Diamonds,” which he has given 3,420 times, which is printed, in part, at the end of the book.  But his list of lectures is a long one, including: 

  “The Philosophy of History.” 
  “Men of the Mountains.” 
  “The Old and the New New England.” 
  “My Fallen Comrades.” 
  “The Dust of Our Battlefields.” 
  “Was it a Ghost Story?”
  “The Unfortunate Chinese.” 
  “Three Scenes in Babylon.”