to Clifton to give four readings on the Georges; the first reading had only three auditors, the second not one; so Thackeray went away.  Bellew is uncertain; sometimes having empty benches, sometimes overflowing ones, according to the programme, whether serious or laughable.  Tom Hood gave a lecture on Humour, which was so dull that the audience left him.  Miss Glyn Dallas often reads ‘Cleopatra,’ magnificently too, to empty benches.  Sims Reeves draws a vast audience, but sometimes at the last moment refuses to sing (probably paying forfeit) because he is always afraid of something giving way in his throat.  Dickens, though with crowded audiences, was not liked, nor nearly so good as Mr.——­ expected:  he carried about with him a sort of show-box, set round with lights and covered with purple cloth, in the midst of which he appeared in full evening costume with bouquet in button-hole, and, as Mr.——­ said, ‘very stiff.’  Mr.——­ has just engaged Madame Lemmens Sherrington and six others for sixty-three concerts at a cost of L4000, for he says that good music—­after low humour—­is the best thing to pay.  May his spirited speculation prosper!” Thus much for my quotation of Mr.——­ ’s experiences.

It may interest a reader if I give, quite at haphazard, a list of one of my readings:  “Welcome; Adventure; Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow; All’s for the Best; Energy; Success; Warmth; Be True; Of Love; The Lost Arctic; The Way of the World; Cheerfulness.”  All these may be found in my Miscellaneous Poems and “Proverbial Philosophy.”  I varied the programme—­of about an hour and a half each (sometimes two)—­frequently through my fifty readings on this side of the Atlantic, as well as through my hundred over there.  How strange that the stammerer should have so become the orator!—­I thank God for this.

Before a final end to this brief record of my home-readings, I will add another page of short extracts from this diary:  “Though I continually read for nearly two hours at a stretch (and that sometimes twice a day too) I take no intervals, and hardly anything but a sip of water.  Energy and electrical effort are stimulants enough.”  “I always exert myself quite as much for few as for many; perhaps more so.”  “No one ever can read well or hold his audience if he doesn’t feel what he reads.”  “Some of the clergy are no great friends of mine; one told me to-day that ’perpetual dearly beloved brethren had spoilt him for eloquence, and he didn’t care to hear mine.’” This was at Salisbury, in a coffee-room.  “Cathedral towns are always dullest and least sympathetic with lecturing laymen; for example, at Bristol, Salisbury, Worcester, Gloster, and the like.  Are the clerics jealous of lay spouters?  Dissenting ministers and Presbyterians seem far more genial.”  “I travelled about fifteen hundred miles by rail, besides coaches and carriages.  My aggregate of paying hearers was about sixteen thousand, the bulk being old book-likers.  The gain was nearly