Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 286
“McGill,” I answered equally loudly.
“He comes from McGill,” the chairman boomed out. “I never heard of McGill myself but I can assure him he’s welcome. He’s going to lecture to us on, — what did you say it was to be about?”
“It’s a humorous lecture,” I said.
“Ay, it’s to be a humorous lecture, ladies and gentlemen, and I’ll venture to say it will be a rare treat. I’m only sorry I can’t stay for it myself as I have to get back over to the Town Hall for a meeting. So without more ado I’ll get off the platform and let the lecturer go on with his humour.”
A still more terrible type of chairman is one whose mind is evidently preoccupied and disturbed with some local happening and who comes on to the platform with a face imprinted with distress. Before introducing the lecturer he refers in moving tones to the local sorrow, whatever it is. As a prelude to a humorous lecture this is not gay.
Such a chairman fell to my lot one night before a gloomy audience in a London suburb.
“As I look about this hall to-night,” he began in a doleful whine, “I see many empty seats.” Here he stifled a sob. “Nor am I surprised that a great many of our people should prefer to-night to stay quietly at home—”
I had no clue to what he meant. I merely gathered that some particular sorrow must have overwhelmed the town that day.
“To many it may seem hardly fitting that after the loss our town has sustained we should come out here to listen to a humorous lecture—”
“What’s the trouble?” I whispered to a citizen sitting beside me on the platform.
“Our oldest resident” — he whispered back— “he died this morning.”
“How old?”
“Ninety-four,” he whispered.
Meantime the chairman, with deep sobs in his voice, continued:
“We debated in our committee whether or not we should have the lecture. Had it been a lecture of another character our position would have been less difficult—”
By this time I began to feel like a criminal.
“The case would have been different had the lecture been one that contained information, or that was inspired by some serious purpose, or that could have been of any benefit. But this is not so. We understand that this lecture which Mr. Leacock has already given, I believe, twenty or thirty times in England—”
Here he turned to me with a look of mild reproval while the silent audience, deeply moved, all looked at me as at a man who went around the country insulting the memory of the dead by giving a lecture thirty times.
“We understand, though this we shall have an opportunity of testing for ourselves presently, that Mr. Leacock’s lecture is not of a character which — has not, so to speak, the kind of value — in short, is not a lecture of that class.”
Here he paused and choked back a sob.
“Had our poor friend been spared to us for another six years he would have rounded out the century. But it was not to be. For two or three years past he has noted that somehow his strength was failing, that, for some reason or other, he was no longer what he had been. Last month he began to droop. Last week he began to sink. Speech left him last Tuesday. This morning he passed, and he has gone now, we trust, in safety to where there are no lectures.”
The audience were now nearly in tears.
The chairman made a visible effort towards firmness and control.
“But yet,” he continued, “our committee felt that in another sense it was our duty to go on with our arrangements. I think, ladies and gentlemen, that the war has taught us all that it is always our duty to ‘carry on,’ no matter how hard it may be, no matter with what reluctance we do it, and whatever be the difficulties and the dangers, we must carry on to the end: for after all there is an end and by resolution and patience we can reach it.
“I will, therefore, invite Mr. Leacock to deliver to us his humorous lecture, the title of which I have forgotten, but I understand it to be the same lecture which he has already given thirty or forty times in England.”
But contrast with this melancholy man the genial and pleasing person who introduced me, all upside down, to a metropolitan audience.
He was so brisk, so neat, so sure of himself that it didn’t seem possible that he could make any kind of a mistake. I thought it unnecessary to coach him. He seemed absolutely all right.
“It is a great pleasure,” — he said, with a charming, easy appearance of being entirely at home on the platform,— “to welcome here to-night our distinguished Canadian fellow citizen, Mr. Learoyd” — he turned half way towards me as he spoke with a sort of gesture of welcome, admirably executed. If only my name had been Learoyd instead of Leacock it would have been excellent.
“There are many of us,” he continued, “who have awaited Mr. Learoyd’s coming with the most pleasant anticipations. We seemed from his books to know him already as an old friend. In fact I think I do not exaggerate when I tell Mr. Learoyd that his name in our city has long been a household word. I have very, very great pleasure, ladies and gentlemen, in introducing to you Mr. Learoyd.”
As far as I know that chairman never knew his error. At the close of my lecture he said that he was sure that the audience “were deeply indebted to Mr. Learoyd,” and then with a few words of rapid, genial apology buzzed off, like a humming bird, to other avocations. But I have amply forgiven him: anything for kindness and geniality; it makes the whole of life smooth. If that chairman ever comes to my home town he is hereby invited to lunch or dine with me, as Mr. Learoyd or under any name that he selects.
Such a man is, after all, in sharp contrast to the kind of chairman who has no native sense of the geniality that ought to accompany his office. There is, for example, a type of man who thinks that the fitting way to introduce a lecturer is to say a few words about the finances of the society to which he is to lecture (for money) and about the difficulty of getting members to turn out to hear lectures.
Everybody has heard such a speech a dozen times. But it is the paid lecturer sitting on the platform who best appreciates it. It runs like this:
“Now, ladies and gentlemen, before I invite the lecturer of the evening to address us there are a few words that I would like to say. There are a good many members who are in arrears with their fees. I am aware that these are hard times and it is difficult to collect money but at the same time the members ought to remember that the expenses of the society are very heavy. The fees that are asked by the lecturers, as I suppose you know, have advanced very greatly in the last few years. In fact I may say that they are becoming almost prohibitive.”
This discourse is pleasant hearing for the lecturer. He can see the members who have not yet paid their annual dues eyeing him with hatred. The chairman goes on:
“Our finance committee were afraid at first that we could not afford to bring Mr. Leacock to our society. But fortunately through the personal generosity of two of our members who subscribed ten pounds each out of their own pocket we are able to raise the required sum.”
(Applause: during which the lecturer sits looking and feeling like the embodiment of the “required sum.”)
“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” continues the chairman, “what I feel is that when we have members in the society who are willing to make this sacrifice, — because it is a sacrifice, ladies and gentlemen, — we ought to support them in every way. The members ought to think it their duty to turn out to the lectures. I know that it is not an easy thing to do. On a cold night, like this evening, it is hard, I admit it is hard, to turn out from the comfort of one’s own fireside and come and listen to a lecture. But I think that the members should look at it not as a matter of personal comfort but as a matter of duty towards this society. We have managed to keep this society alive for fifteen years and, though I don’t say it in any spirit of boasting, it has not been an easy thing to do. It has required a good deal of pretty hard spade work by the committee. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I suppose you didn’t come here to listen to me and perhaps I have said enough about our difficulties and troubles. So without more ado (this is always a favourite phrase with chairmen) I’ll invite Mr. Leacock to address the society, — oh, just a word before I sit down. Will all those who are leaving before the end of the lecture kindly go out through the side door and step as quietly as possible? Mr. Leacock.”
Anybody who is in the lecture business knows that that introduction is far worse than being called Mr. Learoyd.
When any lecturer goes across to England from this side of the water there is naturally a tendency on the part of the chairman to play upon this fact. This is especially true in the case of a Canadian like myself. The chairman feels that the moment is fitting for one of those great imperial thoughts that bind the British Empire together. But sometimes the expression of the thought falls short of the full glory of the conception.
Witness this (word for word) introduction that was used against me by a clerical chairman in a quiet spot in the south of England:
“Not so long ago, ladies and gentlemen,” said the vicar, “we used to send out to Canada various classes of our community to help build up that country. We sent out our labourers, we sent out our scholars and professors. Indeed we even sent out our criminals. And now,” with a wave of his hand towards me, “they are coming back.”
There was no laughter. An English audience is nothing if not literal; and they are as polite as they are literal. They understood that I was a reformed criminal and as such they gave me a hearty burst of applause.
But there is just one thing that I would like to chronicle here in favour of the chairman and in gratitude for his assistance. Even at his worst he is far better than having no chairman at all. Over in England a great many societies and public bodies have adopted the plan of “cutting out the chairman.” Wearying of his faults, they have forgotten the reasons for his existence and undertaken to do without him.
The result is ghastly. The lecturer steps up on to the platform alone and unaccompanied. There is a feeble ripple of applause; he makes his miserable bow and explains with as much enthusiasm as he can who he is. The atmosphere of the thing is so cold that an Arctic expedition isn’t in it with it. I found also the further difficulty that in the absence of the chairman very often the audience, or a large part of it, doesn’t know who the lecturer is. On many occasions I received, on appearing, a wild burst of applause under the impression that I was somebody else. I have been mistaken in this way for Mr. Briand, then Prime Minister of France, for Charlie Chaplin, for Mrs. Asquith, — but stop, I may get into a libel suit. All I mean is that without a chairman “we celebrities” get terribly mixed up together.
To one experience of my tour as a lecturer I shall always be able to look back with satisfaction. I nearly had the pleasure of killing a man with laughing: and this in the most literal sense. American lecturers have often dreamed of doing this. I nearly did it. The man in question was a comfortable apoplectic-looking man with the kind of merry rubicund face that is seen in countries where they don’t have prohibition. He was seated near the back of the hall and was laughing uproariously. All of a sudden I realised that something was happening. The man had collapsed sideways on to the floor; a little group of men gathered about him; they lifted him up and I could see them carrying him out, a silent and inert mass. As in duty bound I went right on with my lecture. But my heart beat high with satisfaction. I was sure that I had killed him. The reader may judge how high these hopes rose when a moment or two later a note was handed to the chairman who then asked me to pause for a moment in my lecture and stood up and asked, “Is there a doctor in the audience?” A doctor rose and silently went out. The lecture continued; but there was no more laughter; my aim had now become to kill another of them and they knew it. They were aware that if they started laughing they might die. In a few minutes a second note was handed to the chairman. He announced very gravely, “A second doctor is wanted.” The lecture went on in deeper silence than ever. All the audience were waiting for a third announcement. It came. A new message was handed to the chairman. He rose and said, “If Mr. Murchison, the undertaker, is in the audience, will he kindly step outside.”
That man, I regret to say, got well. Disappointing though it is to read it, he recovered. I sent back next morning from London a telegram of enquiry (I did it in reality so as to have a proper proof of his death) and received the answer, “Patient doing well; is sitting up in bed and reading Lord Haldane’s Relativity; no danger of relapse.”
Caroline’s Christmas: or, The Inexplicable Infant
IT WAS XMAS — Xmas with its mantle of white snow, scintillating from a thousand diamond points, Xmas with its good cheer, its peace on earth — Xmas with its feasting and merriment, Xmas with its — well, anyway, it was Xmas.
Or no, that’s a slight slip; it wasn’t exactly Xmas, it was Xmas Eve, Xmas Eve with its mantle of white snow lying beneath the calm moonlight — and, in fact, with practically the above list of accompanying circumstances with a few obvious emendations.
Yes, it was Xmas Eve.
And more than that!
Listen to where it was Xmas.
It was Xmas Eve on the Old Homestead. Reader, do you know, by sight, the Old Homestead? In the pauses of your work at your city desk, where you have grown rich and avaricious, does it never rise before your mind’s eye, the quiet old homestead that knew you as a boy before your greed of gold tore you away from it? The Old Homestead that stands beside the road just on the rise of the hill, with its dark spruce trees wrapped in snow, the snug barns and straw stacks behind it; while from its windows there streams a shaft of light from a coal-oil lamp, about as thick as a slate pencil that you can see four miles away, from the other side of the cedar swamp in the hollow. Don’t talk to me of your modern searchlights and your incandescent arcs, beside that gleam of light from the coal-oil lamp in the farmhouse window. It will shine clear to the heart across thirty years of distance. Do you not turn, I say, sometimes, reader, from the roar and hustle of the city with its ill-gotten wealth and its godless creed of mammon, to think of the quiet homestead under the brow of the hill? You don’t! Well, you skunk!
It was Xmas Eve.
The light shone from the windows of the homestead farm. The light of the log fire rose and flickered and mingled its red glare on the windows with the calm yellow of the lamplight.
John Enderby and his wife sat in the kitchen room of the farmstead. Do you know it, reader, the room called the kitchen? — with the open fire on its old brick hearth, and the cook stove in the corner. It is the room of the farm where people cook and eat and live. It is the living-room. The only other room beside the bedroom is the small room in front, chill-cold in winter, with an organ in it for playing “Rock of Ages” on, when company came. But this room is only used for music and funerals. The real room of the old farm is the kitchen. Does it not rise up before you, reader? It doesn’t? Well, you darn fool!
At any rate there sat old John Enderby beside the plain deal table, his head bowed upon his hands, his grizzled face with its unshorn stubble stricken down with the lines of devastating trouble. From time to time he rose and cast a fresh stick of tamarack into the fire with a savage thud that sent a shower of sparks up the chimney. Across the fireplace sat his wife Anna on a straight-backed chair, looking into the fire with the mute resignation of her sex.
What was wrong with them anyway? Ah, reader, can you ask? Do you know or remember so little of the life of the old homestead? When I have said that it is the Old Homestead and Xmas Eve, and that the farmer is in great trouble and throwing tamarack at the fire, surely you ought to guess!
The Old Homestead was mortgaged! Ten years ago, reckless with debt, crazed with remorse, mad with despair and persecuted with rheumatism, John Enderby had mortgaged his farmstead for twenty-four dollars and thirty cents.
To-night the mortgage fell due, to-night at midnight, Xmas night. Such is the way in which mortgages of this kind are always drawn. Yes, sir, it was drawn with such diabolical skill that on this night of all nights the mortgage would be foreclosed. At midnight the men would come with hammer and nails and foreclose it, nail it up tight.
So the afflicted couple sat.
Anna, with the patient resignation of her sex, sat silent or at times endeavoured to read. She had taken down from the little wall-shelf Bunyan’s Holy Living and Holy Dying. She tried to read it. She could not. Then she had taken Dante’s Inferno. She could not read it. Then she had selected Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. But she could not read it either. Lastly, she had taken the Farmers’ Almanac for 1911. The books lay littered about her as she sat in patient despair.
John Enderby showed all the passion of an uncontrolled nature. At times he would reach out for the crock of buttermilk that stood beside him and drain a draught of the maddening liquid, till his brain glowed like the coals of the tamarack fire before him.
“John,” pleaded Anna, “leave alone the buttermilk. It only maddens you. No good ever came of that.”
“Aye, lass,” said the farmer, with a bitter laugh, as he buried his head again in the crock, “what care I if it maddens me.”
“Ah, John, you’d better be employed in reading the Good Book than in your wild courses. Here take it, father, and read it” — and she handed to him the well-worn black volume from the shelf. Enderby paused a moment and held the volume in his hand. He and his wife had known nothing of religious teaching in the public schools of their day, but the first-class non-sectarian education that the farmer had received had stood him in good stead.
“Take the book,” she said. “Read, John, in this hour of affliction; it brings comfort.”
The farmer took from her hand the well-worn copy of Euclid’s Elements, and, laying aside his hat with reverence, he read aloud: “The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal, and whosoever shall produce the sides, lo, the same also shall be equal each unto each.”
