If I remember rightly, the "Babes in the Wood" were never mentioned more than twice in the whole lecture.First, when the lecturer told his audience that the "Babes" were to constitute the subject of his discourse, and then digressed immediately to matters quite foreign to the story.Then again at the conclusion of the hour and twenty minutes of drollery, when he finished up in this way: "I now come to my subject 'The Babes in the Wood.'" Here he would take out his watch, look at it with affected surprise, put on an appearance of being greatly perplexed, and amidst roars of laughter from the people, very gravely continue, "But I find that I have exceeded my time, and will therefore merely remark that, so far as I know, they were very good babes--they were as good as ordinary babes.I really have not time to go into their history.You will find it all in the story-books.They died in the woods, listening to the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.It was a sad fate for them, and Ipity them.So, I hope, do you.Good night!"Artemus gave his first lecture at Norwich in Connecticut, and travelled over a considerable portion of the Eastern States before he ventured to give a sample of his droll oratory in the Western cities, wherein he had earned reputation as a journalist.Gradually his popularity became very great, and in place of letting himself out at so much per night to literary societies and athenaeums, he constituted himself his own showman, engaging that indispensable adjunct to all showmen in the United States, an agent to go ahead, engage halls, arrange for the sale of tickets, and engineer the success of the show.Newspapers had carried his name to every village of the Union, and his writings had been largely quoted in every journal.It required, therefore, comparatively little advertising to announce his visit to any place in which he had to lecture.But it was necessary that he should have a bill or poster of some kind.The one he adopted was simple, quaint, striking, and well adapted to the purpose.It was merely one large sheet, with a black ground, and the letters cut out in the block, so as to print white.The reading was "Artemus Ward will Speak a Piece." To the American mind this was intensely funny from its childish absurdity.
It is customary in the States for children to speak or recite "a piece" at school at the annual examination, and the phrase is used just in the same sense as in England we say "a Christmas piece."The professed subject of the lecture being that of a story familiar to children, harmonised well with the droll placard which announced its delivery.The place and time were notified on a slip pasted beneath.To emerge from the dull depths of lyceum committees and launch out as a showman-lecturer on his own responsibility, was something both novel and bold for Artemus to do.In the majority of instances he or his agent met with speculators who were ready to engage him for so many lectures, and secure to the lecturer a certain fixed sum.But in his later transactions Artemus would have nothing to do with them, much preferring to undertake all the risk himself.The last speculator to whom he sold himself for a tour was, I believe, Mr.Wilder, of New York City, who realised a large profit by investing in lecturing stock, and who was always ready to engage a circus, a wild-beast show, or a lecturing celebrity.
As a rule Artemus Ward succeeded in pleasing every one in his audience, especially those who understood the character of the man and the drift of his lecture; but there were not wanting at any of his lectures a few obtuse-minded, slowly-perceptive, drowsy-headed dullards, who had not the remotest idea what the entertainer was talking about, nor why those around him indulged in laughter.
Artemus was quick to detect these little spots upon the sunny face of his auditory.He would pick them out, address himself at times to them especially, and enjoy the bewilderment of his Boeotian patrons.Sometimes a stolid inhabitant of central New York, evidently of Dutch extraction, would regard him with an open stare expressive of a desire to enjoy that which was said if the point of the joke could by any possibility be indicated to him.At other times a demure Pennsylvania Quaker would benignly survey the poor lecturer with a look of benevolent pity; and on one occasion, when my friend was lecturing at Peoria, an elderly lady, accompanied by her two daughters, left the room in the midst of the lecture, exclaiming, as she passed me at the door, "It is too bad of people to laugh at a poor young man who doesn't know what he is saying, and ought to be sent to a lunatic asylum!"The newspaper reporters were invariably puzzled in attempting to give any correct idea of a lecture by Artemus Ward.No report could fairly convey an idea of the entertainment; and being fully aware of this, Artemus would instruct his agent to beg of the papers not to attempt giving any abstract of that which he said.The following is the way in which the reporter of the Golden Era, at San Francisco, California, endeavoured to inform the San Franciscan public of the character of "The Babes in the Wood" lecture.It is, as the reader will perceive, a burlesque on the way in which Artemus himself dealt with the topic he had chosen; while it also notes one or two of the salient features of my friend's style of Lecturing:
"HOW ARTEMUS WARD 'SPOKE A PIECE.'"
"Artemus has arrived.Artemus has spoken.Artemus has triumphed.
Great is Artemus!
"Great also is Platt's Hall.But Artemus is greater; for the hall proved too small for his audience, and too circumscribed for the immensity of his jokes.A man who has drank twenty bottles of wine may be called `full.' A pint bottle with a quart of water in it would also be accounted full; and so would an hotel be, every bed in it let three times over on the same night to three different occupants; but none of these would be so full as Platt's Hall was on Friday night to hear Artemus Ward `speak a piece.'
