| Show I WHY I GO ABROAD I Tried toL cture but Fate and My Wife i Were Against 3Ic I Lshall both pray and sleep the better tonight if I prick my thoughts with the point of my pencil In the first place I was old enough to know better But alas for the great blank wall of tho mystery of things I As I write I find it impossible to decide de-cide which emotion takes precedence pity for myself or rage at her By Her 11 I mean my wife I have one It will be she and her between us now and I forevermore until I can learn the lesson lof I I forgiveness If I am slightly incoherent inco-herent pardon it in a man who has had his very soul sandpapered Friend were you ever invited to dover li do-ver a lecture Did you prepare it in in uplifted state amounting to inspiration inspira-tion Did you round its periods with aughter and with tears If so you will understand I am a quiet man I live in a quiet town Hitherto I have been highly respected re-spected My wife is considered a nice sl little l woman and I have shared in this popular opinionuntil now She is not nice and furthermore she does not belong be-long to the aristocracy of brains I was invited a week since to lecture tonight on Materialism I had never been invited to lecture before I had my ideas on lectures and lecturers I always have had them As a rule I had concluded that they lack deliberation Their flow of words is not regulated properly to produce the desired effect Their gesticulations are too vwfent and generally ill suited to the ideas intended to be illustrated by them I mused on all these things I wrote my essay I memorized it As man himself weaves the web which hides from him the stars so I myself planned my own undoing The night came Tub audience came I placed Her MS in hand upon a three legged stool in the wingsas my prompter My instructions were to closely follow me in all my remarks and at any appreciable pause to prompt me in several whispered words How could I dream in what manner those instructions instruc-tions should be abused I then walked forth upon tho stage of our town opera house Thus unsuspectingly walk men ever to their doom Alas My lecture intended for a solo deliberato quickly merged into a duet a duet allegrettostacotto After coughing deliberately looked my audience firmly in the eye and told this lie Owing to short notice as regards my subject I have only been enabled to arrange ar-range a few main points pegs on which to hang the drapery of a few rambling ram-bling ideas As this little overture was not in tho I MS I had the pleasure of hearing three times from the wings during its recital the whispered words materialism is which were I hasten to state the two first words of my lecture proper 1 I I Immensely amused and thinking what a good laugh we should enjoy over it later I hastened to begin Materialism is a good sauce but a poor meat I had flattered myself that my opening sentence was impressive and wished to accentuate it by a thrilling pause but I I was not allowed that pause From the wings issued quickly the first words of my next sentence Above the Above the lights of our city ejaculated ejacu-lated I hastily with a withering glance at the wings lies the Darkness from the wings Darkness repeated I stamping violently vio-lently to catch her eye and attempting miserable man another pause It was not to be A warning voice distinctly enunciated Yet Yet added I in piteous despair and perforce in louder accents above and beyond that darkness lie tho Stars from the wings Stars roared I in a rage Let us hope the gods helped me to preserve the emotions of that moment a dead secret as far as the audience was concerned The world from the wings The world is a strange saladno pause no hope in a breathless race we enunciated another strangely spoken sentence The sleeping child in each nature once awakenedmay never be lulled to sleep again we rattled at breakneck speed This whole sentence cast as it were its shadow before in a weirdly shrill whisper from the wings Drenched in perspiration glaring wildly oven as a madman I stood Placidly serenely she sat upon her stool dimly discernible to my distracted vision A boy in the front seat tittered hysterically An epidemic of tittering followed And so on unto the very end No rest no hope Ever urged at a gallop by the admonishing voice My lecture resolved itself into a race in which I finally resorted re-sorted to bellowing in order to cheat myself my-self into tho belief that my audience was stone deaf to any other tones than iny own I recall with a tear my closing sentence sen-tence intended to be uttered in a reflective reflect-ive whisper In a last despairing effort I struggled to give it that effect The I result was this And sowe do not understand We cry aloud VoiceLet there be light I let her say it It was all over If I had repeated it the audience would have heard nothing The din was terrible led by the boy in the front row If I ever meet thaj boy As I walked home through the rain after depositing her in our carriage reflected It seemed to me that there would be a strange and weird coziness about a coffina coffin for one But then nothing makes much difference differ-ence now I sail next weekDetroit Free Press |
