第12章 PUBLISHERS' PREFACE TO THE NEW (1898) EDITION(12)

"The piece selected was `The Babes in the Wood,' which reminds us that Mr.Ward is a tall, slender-built, fair-complexioned, jovial-looking gentleman of about twenty-seven years of age.He has a pleasant manner, an agreeable style, and a clear, distinct, and powerful voice.

"'The Babes in the Wood' is a 'comic oration,' with a most comprehensive grasp of subject.As spoken by its witty author, it elicited gusto of laughter and whirlwinds of applause.Mr.Ward is no prosy lyceum lecturer.His style is neither scientific, didactic, or philosophical.It is simply that of a man who is brimful of mirth, wit, and satire, and who is compelled to let it flow forth.Maintaining a very grave countenance himself, he plays upon the muscles of other people's faces as though they were piano-strings, and he the prince of pianists.

"The story of 'The Babes in the Wood' is interesting in the extreme.

We would say, en passant, however, that Artemus Ward is a perfect steam factory of puns and a museum of American humour.Humanity seems to him to be a vast mine, out of which he digs tons of fun;and life a huge forest, in which he can cut down 'cords' of comicality.Language with him is like the brass balls with which the juggler amuses us at the circus--ever being tossed up, ever glittering, ever thrown about at pleasure.We intended to report his lecture in full, but we laughed till we split our lead pencil, and our shorthand symbols were too infused with merriment to remain steady on the paper.However, let us proceed to give an idea of 'The Babes in the Wood.' In the first place, it is a comic oration;that is, it is spoken, is exuberant in fun, felicitous in fancy, teeming with jokes, and sparkling as bright waters on a sunny day.

The 'Babes in the Wood' is--that is, it isn't a lecture or an oratorical effort; it is something sui generis; something reserved for our day and generation, which it would never have done for our forefathers to have known, or they would have been too mirthful to have attended to the business of preparing the world for our coming;and something which will provoke so much laughter in our time, that the echo of the laughs will reverberate along the halls of futurity, and seriously affect the nerves of future generations.

"The 'Babes in the Wood,' to describe it, is--Well, those who listened to it know best.At any rate, they will acknowledge with us that it was a great success, and that Artemus Ward has a fortune before him in California.

"And now to tell the story of 'The Babes in the Wood'--But we will not, for the hall was not half large enough to accommodate those who came, consequently Mr.Ward will tell it over again at the Metropolitan Theatre next Tuesday evening.The subject will again be 'The Babes in the Wood.'"Having travelled over the Union with "The Babes in the Wood"lecture, and left his audiences everywhere fully "in the wood" as regarded the subject announced in the title, Artemus Ward became desirous of going over the same ground again.There were not wanting dreary and timid prophets who told him that having "sold"his audiences once, he would not succeed in gaining large houses a second time.But the faith of Artemus in the unsuspecting nature of the public was very large, so with fearless intrepidity he conceived the happy thought of inventing a new title, but keeping to the same old lecture, interspersing it here and there with a few fresh jokes, incidental to new topics of the times.Just at this period General McClellan was advancing on Richmond, and the celebrated fight at Bull's Run had become matter of history.The forcible abolition of slavery had obtained a place among the debates of the day, Hinton Rowan Helper's book on "The Inevitable Crisis" had been sold at every bookstall, and the future of the negro had risen into the position of being the great point of discussion throughout the land.

Artemus required a very slender thread to string his jokes upon, and what better one could be found than that which he chose? He advertised the title of his next lecture as "Sixty Minutes in Africa." I need scarcely say that he had never been in Africa, and in all probability had never read a book on African travel.He knew nothing about it, and that was the very reason he should choose Africa for his subject.I believe that he carried out the joke so far as to have a map made of the African continent, and that on a few occasions, but not on all, he had it suspended in the lecture-room.It was in Philadelphia and at the Musical Fund Hall in Locust Street that I first heard him deliver what he jocularly phrased to me as "My African Revelation." The hall was very thronged, the audience must have exceeded two thousand in number, and the evening was unusually warm.Artemus came on the rostrum with a roll of paper in his hands, and used it to play with throughout the lecture, just as recently at the Egyptian Hall, while lecturing on the Mormons, he invariably made use of a lady's riding-whip for the same purpose.He commenced his lecture thus, speaking very gravely and with long pauses between his sentences, allowing his audience to laugh if they pleased, but seeming to utterly disregard their laughter:

"I have invited you to listen to a discourse upon Africa.Africa is my subject.It is a very large subject.It has the Atlantic Ocean on its left side, the Indian Ocean on its right, and more water than you could measure out at its smaller end.