The substance of that which Artemus Ward then told me was, that while writing for the "Cleveland Plain Dealer" he was accustomed, in the discharge of his duties as a reporter, to attend the performances of the various minstrel troups and circuses which visited the neighbourhood.At one of these he would hear some story of his own, written a month or two previously, given by the "middle-man" of the minstrels and received with hilarity by the audience.At another place he would be entertained by listening to jokes of his own invention, coarsely retailed by the clown of the ring, and shouted at by the public as capital waggery on the part of the performer.His own good things from the lips of another "came back to him with alienated majesty," as Emerson expresses it.Then the thought would steal over him--Why should that man gain a living with my witticisms, and I not use them in the same way myself? why not be the utterer of my own coinage, the quoter of my own jests, the mouthpiece of my own merry conceits? Certainly, it was not a very exalted ambition to aim at the glories of a circus clown or the triumphs of a minstrel with a blackened face.But, in the United States a somewhat different view is taken of that which is fitting and seemly for a man to do, compared with the estimate we form in this country.In a land where the theory of caste is not admitted, the relative respectability of the various professions is not quite the same as it is with us.There the profession does not disqualify if the man himself be right, nor the claim to the title of gentleman depend upon the avocation followed.I know of one or two clowns in the ring who are educated physicians, and not thought to be any the less gentlemen because they propound conundrums and perpetrate jests instead of prescribing pills and potions.
Artemus Ward was always very self-reliant; when once he believed himself to be in the right it was almost impossible to persuade him to the contrary.But, at the same time, he was cautious in the extreme, and would well consider his position before deciding that which was right or wrong for him to do.The idea of becoming a public man having taken possession of his mind, the next point to decide was in what form he should appear before the public.That of a humorous lecturer seemed to him to be the best.It was unoccupied ground.America had produced entertainers who by means of facial changes or eccentricities of costume had contrived to amuse their audiences, but there was no one who ventured to joke for an hour before a house full of people with no aid from scenery or dress.
The experiment was one which Artemus resolved to try.Accordingly, he set himself to work to collect all his best quips and cranks, to invent what new drolleries he could, and to remember all the good things that he had heard or met with.These he noted down and strung together almost without relevancy or connexion.The manuscript chanced to fall into the hands of the people at the office of the newspaper on which he was then employed, and the question was put to him of what use he was going to make of the strange jumble of jest which he had thus compiled.His answer was that he was about to turn lecturer, and that before them were the materials of his lecture.It was then that his friends laughed at him, and characterised him as "a fool.""They had some right to think so," said Artemus to me as we rambled up Euclid Street."I half thought that I was one myself.I don't look like a lecturer--do I?"He was always fond, poor fellow, of joking on the subject of his personal appearance.His spare figure and tall stature, his prominent nose and his light-colored hair, were each made the subject of a joke at one time or another in the course of his lecturing career.If he laughed largely at the foibles of others, he was equally disposed to laugh at any shortcomings he could detect in himself.If anything at all in his outward form was to him a source of vanity, it was the delicate formation of his hands.
