The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, part 6 | Page 4

the final one breaking off abruptly on the evening of
the 23d of January, 1867. That night the great humorist bade farewell to
the public, and retired from the stage to die! His Mormon lectures were
immensely successful in England. His fame became the talk of
journalists, savants, and statesmen. Every one seemed to be affected
differently, but every one felt and acknowledged his power. "The
Honorable Robert Lowe," says Mr. E.P. HINGSTON, Artemus Ward's
bosom friend, "attended the Mormon lecture one evening, and laughed
as hilariously as any one in the room. The next evening Mr. John
Bright happened to be present. With the exception of one or two
occasional smiles, he listened with GRAVE attention."
The "London Standard," in describing his first lecture in London, aptly
said, "Artemus dropped his jokes faster than the meteors of last night
succeeded each other in the sky. And there was this resemblance
between the flashes of his humor and the flights of the meteors, that in
each case one looked for jokes or meteors, but they always came just in
the place that one least expected to find them. Half the enjoyment of
the evening lay, to some of those present, in listening to the hearty
cachinnation of the people, who only found out the jokes some two or
three minutes after they were made, and who laughed apparently at
some grave statements of fact. Reduced to paper, the showman's jokes

are certainly not brilliant; almost their whole effect lies in their seeming
impromptu character. They are carefully led up to, of course; but they
are uttered as if they are mere afterthoughts of which the speaker is
hardly sure."
His humor was so entirely fresh and unconventional, that it took his
hearers by surprise, and charmed them. His failing health compelled
him to abandon the lecture after about eight or ten weeks. Indeed,
during that brief period he was once or twice compelled to dismiss his
audience. Frequently he sank into a chair and nearly fainted from the
exertion of dressing. He exhibited the greatest anxiety to be at his post
at the appointed time, and scrupulously exerted himself to the utmost to
entertain his auditors. It was not because he was sick that the public
was to be disappointed, or that their enjoyment was to be diminished.
During the last few weeks of his lecture-giving, he steadily abstained
from accepting any of the numerous invitations he received. Had he
lived through the following London fashionable season, there is little
doubt that the room at the Egyptian Hall would have been thronged
nightly. The English aristocracy have a fine, delicate sense of humor,
and the success, artistic and pecuniary, of "Artemus Ward" would have
rivalled that of the famous "Lord Dundreary." There were many stupid
people who did not understand the "fun" of Artemus Ward's books.
There were many stupid people who did not understand the fun of
Artemus Ward's lecture on the Mormons. Highly respectable
people--the pride of their parish--when they heard of a lecture "upon
the Mormons," expected to see a solemn person, full of old saws and
new statistics, who would denounce the sin of polygamy,--and rave
without limit against Mormons. These uncomfortable Christians do not
like humor. They dread it as a certain personage is said to dread holy
water, and for the same reason that thieves fear policemen--it finds
them out. When these good idiots heard Artemus offer if they did not
like the lecture in Piccadilly, to give them free tickets for the same
lecture in California, when he next visited that country, they turned to
each other indignantly, and said, "What use are tickets for California to
US? WE are not going to California. No! we are too good, too
respectable to go so far from home. The man is a fool!" One of these
vestrymen complained to the doorkeeper, and denounced the lecturer as
an impostor--"and," said the wealthy parishioner, "as for the panorama,

it is the worst painted thing I ever saw."
During the lecture Artemus was always as solemn as the grave.
Sometimes he would seem to forget his audience, and stand for several
seconds gazing intently at his panorama. Then he would start up and
remark apologetically, "I am very fond of looking at my pictures." His
dress was always the same--evening toilet. His manners were polished,
and his voice gentle and hesitating. Many who had read of the man who
spelled joke with a "g," looked for a smart old man with a shrewd cock
eye, dressed in vulgar velvet and gold, and they were hardly prepared
to see the accomplished gentleman with slim physique and delicate
white hands.
The letters of Artemus Ward in "Punch" from the tomb of Shakspeare
and the London Tower, had made him famous in