CHAPTER XXX

AN AMERICAN LECTURE TOUR-BOSTON TO WASHINGTON

WHEN I left home I had some idea of extending my journey across the Pacific, lecturing in New Zealand and Australia, perhaps also in South Africa, on my way home. But my voyage out was so disagreeable, making me sick and unweli almost the whole time, that I concluded it would not be wise to extend my sea voyages except under very favourable conditions, which did not occur. One of these was the success of my American tour, but owing to my agent not being a good one, or, perhaps, to my not being sufficiently known in America, I was kept throughout the winter in Washington waiting for lecture engagements, which did not come till March and April.

On reaching New York (October 23), I had my first experience of American prices by having to pay two dollars for a cab to the American Hotel, not a mile off, where I was obliged to go for the night. The next morning (Sunday) I went to stay for a few days with Mr. A. G. Browne, a gentleman on one of the New York daily papers who had called on me at Godalming in the summer. On the way to his house we drove to the picturesque Central Park, in the company of Henry George, the well-known author of "Progress and Poverty," who was then a candidate for the important post of Mayor of New York, and who had been invited by Mr. Browne to meet me. The next evening I attended one of his meetings, and was called upon to say a few words to an American audience. I tried my best to be forcible, praised George, and said a few words about what we were doing in England, but I could see that I did not impress them much.

As Mr. Browne's occupation was to summarize all the evening papers for the morning's issue, his work was from midnight till four in the morning. Then all the forenoon he had to do the same thing with the morning papers for the evening issue, getting his sleep in the early morning and afternoon. One day he got free in order to take me up the Hudson river as far as West Point, passing the celebrated "Palisades " -a continuous row of cliffs about two hundred feet high, and extending for nearly twenty miles on the south bank of the river. They look exactly like a huge fence of enormous split trees, placed vertically, side by side, but are really basaltic columns like those at the Giant's Causeway, crowning a slope of fallen rock. In places the well-wooded country was very beautiful, with the autumnal tints of bright red, purple and yellow, though we were a little late to see them in perfection. Where we landed, I was delighted to see wild vines clambering over the trees, as well as the Virginia creeper, and there were also sumachs and other characteristic American plants. The situation of the great American Military College is splendid, on an elevated promontory in a bend of the Hudson, surrounded by rugged wooded hills, and with magnificent views up and down the river.

On the 28th I went to Boston to be ready for my first lecture on November 1. I had been recommended by Mr. J. G. Wood to go to the Quincy House, as being moderate in charges, and celebrated for its excellent table. I stayed there nearly two months, and was, on the whole, very comfortable; but it was essentially a business man's hotel, and I made no interesting acquaintances there. My scientific friends told me I ought to have gone to a better, hotel, but as these were all four or five dollars a day, with no better accommodation than I had at three dollars, I did not care to change. As I never had better meals at any hotel I stayed at in America (except, perhaps, in San Francisco), I may quote my description of them in a letter to my daughter while they were new to me. "You ought to see the meals at this hotel! The bill of fare at dinner (1 to 3 o'clock) has generally two kinds of soup, two of fish, about twenty to thirty different dishes of meat, poultry,

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and game, a dozen sorts of pastry, a dozen of vegetables, besides ices, and whatever fruits are in season. You can

order anything you like in any combination, and they are brought in little dishes, which are arranged around your plate. Everything is good and admirably cooked. The pies and puddings are equally good. At breakfast and supper there is about half the number of dishes."

During the whole time I was in America I had a wonderful appetite, and ate much more than I did at home, and enjoyed excellent health. I imputed this at the time to the more bracing air, the novelty, and the excitement. But from subsequent events I am inclined to think that I really did not eat enough nourishing food at home, although I had what I liked best, and seemed to eat plenty of it.

At my first lecture on "The Darwinian Theory," I had a crowded and very attentive audience, and the newspaper notices the next morning showed that it was a success. One of the shortest and best of these was in The Transcript, and was as follows:

"The first Darwinian, Wallace, did not leave a leg for antiDarwinism to stand on when he had got through his first Lowell lecture last evening. It was a masterpiece of condensed statement-as clear and simple as compact-a most beautiful specimen of scientific work. Mr. Wallace, though not an orator, is likely to become a favourite as a lecturer, his manner is so genuinely modest and straightforward."

During the time my lectures were going on I occupied myself at the museums, libraries, and institutions of Boston, and paid a few visits in the country. I soon made the acquaintance of Dr. Asa Gray, the first American botanist, General Walker, the political economist, Messrs. Hyatt, Scudder, Morse, and other biologists; while Mr. Houghton, the publisher, who was very polite, asked me to call at his office to read whatever I liked, and invited me to dinner to meet Oliver Wendell Holmes. I met the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table several times afterwards, and once called at his house and had a two hours' private conversation. He was very interesting from his constant flow of easy conversation; but when

we were alone he turned our talk on Spiritualism, in which he was much interested and which he was evidently inclined to accept, though he had little personal knowledge of the phenomena.

The National Academy of Science was now sitting at Boston, and I attended several of its meetings, at one of which I heard Professor Langley explain his wonderful discovery of the extension of the heat-spectrum by means of his new instrument, the bolometer. At another meeting Professor Cope read a paper, while Professor Marsh was in the chair, evidently to his great annoyance, as the relations of these great palæontologists were much as were those of Owen and Huxley after 1860. At another meeting the question of geographical distribution came up, and Professor Asa Gray called on me to say something. I was rather taken aback, and could think of nothing else but the phenomena of seed dispersal by the wind, as shown by the varying proportion of endemic species in oceanic islands, and by the total absence in the Azores of all those genera whose seeds could not be airborne (either by winds or birds), thus throwing light upon. some of the most curious facts in plant-distribution. I think the subject, as I put it, was new to most of the naturalists present.

I went several times to Cambridge in order to examine carefully the two important museums there-the Agassiz Museum of Zoology and the Peabody Museum of Archæology. Both are admirable, and Mr. Alexander Agassiz kindly showed me over every part of the former museum, an account of which I have given in the second volume of my "Studies, Scientific and Social."

One day I spent at Salem on a visit to Professor Edward Morse and his pleasant family. He had lived several years in Japan, and had made a very extensive collection of Japanese pottery, ancient and modern. He has about four thousand specimens, all distinct, many of great rarity and value. I also dined with Professor Asa Gray to meet most of the biological professors of Harvard University. After dinner he asked me to give them some account of how I was led to the theory of

natural selection, and this was followed by some interesting conversation.

One evening I was invited to a meeting of the New England Women's Club, where the Rev. J. G. Brooks gave an address on "What Socialists Want." I could hardly make out whether he was a Socialist or not, but I thought his views to be very vague and unpractical. I was not at that time a thorough Socialist, but considered that a true "social economy" founded on land nationalization and equality of opportunity was what was immediately required. When called upon, I spoke in this sense for about half an hour. I afterwards wrote it out, treating it more systematically, and read it to a private meeting of my friends at Washington. Its substance is embodied in the chapter on "Economic and Social Justice" in my " Studies."

After my earlier Lowell lectures were over, I was free to give them elsewhere, and had a few very interesting engagements. On November 19 I went to Williamstown, in the extreme north-west corner of Massachusetts, to lecture at Williams College on "Colours of Animals." The lecture was appreciated, but unfortunately the lantern was so poor as not to show the coloured slides to advantage. Williamstown is in a fine mountainous country, and the next day one of the professors drove me in a buggy over very rough roads, and sometimes over snow, to a pretty waterfall, where I collected a few of the characteristic American ferns, which I sent home, and which lived for many years in my garden. I here first noticed the very striking effect of the white-barked birches and yellowbarked willows in the winter landscape. The fine Cypripedium spectabile, I was told, grew abundantly in the bogs of this district. I was hospitably entertained by President Carter, who invited me to visit him in the summer, when there are abundance of pretty flowers-an invitation, I much regret, I was unable to profit by.

Between my two last lectures in Boston I had to give one at Meriden, a small manufacturing town in Connecticut, involving a railway journey of nearly two hundred miles each way. I stayed with Mr. Robert Bowman, an Englishman