316 A DECADE OF WORK AT HOME. [1844, 



and am a little hoarse, which was a good thing, for as 

 to voice I filled the house. As I was full of illustra- 

 tions, quite as much as would cover the whole side of 

 a barn, I determined to try the experiment of lectur- 

 ing by the general guidance of my notes only (which 

 indeed were but partly written out). So with the 

 long pole in hand to point at the pictures I set at 

 work, and talked away for an hour and ten minutes. 



I felt like a person who can hardly swim, thrown 

 into the river, fairly in for it, and had to kick and 

 strike to keep my head above water. The results are 

 these. I was by no means satisfied, and thought I 

 had made almost a failure. I left out many important 

 points, I repeated myself a little now and then, and, 

 — the usual result of extemporizing, — I did not get 

 through, but was obliged to break off in the midst of 

 the best of it. But, in spite of some difficulties of ex- 

 pression, and bad sentences, the whole was probably 

 more spirited in appearance than if I had followed 

 my notes. And the audience generally seemed more 

 moved by it than by the first. 



I consider it thus far successful ; that under unfa- 

 vorable circumstances, for I had no time to look over 

 my notes beforehand, I made a desperate lunge, and 

 yet avoided a real faihire. It will place me so much 

 at ease that I can hereafter, with or without notes, 

 look fairly at my audience without wincing. So I 

 shall do better hereafter. . . . 



I send you my notes (on Yacciniums) as far as 

 written before I left for the South last summer ; and 

 with all Boott's memoranda as material. It would be 

 crazy for me now to attempt to make any memoranda, 

 or even to make the corrections that the new data 

 require. Conclusions formed in hurly-burly are good 



