
          try the experiment of lecturing 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 & 10 minutes,


 I felt like a person who can hardly swim thrown
 into the river, fairly in for it, and 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 expression, 
 and bad sentences, the whole was 
 probably more spirited to 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 unfavorable circumstances; for I had no 
 time to look over my notes beforehand, I made a 
 desperate lunge, and yet avoided a real failure. 
        