Thus my first impression of Chautauqua was one of melancholy and resentment.  But, in the subsequent few days, this emotion was altered to one of impressible satiric mirth; and, subsequently still, it was changed again to an emotion of wondering and humble admiration.  I had been assured at the outset, by one who had already tried it, that, if I stayed long enough, I should end up by liking Chautauqua; and this is precisely what happened to me before a week was out.

But meanwhile I laughed very hard for three days.  The thing that made me laugh most was the unexpected experience of enduring the discomfiture of fame.  Chautauqua is a constricted community; and any one who lectures there becomes, by that very fact, a famous person in this little backwater of the world, until he is supplanted (for fame is as fickle as a ballet-dancer) by the next new-comer to the platform.  The Chautauqua Press publishes a daily paper, a weekly review, a monthly magazine and a quarterly; and these publications report your lectures, tell the story of your life, comment upon your views of this and that, advertise your books, and print your picture.  Everybody knows you by sight, and stops you in the street to ask you questions.  Thus, on your way to the Post Office, you are intercepted by some kindly soul who says:  “I am Miss Terwilliger, from Montgomery, Alabama; and do you think that Bernard Shaw is really an immoral writer?” or, “I am Mrs. Winterbottom, of Muncie, Indiana; and where do you think I had better send my boy to school?  He is rather a backward boy for his age—­he was ten last April—­but I really think that if, etc.”

Then, when you return to the hotel, you observe that everybody is rocking vigorously on the veranda, and reading one of your books.  This pleases you a little; for, though an actor may look his audience in the eyes, an author is seldom privileged to see his readers face to face.  Indeed, he often wonders if anybody ever reads his writings, because he knows that his best friends never do.  But very soon this tender sentiment is disrupted.  There comes a sudden resurrection of the rocking-chair brigade, a rush of readers with uplifted fountain-pens, and a general request for the author’s autograph upon the flyleaf of his volume.  All of this is rather flattering; but afterward these gracious and well-meaning people begin to comment on your lectures, and tell you that you have made them see a great light.  And then you find yourself embarrassed.

It is rather embarrassing to be embarrassed.

One enthusiastic lady, having told me her name and her address, assaulted me with the following commentary:—­“I heard you lecture on Stevenson the other day; and ever since then I have been thinking how very much like Stevenson you are.  And today I heard you lecture on Walt Whitman:  and all afternoon I have been thinking how very much like Whitman you are.  And that is rather puzzling—­isn’t it?—­because Stevenson and Whitman weren’t at all like each other,—­were they?”