CHAPTER XV

SPEECHES AND LECTURES

The Novelist’s First Public Speech: an Appeal for a Warwickshire Church--An Address Delivered to Stratford Working-men on “The Secret of Happiness”--Hard Work the Best Tonic in the World--The Novelist at the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution--“The Vanishing Gift”: an Address on the Decay of the Imagination--Art in the “Old World” Period and Art now--Imagination an Artist’s First Necessary--Modern Wonders Imagined when the World was Young--The Novelist at Glasgow--An Address on “Signs of the Times” Delivered before a Huge Audience--An Allusion to the Prince of Wales and his Famous Speech at the Mansion House--“The Old Country must Wake up”--“The Advancing and Resistless Tide of Truth”--A Notable Peroration 281