Miss Mary Proctor is one of the rare examples of the heredity of genius. Outshining her charms as a lecturer are the charms of her private life, where, of course, very few are privileged to know her. She is the attraction of the household. Children as well as grown up folks love her, and she is queen of the situation wherever she happens to be. It has been our privilege to entertain her in our home several times. Her theme was usually the skies and the heavens. The stories she tells about the stars when conversing with little children on these topics fix in their young minds a knowledge of the geography of the heavens as long terms of study from books could never do. And yet this little lady whom the children love so much, when surrounded by great scientists and scholars, is perfectly at her ease. It is a charming intellectual display and a wonderful lesson and privilege to see Miss Mary Proctor under any of these conditions. HUMORISTS Josh Billings was a popular humorous lecturer for several years, but not a repeater. There is hardly a village of five thousand people and over within a radius of five hundred miles of New York where he has not given his lecture on “Milk,” the only lecture which he ever had. He insisted that a tumbler of milk should always be on the table in front of him, to which he never alluded in any way whatever. He always sat down while he lectured. I don’t remember of ever seeing him stand a moment on the platform. He immediately walked to his chair, sat down and commenced his talk. [Illustration] His lecture was a shower of “Josh Billings’s” epigrams, sparkling as they tumbled over each other in falling from his lips, reflected from his bright eyes over his spectacles. “Ladies and gentlemen: “I hope you are all well.” “There’s lots of folks who eat well and drink well, and yet are sick all the time. These are the folks who always ‘enjoy poor health.’” “People who agree with you never bore you.” “The shortest way to a woman’s heart is to praise her baby and her bonnet.” “A man is a bore when he talks so much about himself that you kant talk about yourself.” “Still I go on talking.” “Comik lecturing is an uncommon pesky thing to do.” “There ain’t but phew good judges of humor and they all differ about it.” “If a lecturer trys to be phunny he iz like a hoss trying to trot backwards, pretty apt to trod on himself.” “Humor must fall out uv a man’s mouth like musik out uv a bobolink, or like a young bird out uv its nest, when it iz feathered enuff to fly.” “In delivering a comic lecture it iz a good general rule to stop sudden; sometimes before you git through.”