CHAPTER XV
SPEECHES AND LECTURES
Miss Marie Corelli's career as a public speaker
has been a short one, but, so far as it has gone, full
of promise. She has a good enunciation and a
sweet, penetrating voice; she takes the platform
with the whole of her address clearly mapped out
in her mind, her only aids to memory being a few
notes scribbled on slips of paper, which at first
glance look like a number of broad spills. Consulting
these occasionally by way of mental refreshment,
she says what she has to say with easy self-possession,
never hesitating for lack of a suitable
word or phrase.
The novelist's first speech in public was made in connection with a bazaar at Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, in July, 1899. The announcement that Miss Corelli was to open the proceedings attracted a large number of people to this picturesque little town, which is situated some eight miles from Stratford-on-Avon, on the high road to Birmingham.
When Miss Corelli had mounted the improvised platform, she first thanked the organizers of the
