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 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