Writing of his lecture work in California which he called "detestable
vagrancy," he says:

"There is a great flood in the interior. California is a lake. Rats,
squirrels, locusts, lecturers, and other like pests are drowned out. I
am a home bird, and enjoy it hugely."

King greeted the mention of his name as candidate for United States
Senator with the statement, "I would swim to Australia before taking a
political post," and added, "a dandy lives from one necktie to another,
a fashionable woman from one wrinkle to another and a politician from
one election to another. "

Certainly there is a smile, as well as a truth, in the following:

"Our popular definition of a ghost is just the reverse of truth; it
makes one consist of a soul without a body, while really a specter, an
illusion, a humbug of the eyesight and the touch, is a human body not
vitalized through and through with a soul."

"King was the best story teller of his time," thought Dr. Bellows.
"Gifted with an exquisite, a delicious sense of the ludicrous, and given
to bursts of uncontrollable merriment, happy as childhood and as
innocent," this is the verdict of one of his earliest biographers, - E.
P. Whipple. That sunny mirth and infectuous laughter was no mean element
of his power over the people, we can readily believe.

Another explanation of his far reaching influence both in the pulpit and
on the platform, is found in the rare skill with which he made the