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| Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1872), with Kalulu, his adopted son |
A couple of times in my life, when I first met in person someone who I had been wanting to meet for years, I became suddenly, atypically tongue-tied. As Edward Marsh describes in his memoir A Number of People (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939), he had the same experience when he first met the famous journalist and explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley (as in "Doctor Livingston, I presume") at a party (p. 41)—
At a party of old Mrs. Tennant's he [Stanley] crossed the room to where I was standing forlorn, and said: "I see you're looking neglected, so I've come to talk to you." This well-meant gambit completely froze the genial current of my soul, and neither of us could think of anything further to say.
