DIVAGATIONS
Lecturing, as I believe I have said before in these pages, is a most
fascinating pursuit, though few who listen would imagine how it
exhausts its votaries. And by this I do not mean those astonishing
people of whom we are told that they come off the platform dripping
with sweat, necessitating their being stripped, bathed, and massaged
before they become normal again. I am inclined to think that such
lecturers must be very few indeed, and ought rather to be classed with
acrobats or gymnasts, than with professors of the essentially quiet
and peaceful art of speaking in public. And yet I do not know. I have
sometimes listened to public speakers whose efforts to make themselves
heard and to vocalise their ideas involved them in a struggle that it
was painful to witness, what it must have been for them to perform
must be left to the imagination. The saddest thing about these
contortions of mind and body is that the result of them is always in
inverse proportion to the amount of muscular and mental effort expended
upon them--indeed, I have several times been witness to a public
speaker producing an entirely unintelligible roar, who in ordinary
conversation was pleasant to listen to and quite easy to understand.
Unfortunately there are a large number of people who feel a fierce
longing to teach their fellows vocally, who, although they have
ideas in plenty, cannot realise at all that to make yourself heard
intelligibly it is not merely useless, it is fatal to shout, that the
only result of such folly is injury to the vocal organs, and that the
complaint known as “clergyman’s sore throat” is simply caused by not
knowing how to use the voice. And here, although it is a digression
(which I love) I will add that another very prevalent ailment known
as “writer’s cramp” or “pen paralysis” is caused not by the amount of
writing done by the sufferer but through ignorance of the proper method
of holding a pen while writing. Indeed, to see the way that most people
hold a pen when writing is enough to induce wonder that their hands are
not cramped without any writing but simply by holding the fingers in
such an outrageous position.
I believe that voice production can be taught and that some people can
learn it, but I know that some people whose vocation is public speaking
are always painful to listen to and always give a sympathetic hearer
the impression, true or false, that they are suffering very much also.
With such people, if their matter is good, and it often is, this is
a real affliction, and I condole with them very much, although I am
grateful to say that I have never, since I began lecturing, had any
difficulty in making myself heard distinctly, nor have I ever had a
lesson in voice production. But I did have a long apprenticeship to
open-air speaking and singing, some fifteen years altogether, and
besides the inestimable practice thus gained, there was also the
lesson, always to be learned from terrible examples, what to avoid.
Repeatedly secretaries and others have warned me that their hall was
very bad for speaking in and on some occasions I have been told that no
one had ever succeeded in making himself heard in a certain hall, but
I can gratefully record the fact that I have never yet failed to make
myself heard distinctly in every corner of the worst halls I have ever
used for the purpose of lecturing. Yet some places, notably places of
worship, are very trying to the voice, and after an hour and a half
speaking in them there is a sense of weariness which is entirely absent
after a similar effort in a good hall perhaps three times larger.
This peculiarity of acoustics is, I believe, one of the chief trials
of architects, and one that the greatest skill and care often fail to
compete with successfully.
But I started this chapter with the idea of the exhaustion consequent
upon a lecture. It varies, of course, according to the physical and
mental fitness of the lecturer, but it is one of the most insidious
forms of fatigue known. To the enthusiastic lecturer who rejoices
in his task, and to whom it appears not only easy but natural and
delightful, there is a strain upon the nerves that, unnoticed at the
time, is severely felt afterwards. Just as some people feel a long
train journey. “Surely,” say the unthinking, “you cannot be tired after
sitting for eight hours!” Can you not? I can answer for myself, who am
a fairly good traveller, that it is almost as tiring as a day’s manual
labour, while many robust people it will make absolutely ill. And it is
so with lecturing. In spite of the appearance of ease and the obvious
delight of the lecturer in his work, it is using up his nerve force at
a great rate, and he will do well to remember this afterwards, when
those who have been listening to him often expect him to entertain them
until midnight or after.
But there is another class of lecturer to whom every lecture is
a tremendous ordeal. Gifted persons, with an ability to express
themselves far above the average, the time that they are on their feet
facing the audience may almost be described as a period of torture.
What the interval of waiting for the time of the lecturer’s beginning
must mean to such unfortunate people I cannot tell, but I feel sure it
must be agonising. I have heard one splendidly muscular friend of mine
say that he would far rather do three days’ heavy labour than give a
couple of hours’ reading from one of his books. And I have no choice
but to believe him, the proof being that although the terms offered him
were glittering enough he only endured for one season.
Unfortunately there are to be found folks who can neither make
themselves heard nor say anything worth listening to if they could.
I should think they have few nerves to speak of, or they could never
survive one attempt to address an audience. Yet these are the very
people who are the most anxious to be heard. In my open-air experience
I suffered many things from them, because volunteers for that service
are always eagerly welcomed, the rule being among most religious
communities that if a man is fit for no other form of Christian service
he will do to preach the Gospel in the open air. If any proof of this
be needed it is only necessary to become an auditor at any open-air
meeting for the propagation of the Gospel. The Salvation Army, which
certainly does not follow the rule that anybody will do for the open
air that is unfit for anything else, because all the members are called
upon if willing, is no exception to the former rule. You will hear good
speakers in the open-air meetings of the S.A., but--they are nearly
always women. The men all seem to drop into a raucous, nauseous shout
to which it is painful and entirely unprofitable to listen. The painful
and pitiful thing is that people do listen, showing thereby that they
have never heard any good speaking and so do not know how bad that is
to which they are listening so intently.
I have taken the open-air preachers of the Gospel as my awful example,
because of the splendid opportunities they daily and nightly waste
through the ignorance of their leaders. If you want to hear good
open-air speaking, listen to the Socialist orator, or the Suffragette
speaker. They have no use for the duffers, and so none are employed. I
might go farther and say that they are in earnest--but I am afraid I
shall be misunderstood. However, I cannot help it, I know it is as I
say.
But the art of public speaking, simple as it may seem to be, is at a
very low ebb. Go to any public function you like, nay, go to church,
not chapel, and ask yourself what these people can be thinking of to
stand up and try the nerves of their fellows with such mumblings and
thought-mush. I know that there are some voices to which it is a sheer
delight to listen, even if what they say is not worth hearing. At any
rate, they do take the pains to make themselves audible, even if they
cannot impart any useful information, and if it be in church it will
hardly matter, because although all can hear, very few will heed, and
unless the sermon is reported and gets into the press the preacher may
say very nearly what he likes, and his congregation will not notice
anything amiss.
Fortunately the “Platform,” with a capital P, as lecturers love to
designate their own special _métier_, is not at all likely to fail in
making itself heard or understood. For in the first place, before a
lecturer can hope to get anything like a decent fee or a sufficient
number of engagements to-day he must have special qualifications, and
especially he must speak so as to be heard and understood. Either
he has made some subject peculiarly his own and is known as an
authority upon that subject, or he is a traveller with special gifts
of description and able to visualise the scenes he has witnessed for
his audience, or he is a humorist, rarest and best gift of all. Were I
offered my choice of a fairy’s catalogue of offerings to men I would
choose before all others the power of making men and women laugh--it
takes but very little talent to make them weep--I had almost said that
anyone can perform that sad feat. I look back upon the few occasions
when in freakish mood I have got my audience laughing, and becoming
imbued with their merry spirit have gone on in the same direction until
we were all laughing together; I look back upon them, I say, as the
golden hours of my life, hours that I rejoice to have lived and covet
to live again, only that I know it to be impossible.
Let me recall one somewhat similar experience, but pray do not accuse
me of irreverence in telling it since nothing can be farther from
my thoughts. In the earlier days of my lecturing I often used to be
engaged upon the understanding that I would preach in the local chapel
or hall on the Sunday, the lecture being arranged for either Saturday
or Monday night. On one such occasion I was booked to lecture in
Scotland (never mind the town) on a certain Monday, on condition that I
preached in the church the preceding morning and evening. From motives
of economy, for it was in the early days, I travelled up by the night
train, third class, and had the usual weary, cold, and sleepless
experience consequent upon a winter night, spent in a corridor
compartment with three others. I arrived at the church at about 9.30
and was shown by the caretaker into the vestry, where I had a wash and
brush up and then laid down upon the sofa and went sound asleep.
Shortly after ten I was aroused by the pastor, and at first had some
little difficulty in remembering where I was and what was expected of
me. But the little rest had done wonders for me, and in a few minutes
I felt quite ready for anything, my usual good spirits having fully
returned. The pastor then timidly enquired what my subject would be for
the morning’s address, and I frankly replied that I did not know. My
mind was a perfect blank as to topics, no new experience for me in such
a position, since if I did prepare an address it was never of any use,
never the one I delivered. He looked at me curiously when I told him
this, thinking no doubt that I was treating my responsibilities with
great levity, and then enquired if I had any wishes about the order
of service. I told him that I wished he would do everything but the
address.
At this he begged me most earnestly to let him off, telling me that he
had been promising himself a rare treat and, well, he said many other
things that I won’t record for modesty’s sake. These words had the
effect of making me consent, and I selected the hymns, portions, etc.,
going into the pulpit a few minutes before the time in order to give
the congregation what they always enjoy, a good look at the man who
is going to address them, without their being able to reply, for half
an hour or so. I sat in that elevated position looking straight down
the church into the street, watching the people streaming in. And I got
my subject--oh, yes, I got it splendidly. For the good folk approached
the kirk door greeting one another with smiling faces, and pleasant
words. In fact, all seemed as if the glorious morning had put them
in the best of humours with all the world. And then they turned into
the cool shade of the church door and a gloom fell upon their faces,
I might reasonably say a blight, as if the news had just reached them
of the loss of all they held dear. That sad frame persisted after they
had taken their seats, in almost ludicrous contrast to the bright faces
outside, still coming in and presently to assume the same lugubrious
cast.
The voluntary ceased, the service commenced. I had chosen joyful hymns
and psalms, but they were sung like dirges. At last I came to the
sermon, and facing my audience squarely, without opening the Bible,
said in a high, ecstatic voice,
“Oh, enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.”
Another pause, and then I went on to ask them in an easy, colloquial
tone, smilingly, what was the matter with them. I spoke of the amazing
contrast between their faces outside the building and within, and
assumed that they had all been suddenly reminded of some poignant
sorrow. And soon, with all the sarcasm I could muster, I lashed their
assumed lugubriousness. They sat and stared as if uncertain whether
they could possibly be hearing aright, and once a middle-aged man burst
into an outrageous chuckle which very nearly infected the congregation.
As I proceeded, the time flying all too rapidly, I had the satisfaction
of seeing a natural expression beaming on all the faces, and when I
concluded with the splendid words,
“In His presence is fulness of joy!
And at His right hand are pleasures for evermore,”
I could see that nothing but tradition, steel-hard tradition, prevented
them from sending up a great shout of “Hallelujah.”
Following me into the vestry, the pastor gripped me by both hands,
saying:
“I would give a year of my life to be able to talk to my congregation
like that. But, alas! it is impossible for many reasons. I shall never
forget this morning though.”
I laughed happily, for my present trouble was over, and replied:
“Nor I either. I’ve had a very enjoyable time. You see I’m a firm
believer in the doctrine of “open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.”
I opened mine wide enough this morning, for surely there never was a
poor wretch who had to speak to a waiting, critical assemblage emptier
than I was. My head was like a bad nut, nothing in it but dust and
shucks. And even now I don’t know what I said, but your testimony and
the look of the folks as they went out seem to tell me that it wasn’t
half bad, as the schoolboys say.”
But somehow, owing, I suppose, to a certain freshness and
unconventionality in treating the subject (I can safely say
that now I shall never speak in public again), I was always a
success as a preacher. Not, thank God, that I ever adopted the
hat-on-back-of-the-head, cigar-in-mouth, hands-in-pocket style of
preaching, so popular in the United States. Oh no, I had a far deeper
idea of the sacredness of things than that. But there is a vast
difference between solemnity and stupidity, and that is what many
preachers do not seem to have found out yet.
The highest compliment upon my preaching that was ever paid me was at
Dollar, a pleasant health resort near Edinburgh. I had been preaching
in the Scotch Episcopal Church that morning, and I well remember
energetically refusing to wear the black gown that the dear old
minister fondly pressed upon me. As always, I did my best, but was not
conscious of having excelled in any sense. On my way home to my host’s
house, however, in company with a very charming man, Mr. Robert Annan,
I became aware of two small boys in Eton costume shyly waylaying me
and endeavouring to catch my eye. I stopped, saying to Mr. Annan:
“I believe those boys want to speak to one of us.”
He immediately turned to the boys, saying:
“Well, lads, what is it?”
“Please, sir, we’d like to speak to Mr. Bullen.”
“Certainly, my boys,” I answered instantly, “go ahead.”
“Are you going to preach again this evening, sir?” said one of them,
simply.
“I don’t think so,” I replied, “but suppose I was, what then?”
“Well, sir,” murmured the boy, looking down, “if you were, we wanted to
come and hear you again.”
Nothing that has ever been said to me or about me in connection with my
oratorical efforts has ever given me such unmitigated delight as those
few words, spoken, as I am convinced they must have been, with the most
absolute sincerity. But it is quite unnecessary to enlarge upon them,
their significance will be seen at once.
And now in order to close this chapter, already too long, let me say
that there is a class of public speaker, fortunately very small, who
neither in manner nor in matter is worth listening to, and yet these
men will hold an otherwise intelligent audience, nay, will compel
enthusiasm and subsequent adherence to the most fantastic or immoral
of causes. I have in mind two such men, widely differing in personal
character and aim but both indubitably possessed of this dangerous
power, call it what one may. Some twelve years ago I stood in the
Auditorium at Chicago and listened to John Alexander Dowie. I honestly
declare that I never looked upon a less attractive man. In spite of his
gorgeous robes (he was then posing as Elijah) all purple velvet and
gold, his face and form were mean and contemptible, looking only fit
for the taproom of a low public-house. And his address! It was beneath
contempt. Poor, shoddy, bad in delivery, sheer ungrammatical twaddle
meaning nothing and leading nowhere. Yet his audience hung upon those
banal words as if they had been the very oracles of God. In Heaven’s
name why?
The other man was Richard Seddon, Prime Minister of New Zealand.
I attended a banquet given in his honour at the Australia Hotel,
in Sydney, N.S.W., and sat among the élite of Southern journalism.
Indeed, the company present was a thoroughly representative one, for
the occasion was most important. I occupied the seat next but one to
Mr. Seddon, and can honestly say that no guest there could be less
biased than I was. I knew nothing of the man except common rumour, and
that was entirely favourable. Yet before he spoke I was fascinated by
the back of his head, which sloped forward from the neck without any
“bulge” at all. In common parlance he had no back to his head. And
I confess I felt doubtful. But when I heard him speak, and continue
speaking for one hour and a quarter, I was aghast. I have heard a
hundred times better matter from street-corner orators, in fact I have
rarely listened to more turgid rubbish. The most astounding thing of
all was that it literally hypnotised his audience. Had an archangel
been addressing them they could not have shown wilder excitement,
in fact whenever they got a chance they raved. And when the sorry
performance was over I said to my friend next to me, the Editor of one
of the great Sydney newspapers:
“In Heaven’s name, what does all this mean? What is the matter with all
these people?”
He had been just as bad as the rest, but he was now slightly ashamed
of himself, I think, for he passed off my question diffidently and did
not attempt to answer me. I could not call it turgid rhetoric, for it
was not rhetoric, it was simply noisy rubbish, the few grains of sense
that it contained being poured out within the first five minutes, and
afterwards the whole performance might well have been summed up in
Shakespeare’s immortal lines:
“Like unto a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
And signifying nothing.”