ART OR APTITUDE
At the risk of being severely snubbed for my presumption I venture to
add a few words for the benefit of that numerous class of persons who
feel an intense desire to address their fellows, but either do not
possess the confidence or ability to do so. But I do realise the great
difficulty of advising such people, because I am fully persuaded that
there are many of them that will never be able to address an audience
with any satisfaction to themselves or benefit to their hearers.
And there are others who will never have any difficulty beyond the
commencement. Nature has fitted them for public speakers, and the only
thing necessary to their complete equipment is that they shall be
thoroughly acquainted with their subject.
Now I am well aware that elocution and voice production are taught
both by book and voice, but I do not know anything of the results.
It has never been my lot knowingly to listen to a public speaker who
has studied elocution as an art, but I may have done so unknowingly.
I have, however, listened to men with a high reputation as public
speakers, and have wondered mightily how anybody, not compelled thereto
by any cause, could endure them for five minutes. And I have listened
with sheer delight to others whom I have known to be men and women
who had never even given a thought to training their voice or their
gestures, but who were filled with intense love and knowledge of their
subject, who apparently had only to open their mouths and let the
stream of eloquence flow.
Of course; and therein lies, I fully believe, the prime principle
and art of public speaking. At the same time I do fully recognise
that there is a third great class between the two I have mentioned
who without a little training or a little encouragement will never
deliver the message they undoubtedly possess. Shyness, indolence, want
of confidence in themselves: these are all heavy handicaps against a
budding public speaker, and it is for such as these that I would speak
now.
In the first place, I would say get rid of self-consciousness. Do not
dare to allow yourself to think of your personal appearance. If you
haven’t done your best for that in the solitude of your dressing-room
before your mirror you are hopeless, but if you have, and then continue
to wonder how you are appearing to the audience, you are equally
hopeless. Forget your appearance and believe what is undoubtedly true,
that if your message is worth listening to, all the better part of the
audience are attending to it and are not caring a bit what you look
like. At one of the most successful meetings I have ever had, one side
of my dress-shirt front had a big patch of oil on it, which compared
most strangely with the immaculate whiteness of the other half. My
chest was very queer, and I wore a chest-protector which I had too
liberally sprinkled with camphorated oil. This had come through my vest
and spoiled my shirt-front. But I didn’t know anything about it until
the affair was over, and then I realised that my audience didn’t know
either, or if they did, it hadn’t affected their enthusiasm.
Of course, I do not in the least mean to suggest or imply that
a speaker should be careless of or neglect his or her personal
appearance; on the contrary, I regard it as a duty to the audience you
have the honour to address that you should appear as neat and trim as
possible without showing yourself eccentric or bizarre. Any fool can
do that, and I may add with conviction that only fools will try by
means of long hair and quaint clothing to attract the attention they
could not gain otherwise. Of course, there are exceptions even to this
rule. But what I do mean is that no public speaker, having dressed
decently and reasonably, should thenceforth think about his appearance
but should devote the entire powers of his mind to the service of his
audience.
In the second place I would advise all young speakers to cultivate
unconsciousness of their audience as individuals. Rather look upon
and think of them as one individual with whom you are going to have
an earnest confidential chat. While always cultivating that cosy
air of confidence and conversational manner, beware of becoming
slipshod, slangy or allusive. I know that this sounds like a counsel
of perfection, but I know too how greatly it is needed. For although
I hate the ultra-pessimistic assumed by so many middle-aged men
with regard to manners and customs in general, it is impossible to
avoid the conclusion that among reasonably intelligent men of the
“hupper suckles” present-day conversation is largely made up of “I
meantersay, dontcherknow” and “what!” (explosive). And, alas! the upper
middle-class do ape this detestable habit. I have heard men, occupying
responsible positions, whose conversation was quite unintelligible
from this cause, and I could only think that they used the idiotic
convention because they did not want to talk--I knew that they were
highly intelligent.
A great friend of mine, who was at the time managing director of
a great Australasian newspaper, visited me some years ago and his
comments upon this habit among our otherwise intelligent classes were
continual and lurid.
“It seems to me,” he would say, “that the men I meet in England to-day
have never learned how to talk, or else they have nothing to say. Their
whole conversation seems to be made up of a few misapplied adverbs
such as ‘frightfully, beastly, awfully’ and ‘well, I meantersay,
doncherknow’ and ‘hwhatt!’ They drive me nearly crazy, and only that I
do occasionally find a man who talks rationally I would not stop in the
country another day.”
I told him what I gratefully acknowledged to be the fact, that the
people of whom he complained, though a far too numerous class, are
but the fringe of the intelligence of the nation. Still it may not
be denied that in spite of reason and nature, both men and women of
education and high position do cultivate this maddening convention.
I certainly would not have dealt with it at the length I have were
it not that I have advised a conversational manner with an audience,
and I must make it clear that I mean conversation and not the silly
ejaculations I have noted above.
And notwithstanding this real drawback I maintain that where a speaker
can get upon those confidential conversational terms with his hearers
he is absolutely sure of their attention, sure too of conveying his
meaning to their minds. His speech will not be oratory. That may at
once be admitted. Oratory has its distinct uses, its well-defined
place, but it is not for teaching or amusement. It belongs to great
occasions and to great orators. To the ordinary successful speaker or
preacher it is like the panoply of Saul upon the immature shoulders of
David. There may come occasions when the successful speaker will rise
to the sublime heights of oratory and carry his audience with him in a
torrent of enthusiasm, but with those peaks we have not to deal, we are
discussing the high road.
Next I would say, avoid all mannerisms of speech or gesture as you
would suggestions of the evil one. I once was told by a gentleman who
had heard me lecturing that I used rather too frequently the phrase “as
a matter of fact.” I am afraid I was not at all grateful, I know that
I flushed hotly, but I have since often recalled that quiet remark as
one of the most valuable hints I ever received. For thenceforth I was
on my guard, and if I found myself (as I often did) rolling a certain
expression caressingly under my tongue I immediately set a watch for
it and ruthlessly cut it out. Gesture is another pitfall for some
people. It cannot be taught satisfactorily, although rules for its use
are in all the books. I believe that the only effective gesture is the
natural one--any gesture that you have to learn and practise up is
unnatural, stilted, and stagey. That last word may be misunderstood;
let me explain what I mean. All great actors are nearly natural in
their gestures, those who miss greatness, those whom it is right to
call theatrical are not. The late Rev. Joseph Parker was an actor and
a very poor one; to my mind some of his theatricalities on the City
Temple platform would have got him hissed off the stage. I have known
him drop his voice until he was entirely inaudible, at the same time
solemnly wagging his great head from side to side, then suddenly
bounding forward with impassioned gesture he would roar like a lion. It
was all stagey and transpontine, but the magnetism of the man carried
it off triumphantly and the people to whom he preached felt that he was
the first of preachers and the rest nowhere.
In all of the foregoing I have assumed that you whom I am advising
have a good voice and have had some practice in using it. There may
be, yes, I remember that there are, some people who will try to speak
from a public platform without possessing that first requisite, a
voice. But I am not talking to idiots, but ordinarily sensible men and
women who are able to make themselves heard at a considerable distance
without shouting. If they have not had the opportunity as I had for
fifteen years of practising the art, I suppose I may call it, of voice
production in the open air, let them go to a professor of elocution,
who will teach them so to use their voices that they will not have
clergyman’s sore throat at the end of a short address, and feel as if
they can never speak again.
When I tell you that I bear the burden of chronic laryngitis, and have
done for a quarter of a century, yet never have known a “tired” throat
or a clergyman’s sore throat, I am sure that if you believe me you
will admit that practice has done great things for me. I have lectured
with an ulcerated throat, with a severe cold, with influenza; lectured
when the pain of inflammation in my throat was almost maddening; but
never once can I honestly say that speaking had anything to do with my
sufferings. Indeed, I have usually gone on addressing audiences each
night until quite well, although told at the beginning by medical men
that to address an audience in my then condition amounted to suicide.
Now this must be owing to my practical knowledge of voice production.
I cannot teach it, I wish I could, because it would help my meagre
finances very much just now, but I know it, and if it were necessary I
could produce a great cloud of witnesses to the fact. People who have
seen me crawling gaspingly up the steps of a lecture hall apparently
unable to speak. One of the commonest remarks I remember during the
last three or four years of my lecturing was:
“Why, Mr. Bullen, you’ll never be able to lecture to-night!” But
I always was, and I am grateful to recall that I never broke an
engagement for that cause, although I know that at the last I ran it
very fine indeed, because I could hardly speak for coughing. But the
ordinary individual with a good voice must be taught in some way how to
produce it, or he will never make an efficient speaker, never be able
to hit the happy mean between shouting and whispering, the audible mean
between two forms of unintelligibility.
Throughout it will be noticed that I have assumed a complete knowledge
of the subject in hand on the part of the would-be lecturer. That
would seem to go without saying, yet strangely enough it does not. It
is passing strange that any man should dream of addressing an audience
upon a topic about which it is dollars to doughnuts that they know as
much or more than he does, yet there are such people. Of course, they
do not go very far, still they exist. One such asked me if I would
kindly lend him my notes (I never had any, by the way) of the whaling
lecture, and the negatives of my slides, as he felt sure he could work
up quite a nice little connection for himself in South Wales. It was a
subject he said that had always interested him very much. I know this
hardly sounds true, but it is actually so in every detail.
Assuming then as I do that the would-be lecturer knows his subject
thoroughly, in what style should he deliver an address thereupon? This
is a matter upon which I hold very strong views. To copy anyone else’s
style is fatal, to strain after effect equally so, and I am firmly of
opinion that the only sensible plan is to tell your story naturally
as if you were just yarning to a chum. In doing so, however, one must
bear in mind all that I have said before, or else the talk will be a
jumble. It is little short of delightful to sit and listen to a speaker
who is telling you strange facts in an easy, confidential, colloquial
manner, compelling you to strain neither your hearing nor intellect,
but interesting you in spite of yourself; interesting you so much that
when the end is suddenly reached you start with amazement, hardly able
to believe that you have been listening for an hour and thirty or forty
minutes, so rapidly and easily has the time flown.
Here I feel moved to interpolate a remark which does not really
apply to the learner or beginner, but to men who are very fluent and
enthusiastic. Gentlemen, forgive me for saying so, but the human brain
is like a sponge, it will only hold so much at a time; afterwards you
can pour as much liquid as you like on it, it will not absorb another
drop. Also the average listener’s attention with the best of intentions
will flag after ninety minutes at the outside, much quicker than that
if he or she has a train to catch. I have often heard it said:
“Oh, yes, I like Mr. So-and-so very much for the first hour and a half,
after that I feel that I want to kill him. I’ll never go to hear him
again.”
For your own sakes, gentlemen, do not allow that to be said of you.
Do not let the curse of not knowing how to leave off descend upon you
and mar fatally what is otherwise your very delightful performance.
You may possibly think me unfit to advise you upon this or any other
subject, you may indignantly deny that you ever were or could be guilty
of overstaying your welcome, but you cannot imagine that in being thus
emphatic I have any other object in view than your good. And this is
especially the case as regards the beginner. When a man is always well
received, finds his audiences enthusiastic and listens to incessant
eulogies upon himself and his messages, then he needs especially to
keep his eye upon his watch. Never tire your auditors is an excellent
rule, and I am perfectly certain that more harm has been done to
themselves by individual lecturers in this way than in any other that
can be mentioned.
I must end this chapter as I began it by humbly disclaiming any idea of
presumption. I do not arrogate to myself any title to instruct except
that conferred by experience and success. But I will add that I do not
think that any man, however great his other qualifications as a public
speaker may be, can possibly succeed as a lecturer unless he enjoys
his work, unless he is able to feel that glorious thrill of sympathy
emanating from his audience lifting him on to a far higher plane than
he could ever reach otherwise. When he sees all those rows of faces
with their hundreds of eyes uplifted to him and realises that he for
the moment at any rate is the centre of attraction--well, I repeat, if
this does not inspire him and lift him out of himself I would give very
little for his elocution or knowledge or steadiness of nerve.
Of course, the highest form of all, when the message must be delivered
at whatever personal cost, is only possible to a few of us, and is
moreover not at all necessary for the equipment of a professional
lecturer. Amazing though it may seem, we do, in spite of so many
repetitions, maintain a great enthusiasm for our various messages,
nor can anyone say truthfully that such enthusiasm is manufactured or,
in vulgar parlance, pumped up. But even that is seen at its best where
aptitude has been assisted by art to present the message in the most
acceptable form to an eager audience.