What a master-stroke is the use of “alien,” this time a Latin derivative, in the last line quoted. What a picture of that old time drama, with its theme of love and sorrow co-eval with the human race.
First get your idea, then express it in words that give it forth clearly. No verbiage, no fog or clouds, no jargon, but simplicity, lucidity, vividness, and power.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE AUDIENCE
A lecturer should realize his grave responsibility to his audience. Nothing but absolute physical impossibility is a sufficient excuse for disappointing an assembly. Have it thoroughly understood that when your name appears on a program, you will be at your post.
Never allow, if you can possibly prevent, anybody to announce you to speak without consulting you and getting your consent. In some cities the method of announcing a speaker, when it is not known whether or not he can be present and, in some cases, even when it is known he cannot, has prevailed in the Socialist party. The temptation to do this consists in the possibility of using a prominent name to attract a large audience and then, with some lame excuse, put forward somebody else.
This succeeds for a time; then comes disaster. In such a city a good meeting becomes almost impossible. With the public it is, once bit, twice shy. For myself, if when I am announced to speak and I am not there and there is no message in the hands of the chairman reporting my death or some other almost equally good reason, it is almost safe to say my name has been used without my consent.
Any lecturer who treats his audience lightly has no reason to expect it will take him seriously. There is no lecturing future ahead of the man who says to some disappointed auditor he meets afterward on the street: “Well, the weather was so bad I didn’t think anybody would turn out.” Suppose only ten people turned out, is not their combined inconvenience ten times as great as that of the speaker? At least you could go and thank those who did come, as they surely deserved, and feel that you did your duty in the matter.
I well remember one night in San Francisco, about the twenty-first lecture of a course in the Academy of Sciences, when it rained as only Californians ever see it rain; it seemed to fall in a solid mass. From 6 to 7:30 it continued with no sign of let-up, and the streets began to look like rivers.
“No meeting tonight, that’s sure,” I concluded as I ruefully pocketed the notes of my lecture. But my rule compelled me to turn out and see. To my very great astonishment the Academy was full and the admission receipts were equal to the average. Never again, if I can help it, will weather alone keep me from appearing at a meeting.