It may seem invidious of me to single out certain occasions from the great multitude of happy lecturing hours that have been mine, but it is not so meant. I cannot help the fact that these occasions have impressed themselves indelibly upon my mind. Briarfield, Burnley! I do not often permit myself the luxury of mentioning the name of any place or person, but here I break what has become a rule with me most gratefully.
This was a strong centre of the noble St. John Ambulance Association, and my first experience connected with it was the hearty yet diffident welcome of the stationmaster at the little station—who behaved as if he would be genial, but did not wish to intrude. We speedily became intimate, and he conducted me across some fields to the house of a gentleman, who entertained me royally. When, accompanied by my host, I made my appearance at the hall, I was immensely gratified to find it full of eager folks, a large proportion of them in Red Cross uniform for both sexes. This was the first time I had ever been brought into contact with a centre of the Association, and I was much impressed by the keenness and earnestness exhibited by everybody. It was not, however, until I mounted the platform, and began my address, that I realised the exceeding warmth of my reception, and the great sympathy felt by those present for myself. This led me to devote a few minutes to my own experiences in ambulance work on board ship, where native wit had to supply the place of training, and extensive reading also helped with medical knowledge.
Greater interest and enthusiasm could not possibly have been manifested than by this audience at my anecdotes, and I was repeatedly interrupted by vociferous applause. Here I feel bound to interpolate a statement concerning a characteristic which, though personal to myself, I feel cannot be singular, it must be shared with many other public speakers, but whoever has the faculty of which I speak, surely must feel as grateful for it as I do. I allude to the power of being able to devote one-half or one portion of the mind to any other subject which may present itself, while apparently wholly engaged in the subject upon which the audience is being addressed. Kipling hints at this faculty in one of the poetic chapter headings in Kim:
“Something I owe to the soil that grew—
More to the life that fed—
But most to Allah who gave me two
Separate sides to my head.
“I would go without shirts or shoes,
Friends, tobacco or bread
Sooner than for an instant lose
Either side of my head.”
I have often envied others the power of concentration, but, oh, the sheer joy in being able to carry on two mental operations at once. To be able to devote yourself most strenuously to the desires of the audience, while at the same time reaching out with another most prehensile section of mind into quite different regions, and bringing back treasures long forgotten or unsuspected to lavish upon those beloved hearers who are giving you one of the great joyous times of your life. What I am writing may seem extravagant, but it is honestly true and honestly felt. Between every member of some audiences and myself there seems to be a chord of sympathy, a mental connection, compelling the delivery not only of my best, but of matter, the very existence of which has until then been unsuspected by me.
And of all the occasions upon which I have felt and exercised that delightful faculty, that night at Briarfield stands easily first. And it was curious, too. For I was totally unfit to stand before them at all, physically. Among the many mysterious things connected with this fleshly habitation of mine is one that involves much pain and discomfort, and for which I can never account. On that day I had been very leisurely indeed. My journey from London had been most easy and pleasant. I had read a gentle book, I had enjoyed a good meal. And on arrival at my host’s house there was no excitement, for host and hostess were unavoidably absent, and I rested in a charming room, in one of the easiest of chairs, until their return two hours later. Yet when I went up to dress, my legs and arms were covered with irregular painful swellings and purple spots, which made any movement and standing very painful to me.
The experience is in no way unusual to me, I have had it for years, and when it attacks me nothing is of any use but a recumbent position. I have gone a long and wearying journey to Scotland, and lectured in some distant suburb of Glasgow, and never felt it, and on an occasion like that of Briarfield I have been in agony throughout the lecture. Yet, and this does give me pleasure, none of my audience knew, nay, I was only subconscious of pain myself, it ran like a hot wire through my thoughts. And I have often wondered whether bodily pain like that has any effect upon the thought centres, as a stimulant, let us say! It may be so, but I know that I should have been grateful to do without such a stimulus.
In this connection I recollect on one occasion having to lecture at Winchmore Hill, when, as the phrase goes, I was suffering from a severe attack of neuritis. At least I suppose that is what it was, a pain like an incandescent wire running from my shoulder down the inside of my right arm to my finger-tips, paralysing my hand, and refusing to be eased, no matter how my arm lay. I had a sling for my arm, but it was of little use, for I had to be continually withdrawing the limb from it when the pain grew unbearable. However, I got assistance in dressing, and arrived at the hall, to find the secretary full of sympathy, but very doubtful from my contortions and grimaces whether the lecture would come off.
I endeavoured to reassure him, told him of that mysterious uplift we get when we face the audience,—my brother-lecturers will know what I mean—and think I succeeded in allaying the most severe of his apprehensions. At any rate the time came, and I did face the audience, who showed by their laughter and applause how much they appreciated the lecture. But when I came off the platform I was chalky white, and wet through with sweat, while the pain——But, there, that doesn’t matter. What did matter was that the audience was not disappointed. For that is the great thing to avoid. There are no valid excuses in the lecturing business. If you let an audience down once, you may wipe that place out of your expectations for the future. At least that is my belief.
But how hard it is on a lecturer. I remember once being engaged not for a lecture, but to deliver an address to the Seventh Day Schools Association, Severn Street, Birmingham. I gave a lecture the previous evening at Dudley Port, and was in fine trim, never better. But when I awoke in the morning I could not utter a sound, my voice had gone! I had no trace of cold, soreness of the throat, or any feeling save that of good health, but I was as dumb as a fish. I went to the gentleman who had engaged me, and with the aid of some paper explained my difficulty, offering to write out an address and give it to him to read, since he was to be my chairman. Naturally he was staggered, could hardly believe me. Nay, I am sure that he did not quite believe me, for in the evening after he had read the address I had written—and, oh, didn’t he read it badly!—he asked me to get up and say “just half a dozen words.”