MISS MARY ANDERSON.
It is curious to notice how parents willingly subscribe to the school extra, "Elocution class," in the belief that it gives boys confidence. I was a nervous boy, so I joined. The drawing extra certainly gives a boy confidence, because he sees the feeble productions of the drawing-master and feels he has little to learn in order to become one himself. I shall never forget my first attempt in the elocution class at school. The Professor selected a piece for the day—it was to be learned letter-perfect. Now I unfortunately parodied it and burlesqued the Professor, who stood at the end of the library, giving us suitable actions to the words. We all faced him like a company of soldiers formed in a square. Being small, I, sheltered by the big boys in front, indulged in my antics with impunity. Certainly I did not want confidence at that moment. This over, we sat down round the library, and then the custom was to call out a boy to recite the piece of the day alone for the benefit of the others. He called upon me! Confidence had fled. I was not struck with stage fright, but with Professor fright. I tried to repeat the words and thought I did, but not until I was stigmatised by the Professor as incorrigible, and ordered to sit down, was I aware that I had really given my parody and not the piece.
When I went in search of another Professor this incident of my last came to my memory, and I felt unhappy. Attitude is everything, thought I. I shall look in at the picture galleries as I pass and compare the oratorical attitudes of the people of the past. I was rehearsing before one in the National Gallery when my antics attracted a lady. I looked round to see the effect—she was laughing. It was Miss Mary Anderson, the celebrated actress. I told her I was about to lecture and was on my way to take lessons in elocution. "Do nothing of the sort," she cried. "The public does not want to hear your attempts at elocution. Say what you have to say in your own way. Speak slowly and distinctly, and let everyone hear right at the end of the room." So it came to pass that Miss Mary Anderson was my only teacher in elocution, and this was the only lesson I received. Although what I say on the platform may not be worth listening to, I take good care that no one has to ask me to speak up, and put their hands to their ears to hear what I am saying; nor do I think, as I avoid the "preachy" style of delivery, my audiences get weary of hearing my voice.
MY FIRST PLATFORM.
DESIRE," I rehearsed my first lecture, "Art and Artists," at the Savage Club, previous to my giving it in public. In those days the Savages smoked their pipe of peace in a long room in the Savoy, overlooking the graveyard where so many of their tribe lay at rest. I recollect the reading-room at the back looked on to a huge building with mournful black lettering on it, announcing the fact that it was the office of some Necropolis. Truly a doleful surrounding for the club whose members are engaged in promoting the gaiety of nations! The long room was divided into two, the longer portion being the dining-room, and the smaller one the card-room, and on Saturday evenings, when they all sat round smoking their calumets, and singing their songs, and dancing their war-dances, the room was tried to its utmost capacity, and as on the occasion to which I am referring the tribe paid me the compliment of assembling in its numbers, the whole room was required. It was late in the evening when I arrived, and I found the lanternist in a state of agitation because the partition was not down, and he was, therefore, unable to put up the screen, as the card-players vigorously protested against any disturbance.
Now it has always struck me, perhaps more forcibly on this occasion than on any other, that the most selfish men on the face of the earth are to be found in the card-rooms of clubs. The time was close at hand for me to make my maiden effort in public lecturing, and I was not going to be baffled by a handful of card-players; so, backed by the authority of the secretary, I ordered them in Cromwellian tones to "Take away that partition!" The players were all but invisible, surrounded as they were by volumes of smoke, out of which there issued incalculable quantities of great big D's intermixed with the fumes of poisonous nicotine. Down went the partition, up went the screen, on went the game. I firmly believe they would not have looked up had Cavendish come to deliver a discourse from the platform on whist. I was quite prepared to proceed without disturbing their game, but a difficulty arose—there was no platform, and I required their tables for the purpose. The grumbling gamblers had to submit at last, and cards in hand they betook themselves to another room, so I was able to mount my first platform—a collection of tables. Now I don't know how it is, but it is a fact that there is nothing more unnerving than to stand on a table. The infantile prodigy who is put up on a table for the first time so as to be better admired by fair visitors, and who has previously struggled manfully from one end of the room to the other on the floor, totters and falls at the first step when raised to this higher elevation. Anyone can with ease stand on a chair and hang up a picture or anything of the sort, but standing on a table has the effect of making you grow weak in the knees and light in the head. This is not the effect of the extra height, but the knowledge that the table was constructed so that you could put your feet under it, and, therefore, they have no right on top of it.
Have you ever been in a court of justice in Ireland and seen a witness perched upon a table? In that enlightened country a table takes the place of the witness-box. The result is delightful. Standing in a witness-box and leaning comfortably over the bar, you can be comparatively at your ease, your legs can tremble unobserved, and you seem to be in a measure protected from the searching gaze of the public. Not so in the Emerald Isle. The chair is placed in the centre of the table in the well of the court between the judges and the counsel, and the unfortunate witness, finding himself in this elevated and awkward position, becomes nervous in the extreme. His feet are a great source of discomfort to him. He doesn't seem to know what to do with them. First he tucks them under the chair, then he crosses them, then he turns his toes out, then he turns them in, and just when he is beginning to get accustomed to his embarrassing situation, the cross-examination begins, and he is at the counsel's mercy: