If the endless arguing of the Scot be wearisome to strangers and one would guess is a burden to himself, yet it has its advantages. It has been a discipline for the Scots mind, and the endless disputations on doctrine and kirks as well as more trifling matters like history and politics has toughened the Scots brain and brought it to a fine edge. When I hear a successful Scot speak lightly of the Shorter Catechism, then I am amazed and tempted to despise him, for it was by that means that he was sent forth so acute and enterprising a man, and any fortune he has made he owes to its training. He has been trained to think and to reason, to separate what is true from what is false, to use the principles of speech and test the subtlest meaning of words, and therefore, if he be in business, he is a banker by preference, because that is the science of commerce, and if he be an artizan, he becomes an engineer because that is the most skilful trade, and as a doctor he is spread all over the world. Wherever hard thinking and a determined will tell in the world's work this self-reliant and uncompromising man is sure to succeed, and if his mind has not the geniality and flexibility of the English, if it secretly hates the English principle of compromise, and suspects the English standard of commonsense, if it be too unbending and even unreasonably logical, this only proves that no one nation, not even the Scots, can possess the whole earth.
XVIII.—UPON THE LECTURE PLATFORM
THERE are four places where a man may lecture, exclusive of the open air, which is reserved for political demonstrations and religious meetings, and I arrange the four in order of demerit. The worst is, beyond question, a church, because ecclesiastical architects have no regard for acoustics, and a lecturer is apt to crack his voice yelling into the corners of churches.
People come to a church, also, in a chastened mood, and sit as if they were listening to a sermon, so that the unhappy lecturer receives little encouragement of applause or laughter, and, if he happens to be himself a clergyman, is hindered from doing anything to enliven the audience. Besides, the minister of the church will feel it his duty to introduce the leading members of his congregation after the lecture, and a reception of this kind in the vestry is the last straw on a weary lecturer's back. He cannot, however, refuse because he is a fellow professional, and knows that his discourtesy may be set to the debit of the minister. Next in badness is a public hall, because it is so bare and cheerless, and on account of its size is difficult to fill with an audience, and still more difficult with the voice. Drill halls, especially, are heart-breaking places, because they are constructed for the voices of commanding officers shouting “right wheel,” “march,” “fire,” and such like martial exhortations.
There is also another objection to halls from the lecturer's standpoint, and that is the accessibility of the platform. Usually there are two sets of steps, which the audience consider have been constructed in order that they may come on the platform in a body and shake hands with the lecturer. If a lecturer be a human being, he is always glad to see two or three of his fellow-creatures, especially if they say something encouraging, but just because he is a human being and has spoken for an hour and a half, he is apt to lose heart when he sees half of his large audience, say seven hundred people, processing in his direction.
It is on such an occasion that he is full of gratitude to a manager who will come in with his travelling coat and march the lecturer out at the back door, as a man in haste to catch his train or on any other pretence.
A lecturer may count himself fortunate, and need have no anxiety about circumstances, who speaks from the stage of a theatre, because he will have his whole audience within convenient compass, and focussed upon him, and although he comes down to a whisper he will still be heard. When you lecture at a theatre you are known as the “star,” and as you cross the dark and mysterious under-world behind the stage you hear some one crying: “This way to the star's room,” which generally turns out to be the room of the leading actress, where you may spend a quarter of an hour in seeing yourself in the innumerable mirrors, and examining the long array of toilet instruments on the table.
Theatrical people are most sympathetic and good-natured, and although they may not have the faintest idea who you are or what you are going to do, they always wish you well, and congratulate you if there is a good house. Their own house may not have been good last night, but they are glad if yours is good to-day.