“How long have you been here?” asked Barnes, when the small boy made known his intention to engage in a different vocation.
“Six months,” replied the boy.
“And you don’t like the law business?”
“Naw. It’s no good, and I tell you straight, I’m mighty sorry I learned it.”
(167)
Audience Attracted—See [Providential Interposition].
AUDIENCE, INSPIRATION FROM
“When a singer is up before an audience, he or she can tell whether the effect of the voice is pleasing or not by watching the countenances of the listeners,” says Thomas A. Edison in Popular Mechanics. “When, however, one sings into a dead instrument like the phonograph, without the slightest recognition as to whether the voice is properly tuned and pitched, the singer becomes rather nervous. I know some very capable singers who can sing splendidly before an audience, but when it comes to getting their voice into the phonograph, they are dumb. I have brought people of great note out to the works, and paid them handsomely for their vocal efforts, only to find, when I came to reproduce these attempts on the phonograph, that the records were utterly worthless. One must have, indeed, a regular phonograph voice in order to make a good record. Some people can sing well into a phonograph who could not get up before an audience to save their lives; and again, as I have said, some people can sing before persons, but they can not perform before a phonograph.”
(168)
Audiences—See [Fitness]; [Opportunities Improved].