Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-11-13

Oliver Wendell Holmes, discoursing
of the lecture going people. writes as fol-
lows: ea .
I have been kindly treated by great
many and may occasionally face one
hereafter. But I tell you the average
intellect of five hundred persons, as they
come, is not very high. 1t may be
sound and safe so far as it goes, but it is
not very rapid and profound. A lecture
ought to be something which all can un-
derstand-about something which inter-
ests everybody. think that if any ex-
perienced lecturer gives you different
account from this. it will probably be
one of those eloquent or forcible speak
ersy who hold an audience by the charm
of their manner, whatever they talk
about, when they do not talk very well.
But an audience, which was what /
meant to speak about, is one of the most
extraordinary subjects of observation
and study. 1t is awful in its uniformity,
in its automatic necessity of action
Two communities of ants or bees are ex-
actly alike in all their actions so far as
we can see. Two lyceum assemblies, of
five hundred each, are SO nearly alike
that they are absolutely undistinguish-
able in many cases by any definite
mark, and there is nothing but the place
and time by which one can tell the "re-
markably intelligent audience % of
town in New York or Ohio from one in
any New England town of a similar
size. Of course, if any principle of Sc
lection has come in, as in these special
associations of young men, which are
common in cities, it deranges the uni
formity of assemblage. But let there be
no such interfering circumstances, and
one knows pretty well even the look the
audience will have before he goes in
Front seats,a few old folks-shiny head
ied-slant up best ear toward the speak
er-drop off asleep after while, when
the air begins to get little narcotic
with carbonic acid. Bright women's
faces, young and middle aged, little
behind these, but toward the front, pick
ont the best and lecture mainly to that.
Here and there countenance sharp and
scholar like, and dozen pretty female
ones scattered about. An indefinite
number of young people scattered about
happy but not always very attentive.
Boys in the background, more or less at
btentive.e. Dull faces here, therein how
many places do not say dull people,
but faces without a ray of sympathy or
movement of expression. They are
what kill the lecturer. These negative
faces with their vacuous eyes and stony
lineaments, suck the warm soul out of him.
That is the chief reason why lecturers
grow SO pale before the season is over.
They render latent any amount of vital
caloric they act on our minds as those
cold blooded creatures l was talking
about act on our hearts.
Gu. of these elements the audience is
generated-great compound vertebrate,
as much like fifty others you have seen
as any two manuals of the same species
are, like each other. Each audience
laughs, and each cries. in just the same
place of your lecture; that, is if you
make one laugh or cry, you make all
Even those little indescribable move
ments, which lecturer takes cognizance
of, Just as driver notices his horse
cooking his ears, are sure to come in ex
actly the same place of your lecture al
ways I declare to you that, as the
monk said about the picture in the con-
vent-that he sometimes thought the
living tenants were the shadows, and
the painted figures the realities---I have
sometimes felt as if were a wandering
spirit, and this great, unchanging multi
vertebrate which faced night after
night, was one ever listening animal,
which writhed along after me wherever
I fed, and coiled a. my feet every even
ing, casting up to me the same sleepless
eyes which l thought / had closed with
my last drowsy dissertation.