Smyrna times., 1869-12-08
The Average Of Audiences.

A thoroughly popular lecture ought to have
nothing in it which FIVE hundred people cannot
all take in a flash, Just as it is uttered
should be very sorry to say anything dsrespect-
ful of audiences. | have been kindly treated by
great many, and may occasionally face one
hereafter. But tell you the acreage intel
lect of five hundred persons, taken as they
come, is not very high. 1t may be sound and
safe, so far as it goes, but it is not very rapid
or profound. A lecture ought to be something
which all can understand, about something
which interests everybody l think, that if
any experienced lecturer gives you different
account from this, it will probably be one of
those eloquent or forcible speakers who hold
an audience by the charm of their manner,
whatever they talk about,-even when they
don't talk very well
But an Average, which was what I meant to
speak about, is one of the most extraordinary
subjects OF observation and study. 1t is awful
10 its uniformity, in its automatic necessity Of
action. Two communities of ants or bees are
exactly alike in all their actions, so far as we
can see. Two lyceum assemblies, Of FIVE hun
dred each, are so nearly alike, that they are
absolutely undistinguiShable in many cases by
any definite mark, and there is nothing but
the place and time by which one can tell the
remarkably intelligent audience" of town
| in New York or Ohio from one in any New Eng
land town of similar size. OF course, if any
principle of selection has come in, as in those
special associations of young men which are
common in Cities it deranges the uniformity
of the assembage. But let there be no such
interfering circumstances and one knows pref
ty we'll even the look the audience will have
before he goes in. Front seats: few folks
shiny headed, slant up best ear towards the
speaker,-drop off asleep after a while, when
the air begins to get a little narcotic with car
bOnic acid. Bright women's faces, young and
middle-aged, little behind these, but toward
the front-(pick out the best, and lecture
mainly to that Here and there countenancC
sharp and schOarlike, and a dozen pretty fe
male ones sprinkled about An indefinite mum
Der of pairs of young people, happy but not
always very attentive Boys, in the background
more or less quiet. Dull faces here, there, -
: in how many places don't say dull people
! but faces without ray OF sympathy or a move
: ment of expression. They are what kill the
lecturer. These negative faces, with their
vacuOus eyes and stony lineaments, pump and
D suck the warm soul out of him that is the
9 chief reason why lecturers grow so pale befor
the season Is over. They render latent an,
I amount of vital caloric ; they act on our mind
as those cOld-booded creatures | was talking
q about act on our hearts s-.t
e Out of all these inevitable elements the au
dience is generated, "a great compound verte
d brate, as much like fifty others you have see
h as any two mammals of the same species ar
n like each other Each audience laughs, an,
d each cries, in just the same places of your lee
. ture; that is, if you make one laugh or cry
!, you make all. Even those little indescribabl
q movements which lecturer takes coghizanc
of, just as driver notices his horses cOckin
= his ears, are sure to come in exactly the sam
: place of your lecture always ldeclare to you
;. that, as the monk said about the picture ]
;, the convent,-that he sometimes thought th
= living tenants were the shadows, and the pain
/, ed figures the realities, II have sometimes fe
!, as if were wandering spirit, aud this grea
e unchanging multivertebrate which faced nigf
- after night was one ever listening anima
= which writhed along after me wherever | fec
q and coiled at my feet every evening, turnin
n mp to. me the same seepless eyes which
:, - thought had closed with my last dIowsy il
20 20 cantation T. Ottver Wendell Holmes.