第41章
Vous ne croyiez pas, vous autres, que je savais quelque chose de cela! Ah, nous avons un peu de sagacite, voyez vous! Nous ne sommes nullement la bete qu'on pense!" - LE FAISEUR DE QUESTIONSDONNE PEU D'ATTENTION AUX REPONSES QU'ON FAIT; CE N'EST PAS LA DANSSA SPECIALITE.
Le membre a "Bylaws" est le bouchon de toutes les emotions mousseuses et genereuses qui se montrent dans la Societe.C'est un empereur manque, - un tyran a la troiseme trituration.C'est un esprit dur, borne, exact, grand dans les petitesses, petit dans les grandeurs, selon le mot du grand Jefferson.On ne l'aime pas dans la Societe, mais on le respecte et on le craint.Il n'y a qu'un mot pour ce membre audessus de "Bylaws." Ce mot est pour lui ce que l'Om est aux Hundous.C'est sa religion; il n'y a rien audela.
Ce mot la c'est la CONSTITUTION!
Lesdites Societes publient des feuilletons de tems en tems.On les trouve abandonnes a sa porte, nus comme des enfans nouveaunes, faute de membrane cutanee, ou meme papyracee.Si on aime la botanique, on y trouve une memoire sur les coquilles; si on fait des etudes zoologiques, on square trouve un grand tas de q' [square root of minus one], ce qui doit etre infiniment plus commode que les encyclopedies.Ainsi il est clair comme la metaphysique qu'on doit devenir membre d'une Societe telle que nous decrivons.
RECETTE POUR LE DEPILATOIRE PHYSIOPHILOSOPHIQUEChaux vive lb.ss.Eau bouillante Oj.
Depilez avec.Polissez ensuite.
I told the boy that his translation into French was creditable to him; and some of the company wishing to hear what there was in the piece that made me smile, I turned it into English for them, as well as I could, on the spot.
The landlady's daughter seemed to be much amused by the idea that a depilatory could take the place of literary and scientific accomplishments; she wanted me to print the piece, so that she might send a copy of it to her cousin in Mizzourah; she didn't think he'd have to do anything to the outside of his head to get into any of the societies; he had to wear a wig once, when he played a part in a tabullo.
No, - said I, - I shouldn't think of printing that in English.
I'll tell you why.As soon as you get a few thousand people together in a town, there is somebody that every sharp thing you say is sure to hit.What if a thing was written in Paris or in Pekin? - that makes no difference.Everybody in those cities, or almost everybody, has his counterpart here, and in all large places.- You never studied AVERAGES as I have had occasion to.
I'll tell you how I came to know so much about averages.There was one season when I was lecturing, commonly, five evenings in the week, through most of the lecturing period.I soon found, as most speakers do, that it was pleasanter to work one lecture than to keep several in hand.
- Don't you get sick to death of one lecture? - said the landlady's daughter, - who had a new dress on that day, and was in spirits for conversation.
I was going to talk about averages, - I said, - but I have no objection to telling you about lectures, to begin with.
A new lecture always has a certain excitement connected with its delivery.One thinks well of it, as of most things fresh from his mind.After a few deliveries of it, one gets tired and then disgusted with its repetition.Go on delivering it, and the disgust passes off, until, after one has repeated it a hundred or a hundred and fifty times, he rather enjoys the hundred and first or hundred and fifty-first time, before a new audience.But this is on one condition, - that he never lays the lecture down and lets it cool.If he does, there comes on a loathing for it which is intense, so that the sight of the old battered manuscript is as bad as sea-sickness.
A new lecture is just like any other new tool.We use it for a while with pleasure.Then it blisters our hands, and we hate to touch it.By-and-by our hands get callous, and then we have no longer any sensitiveness about it.But if we give it up, the calluses disappear; and if we meddle with it again, we miss the novelty and get the blisters.- The story is often quoted of Whitefield, that he said a sermon was good for nothing until it had been preached forty times.A lecture doesn't begin to be old until it has passed its hundredth delivery; and some, I think, have doubled, if not quadrupled, that number.These old lectures are a man's best, commonly; they improve by age, also, - like the pipes, fiddles, and poems I told you of the other day.One learns to make the most of their strong points and to carry off their weak ones, -to take out the really good things which don't tell on the audience, and put in cheaper things that do.All this degrades him, of course, but it improves the lecture for general delivery.
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.
- No, indeed, - I should be very sorry to say anything disrespectful of audiences.I have been kindly treated by a great many, and may occasionally face one hereafter.But I tell you the AVERAGE intellect of five hundred persons, taken as they come, is not very high.It 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.I think, that, if any experienced lecturer gives you a 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.