Priming an Audience.
Priming is as necessary for an audience as for a gun. No speech, however eloquent and witty the orator, can "go off" well without it.
The priming of an audience is the man—or men—that come to the meeting in the spirit of it, having taken the trouble to get into the spirit of it beforehand. They have an appetite for what is to be said and done. They are not all fagged out to begin with. They are interested in the subject and the speaker.
More than that, these delightful people are not afraid to let their neighbors in the audience know that they are not bored and do not expect to be. They lean over the seat in front: "Oh, I do think the speaker we are to hear is just too lovely for anything!" They lean back over their own seat: "I have been looking forward to this meeting for weeks!" They create an atmosphere of expectation before the speaker appears on the platform.
When he appears, more than likely they lead off in a round of applause. They might have waited decorously until the speaker is introduced, but, bless you! they are too full of it for that. They'll risk a premature explosion.
The very expression of their faces, as they look up at the speaker, is priming enough for any speech. "Hurrah!" their faces exclaim. "We believe in you, old boy! Sail in, and do your best!" That expression is so radiant that it spreads. It is like a sunbeam, reflected back and forth over a room.
They have taken off their gloves, from their hands and their souls. They are not afraid to applaud, at the start and all through. Sometimes they applaud with their voices as well as with their hands. "Good!" they cry. If they are Englishmen they shout cheerily, "Hear! Hear!" "Bravo!" they occasionally exclaim. "Amen!" they vociferate, even though they may not be Methodists. First thing you know, the entire room vibrates with "Amens!"
It doesn't need much priming to set off a lot of gunpowder. A very insignificant listener may be the making of a very big speech. I mean to try my hand at it. And Heaven send me such a hearer when, in my turn, I am obliged to face an audience!
Thought-Absorbers.
In the auditorium of the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University some interesting and valuable experiments have been made regarding the acoustic properties of rooms.
That auditorium is shaped like Sander's Theater, the university assembly hall, in which speakers may be heard with ease; but the museum auditorium was troubled with an annoying reverberation. Words would bound and rebound from the walls, until what a man might say would be lost in the echoes of what he had said. It was a sore disappointment to the projectors of the building.
Thereupon Professor Sabine set himself to compare Sander's Theater with the museum auditorium. The most noticeable difference was that Sander's Theater possessed hundreds of large, soft cushions in the seats, while the museum auditorium opposed to the sound waves only hard reflecting surfaces. Cushions were brought in from Sander's Theater and spread round; immediately there was improvement, which has been made still more marked by hanging felt curtains upon the walls.
Professor Sabine has gone further, and has learned to what extent different substances absorb sound. Open windows in a room, of course, do most to prevent reverberation; taking this effect as the unit, it has been found that glass or tiles or brick in cement absorbs only about one fortieth as much sound.
Upholstered settees absorb nearly ten times as much sound as wooden settees. Thus a regular scale of sound absorption has been formed.
This is all interesting to me, but I am far more interested in the suggestion it affords regarding the reception different persons give to the ideas that are presented to them.
Some are like the museum auditorium: They shed thoughts as a greased pole sheds water. If there is a company of this kind of persons, they bat the thought to and fro among them, and it does not sink into a single skull. A room full of such men or women is like a whispering gallery, and furnishes an audience about as inspiring.
On the other hand, the good listener is like Sander's Theater. Every syllable falls distinct and perfect into that absorbing atmosphere. There is no confusion. There is no distraught bandying of words. It is an intelligent and appreciative reception that gladdens the heart of a speaker and stimulates his mind.
Speaking to the first listener, one runs up against a blank wall. We are conscious that our auditor is not paying attention; his thoughts are far away; his wandering eye testifies to the wanderings of his mind.
Speaking to the second listener, one comes into warm, vital contact with a responsive personality. The smiling mouth, the shining eyes, the attentive attitude, all invite us to be our best. A stone image could be an orator before such an audience.
Sometimes I think we can do more good by listening wisely than even by speaking wisely, because there are in the world so many wise speakers compared with the number of wise listeners.
However that may be, it is good to know that we all can become thought-absorbers, though we may not be already. We can spread round the cushions. We can hang up the felt. We can open the windows. We can cover the hard glass of indifference and the cold plaster of selfishness with warm, soft layers of humility and kindliness. We can become as renowned in the annals of heaven for our eloquent listening as Demosthenes is famed in earth's annals for his eloquent speaking.
All of which is only another way of picturing the stony and trodden ground into which the seeds do not fruitfully fall, and the good ground which receives the seed into its rich depths, and brings forth its hundredfold.
"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."