And Another Thing

21 June 2008

How to fill a lecture hall, and how to empty it

Before microphones came along, public speakers had to take lessons in projecting their voices. In France, the voice coaches employed at the Salle Garnier, the big opera house in Paris, also took on pupils from the Chambre de Députés. Clémenceau had lessons. So did Poincaré. When I lived in Paris, Edouard Herriot was sometimes pointed out to me as the last politician who had taken trouble to ‘speak properly’. Successful speakers were referred to as ‘un ténor’. In England the last public figure to benefit from speech training was Oswald Mosley, as those who heard him speak in Trafalgar Square will remember. Mosley also used the formal and vigorous repertoire of oratorical gestures, which were still employed up to the second world war, and which were also taught. Natural speakers like Lloyd George and Aneurin Bevan did not need elocution training because they inherited the Celtic hywl and body movements of the Welsh tradition.

I have been reading about the famous address which Thomas Carlyle gave to the students of Edinburgh University, on 2 April 1866, after they elected him their rector. He was already 70, and had not spoken in public since his series on Heroes in 1840. He tried to wriggle out of giving a lecture but they would not have it. Worrying about it made him ill, and his wife Jane worried still more — it is believed to have hastened her death, which occurred the same year. In the end Carlyle decided against a written text, and just before getting to his feet he threw away his notes too, and spoke extemporarily. This was an amazing thing for someone of his age and nervous temperament, for there must have been thousands present, and delivery cannot have taken less than an hour. But when he sat down the mighty audience rose to their feet and cheered, and the organisers were able immediately to send to Jane Carlyle, cowering in London and waiting anxiously for the outcome, a cable which read ‘A perfect triumph’. The students followed Carlyle back to his lodgings and stood outside huzzahing until he told them to go, as he wanted to sleep. There is a superb drawing of Carlyle speaking at this event, done on the spot by one of those skilled instant-action artists in which Victorian journalism abounded. It shows the great man radiating wisdom and benevolence.