uttermost; indeed my experience has furnished me with no better
corrective of the tendency to scholastic pedantry which besets all those
who are absorbed in pursuits remote from the common ways of men, and
become habituated to think and speak in the technical dialect of their
own little world, as if there were no other.

If the popular lecture thus, as I believe, finds one moiety of its
justification in the self-discipline of the lecturer, it surely finds the
other half in its effect on the auditory. For though various sadly
comical experiences of the results of my own efforts have led me to
entertain a very moderate estimate of the purely intellectual value of
lectures; though I venture to doubt if more than one in ten of an average
audience carries away an accurate notion of what the speaker has been
driving at; yet is that not equally true of the oratory of the hustings,
of the House of Commons, and even of the pulpit?

Yet the children of this world are wise in their generation; and both the
politician and the priest are justified by results. The living voice has
an influence over human action altogether independent of the intellectual
worth of that which it utters. Many years ago, I was a guest at a great
City dinner. A famous orator, endowed with a voice of rare flexibility
and power; a born actor, ranging with ease through every part, from
refined comedy to tragic unction, was called upon to reply to a toast.
The orator was a very busy man, a charming conversationalist and by no
means despised a good dinner; and, I imagine, rose without having given a
thought to what he was going to say. The rhythmic roll of sound was
admirable, the gestures perfect, the earnestness impressive; nothing was
lacking save sense and, occasionally, grammar. When the speaker sat down
the applause was terrific and one of my neighbours was especially
enthusiastic. So when he had quieted down, I asked him what the orator