There is, however, one vital difference between American and English
audiences which would be apt to discourage at the outset any American
lecturer who might go to England. The English audiences, from the
nature of the way in which they have been brought together, expect
more. In England they still associate lectures with information. We
don't. Our American lecture audiences are, in nine cases out of ten,
organised by a woman's club of some kind and drawn not from the
working class, but from--what shall we call it?--the class that
doesn't have to work, or, at any rate, not too hard. It is largely a
social audience, well educated without being "highbrow," and tolerant
and kindly to a degree. In fact, what the people mainly want is to
see the lecturer. They have heard all about G. K. Chesterton and
Hugh Walpole and John Drinkwater, and so when these gentlemen come to
town the woman's club want to have a look at them, just as the
English people, who are all crazy about animals, flock to the zoo to
look at a new giraffe. They don't expect the giraffe to do anything
in particular. They want to see it, that's all. So with the American
woman's club audience. After they have seen Mr. Chesterton they ask
one another as they come out--just as an incidental matter--"Did you
understand his lecture?" and the answer is, "I can't say I did." But
there is no malice about it. They can now go and say that they have
seen Mr. Chesterton; that's worth two dollars in itself. The nearest
thing to this attitude of mind that I heard of in England was at the
City Temple in London, where they have every week a huge gathering of
about two thousand people, to listen to a (so-called) popular
lecture. When I was there I was told that the person who had preceded
me was Lord Haldane, who had lectured on Einstein's Theory of
Relativity. I said to the chairman, "Surely this kind of audience
couldn't understand a lecture like that!" He shook his head. "No," he
said, "they didn't understand it, but they all enjoyed it."