THE BOOK OF THE LANTERN. 267 



sparingly. Let the lecturer look upon them as the high- 

 lights of a work of art. The novice with a brush will daub 

 such high-lights on every projecting corner of the compo- 

 sition, until the beauty of the whole is lost in their glare ; 

 a true artist, on the other hand, will deftly put in a touch 

 here and another there, with the result that the whole work 

 is brightened and generally improved. 



The grosser faults into which a novice in lecturing is 

 apt to fall are generally the result of simple inexperience 

 or carelessness. He should make it a golden rule that 

 whatever may occur he must not lose his temper. In the 

 ordinary affairs of life, the man who can control his temper 

 has always the best of an argument ; and still more so is 

 this the case on the platform (and on this platform, let 

 us remember that there are often some very trying inci- 

 dents to deal with, particularly amid the darkness of 

 lantern illustrations). I once found it very hard to control 

 both my sentences and my temper, when I became aware 

 that I was a target for some mischievous boy's pea-shooter; 

 but on politely addressing the unseen youth, and telling 

 him that I knew he was a very smalllooj, and that therefore 

 I could excuse his childish conduct, but at the same time he 

 must keep his peas in his pocket, the nuisance stopped. I 

 recently heard of a case where an inexperienced lecturer 

 was loudly told more than once to " speak up." Instead of 

 taking this invitation as a valuable hint, and acting upon 

 it as he should have done, he retorted rudely, and the audi- 

 ence refused to listen to him any longer. It is to be hoped 

 that he will not again attempt work for which he is 

 evidently quite unfitted. 



