MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IAM not a nervous speaker, but I confess that during the ten years that I sat in the House of Commons I was never able completely to master the terror which that august assembly inspires. I found it necessary to learn my opening sentences by heart, since the shock of being called suddenly, and finding oneself on one's feet, momentarily numbs both brain and will. I observed on such occasions that my throat developed a disconcerting tendency to become parched, and that I was obliged to press my legs hard against the bench behind me, in order to conceal from my fellow members that my knees were about to knock. Many politicians have sought to explain why even the most hardened orator is conscious that the House of Commons is the most alarming audience in the world. Some say that this is because one is speaking to experts whose standards of rhetoric are exceptionally high. Others contend that it is the mixture of attention and inattention, of boredom and interruptions, which disconcerts. I have heard people ascribe the discomfort which all experience when speaking in Parliament to the physical inconvenience entailed by the structure of the House and the alignment of the benches. It is indeed true that the posture which members are obliged to adopt is not one which stimulates self-confidence, and that the absence of any desk or table on which to rest one's notes deprives one of support. It is not merely their eminence which gives to the front bench that air of assurance ; it is because they can grasp the box in front of them with their two hands and lay their papers upon its surface. Each of these several causes contributes to an orator's uneasiness, but the main cause surely is that one is aware that to make a speech in the House of Commons is a highly important thing to do. The ordinary back bencher is not often called ; he will certainly have to wait for hours while the debate winds its weary way ; he will certainly fail again and again to catch the Speaker's eye ; and he will sit there in increasing apprehension while member after member will use the very arguments, and make the very points, which he himself has prepared. And when at last he is called and stands trembling before the Assembly, he knows full well that by what he says his reputation may be made or marred.
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Incidental speeches and lectures are far less alarming. The orator has a reading desk in front of him, or at least a table on which he can lean. He may feel even that he knows more about his subject than do those whom he is addressing. He can, within limits, choose his own time ; even the most voluble chairman must sooner or later bring his introduction to an end ; and such interruptions as may occur are more often stimulating than disconcerting. Above all, perhaps, he is not intimidated by the consciousness that his repute and influence may depend upon the manner in which he acquits himself before his audience. He may make a good speech or a bad speech ; his lecture may be informative or dull ; the response which he arouses may be either enthusiastic or flat. But he is not haunted by the dread that some clumsy phrase, some momentary aberration, some foolish answer to an interjection, may cause his stock to slump suddenly and his repute to fall. There are means, however—and I recommend them to those who attend political meetings—by which even the most hardened speaker or lecturer can be thrown off his balance. At the 1935 election I was much disconcerted by the presence of an elderly lady who regularly attended my meetings. She would occupy a seat in the front row, grasp her umbrella firmly, and ejaculate at three minute intervals the piercing, wounding words, " We don't want you." I found the iteration of this remark and the titters which it produced a most embarrassing' experience.
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Ironical laughter, also, is one of the means by which a speaker's patience can be sorely tried. It represents one of the most unanswer- able forms of interruption and it angers the speaker by imputing— and in a manner which is difficult to counter—false motives, general untruthfulness and patent insincerity. Yet of all the many devices by which an orator can be disconcerted, the most irritating is that of deliberate and overt inattention. This sometimes takes the form of sleep, whether genuine or simulated. I do not worry overmuch when I observe sleep or hear loud snores ; after all, the person afflicted may be naturally of a somnolent disposition, or suffering from adenoids and catarrh. This form of affront may not be intentional. A more telling means of manifesting deliberate inattention is the reading of newspapers. Even the most practised speaker finds that his mind is diverted from his discourse when he observes among his audience a man or woman reading with interest and concentration an evening paper, page by page. The desire rises within him to say something which will, if only for an instant, distract the attention of the newspaper reader from the printed page. It is at such moments that paradoxes, or challenging statements, break through the crust of caution ; it is at such moments that the speaker, with a supreme effort of will, must •hold himself in check. I remember in Paris once being asked to give a lecture to the top boys and girls of a certain seminary. In the first row there were three boys and two girls who held Paris Soir in front of their noses and read it diligently line by line, turning the pages with wide gestures of inattention. My mind became con- centrated upon these five people ; the rest of the audience ceased to have any significance, and I only recovered my equanimity when I realised that they were protesting not so much against me as against the director of the seminary who had forced them to attend.
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These remarks upon the value of overt newspaper-reading as a device for disconcerting orators, have been suggested to me by the events which occurred in the French Chamber on Friday last. Monsieur Bidault was making a most important declaration on foreign policy. The Communist members, in order to manifest their disapproval of Monsieur Bidault's statement, indulged in loud conversation among themselves. But they did worse than that. They opened L'Humanite and perused it ostentatiously, line by line. Yet, had they not desired on this occasion to manifest deliberate inattention, they would have gained much from Monsieur Bidault's speech. It lasted one hour and a half, so that there must have been but few lines of the Humanite which the Communist deputies failed to scan. Their inattention was unfortunate as well as rude, since• Monsieur Bidault went further than any responsible statesman has gone before. He asserted that the present tension in Europe contained within it the seeds of war. He asserted openly that the Russians and the Russians alone were responsible for the break-down of the Three-Power Conference, and for the refusal of the Eastern Governments to further the Marshall Plan. Yet the iron curtain would not suffice permanently to rupture the ancient connections which existed between France and the countries of Eastern Europe. Meanwhile the basis of France's policy must be close co-operation with Great Britain, "our old friend in good and evil days."
* * * * The Communist deputies paid no attention to these outright and important pronouncements. They continued with corporate discourtesy to read their newspapers. A few sullen protests against this conduct arose from the benches of the Centre and the Right. The Communists went on reading. There are many things which I dislike about Communism, but what saddens me most is the effect it has upon the human brain. The mind of the Communist ceases to function as an organism, it becomes a machine. The great steel pistons rise and fall, the little cogs revolve with arrogant certainty, the whole factory throbs with precision. There are some, I know, who in our vague and undisciplined world find an attraction in this mechanism. To me it means the denial of all human values ; the repudiation of those habits of truth and gentleness which seem to me to be the only certainties which man, in all these million years, has been enabled to acquire. To me all this determinism . seems to reduce to the proportions of a cash-register man's unconquerable mind.
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