When he is allowed to enter he finds the meeting-room little different from the one he has left, except that it is provided with a sort of throne on a raised platform at one end and with cushioned benches for seats. On the throne, if one may so term it, sits Lord Lister, scarcely more than his head showing above what seems to be a great velvet cushion which surmounts his desk, at the base of which, in full view of the society, rests the mace, fixing the eye of the "stranger," as it is alleged to have fixed that of Cromwell aforetime, with a peculiar fascination. On a lower plane than the president, at his right and left, sit Sir Michael Foster and Professor Arthur William Rucker, the two permanent secretaries. At Sir Michael's right, and one stage nearer the audience, stands the lecturer, on the raised platform and behind the desk which extends clear across the front of the room. As it chances, the lecturer this afternoon is Professor Ehrlich, of Berlin and Frankfort-on-the-Main, who has been invited to deliver the Croonian lecture. He is speaking in German, and hence most of the fellows are assisting their ears by following the lecture in a printed translation, copies of which, in proof, were to be secured at the door.
The subject of the lecture is "Artificial Immunization from Disease." It is clear that the reader is followed with interested attention, which now and again gives rise to a subdued shuffle of applause.
The fact that the lecturer is speaking German serves perhaps to suggest even more vividly than might otherwise occur to one the contrast between this meeting and a meeting of the corresponding German society--the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Each is held in an old building of palatial cast and dimensions, of which Burlington House, here in Piccadilly, is much the older--dating from 1664--although its steam-heating and electric-lighting apparatus, when contrasted with the tile stoves and candles of the other, would not suggest this. For the rest, the rooms are not very dissimilar in general appearance, except for the platform and throne. But there the members of the society are shut off from the audience both by the physical barrier of the table and by the striking effect of their appearance in full dress, while here the fellows chiefly compose the audience, there being only a small company of "strangers" present, and these in no way to be distinguished by dress or location from the fellows themselves. It may be added that the custom of the French Academy of Sciences is intermediate between these two. There the visitors occupy seats apart, at the side of the beautiful hall, the main floor being reserved for members. But the members themselves are not otherwise distinguishable, and they come and go and converse together even during the reading of a paper almost as if this were a mere social gathering. As it is thus the least formal, the French meeting is also by far the most democratic of great scientific gatherings. Its doors are open to whoever may choose to enter. The number who avail themselves of this privilege is not large, but it includes, on occasions, men of varied social status and of diverse races and colors--none of whom, so far as I could ever discern, attracts the slightest attention.