THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING. J. BERG ESENWEIN DALE CARNAGEY

investment by talking dully?

      _Concluding Hints_

      Do not make haste to begin--haste shows lack of control.

      Do not apologize. It ought not to be necessary; and if it is, it will

      not help. Go straight ahead.

      Take a deep breath, relax, and begin in a quiet conversational tone as

      though you were speaking to one large friend. You will not find it half

      so bad as you imagined; really, it is like taking a cold plunge: after

      you are in, the water is fine. In fact, having spoken a few times you

      will even anticipate the plunge with exhilaration. To stand before an

      audience and make them think your thoughts after you is one of the

      greatest pleasures you can ever know. Instead of fearing it, you ought

      to be as anxious as the fox hounds straining at their leashes, or the

      race horses tugging at their reins.

      So cast out fear, for fear is cowardly--when it is not mastered. The

      bravest know fear, but they do not yield to it. Face your audience

      pluckily--if your knees quake, _MAKE_ them stop. In your audience lies

      some victory for you and the cause you represent. Go win it. Suppose

      Charles Martell had been afraid to hammer the Saracen at Tours; suppose

      Columbus had feared to venture out into the unknown West; suppose our

      forefathers had been too timid to oppose the tyranny of George the

      Third; suppose that any man who ever did anything worth while had been a

      coward! The world owes its progress to the men who have dared, and you

      must dare to speak the effective word that is in your heart to

      speak--for often it requires courage to utter a single sentence. But

      remember that men erect no monuments and weave no laurels for those who

      fear to do what they can.

      Is all this unsympathetic, do you say?

      Man, what you need is not sympathy, but a push. No one doubts that

      temperament and nerves and illness and even praiseworthy modesty may,

      singly or combined, cause the speaker's cheek to blanch before an

      audience, but neither can any one doubt that coddling will magnify this

      weakness. The victory lies in a fearless frame of mind. Prof. Walter

      Dill Scott says: "Success or failure in business is caused more by

      mental attitude even than by mental capacity." Banish the fear-attitude;

      acquire the confident attitude. And remember that the only way to

      acquire it is--_to acquire it_.

      In this foundation chapter we have tried to strike the tone of much that

      is to follow. Many of these ideas will be amplified and enforced in a

      more specific way; but through all these chapters on an art which Mr.

      Gladstone believed to be more powerful than the public press, the note

      of _justifiable self-confidence_ must sound again and again.

      QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES.

      1. What is the cause of self-consciousness?

      2. Why are animals free from it?

      3. What is your observation regarding self-consciousness in children?

      4. Why are you free from it under the stress of unusual excitement?

      5. How does moderate excitement affect you?

      6. What are the two fundamental requisites for the acquiring of

      self-confidence? Which is the more important?

      7. What effect does confidence on the part of the speaker have on the

      audience?

      8. Write out a two-minute speech on "Confidence and Cowardice."

      9. What effect do habits of thought have on confidence? In this

      connection read the chapter on "Right Thinking and Personality."

      10. Write out very briefly any experience you may have had involving the

      teachings of this chapter.

      11. Give a three-minute talk on "Stage-Fright," including a (kindly)

      imitation of two or more victims.

      THE SIN OF MONOTONY

      One day Ennui was born from Uniformity.

      --MOTTE.

      Our English has changed with the years so that many words now connote

      more than they did originally. This is true of the word _monotonous_.

      From "having but one tone," it has come to mean more broadly, "lack of

      variation."

      The monotonous speaker not only drones along in the same volume and

      pitch of tone but uses always the same emphasis, the same speed, the

      same thoughts--or dispenses with thought altogether.

      Monotony, the cardinal and most common sin of the public speaker, is not

      a transgression--it is rather a sin of omission, for it consists in

      living up to the confession of the Prayer Book: "We have left undone

      those things we ought to have done."

      Emerson says, "The virtue of art lies in detachment, in sequestering one

      object from the embarrassing variety." That is just what the monotonous

      speaker fails to do--he does _not_ detach one thought or phrase from

      another, they are all expressed in the same manner.

      To tell you that your speech is monotonous may mean very little to you,

      so let us look at the nature--and the curse--of monotony in other

      spheres of life, then we shall appreciate more fully how it will blight

      an otherwise good speech.

      If the Victrola in the adjoining apartment grinds out just three

      selections over and over again, it is pretty safe to assume that your

      neighbor has no other records. If a speaker uses only a few of his

      powers, it points very plainly to the fact that the rest of his powers

      are not developed. Monotony reveals our limitations.

      In its effect on its victim, monotony is actually deadly--it will drive

      the bloom from the cheek and the lustre from the eye as quickly as sin,

      and often leads to viciousness. The worst punishment that human

      ingenuity has ever been able to invent is extreme monotony--solitary

      confinement. Lay a marble on the table and do nothing eighteen