The Art of Public Speaking

Sharp rising

Long rising

Level

Long falling

Sharp falling

Sharp rising and falling

Sharp falling and rising

Hesitating

These may be varied indefinitely, and serve merely to illustrate what wide varieties of combination may be effected by these two simple inflections of the voice.

It is impossible to tabulate the various inflections which serve to express various shades of thought and feeling.A few suggestions are offered here, together with abundant exercises for practise, but the only real way to master inflection is to observe, experiment, and practise.

For example, take the common sentence, "Oh, he's all right."Note how a rising inflection may be made to express faint praise, or polite doubt, or uncertainty of opinion.Then note how the same words, spoken with a generally falling inflection may denote certainty, or good-natured approval, or enthusiastic praise, and so on.

In general, then, we find that a bending upward of the voice will suggest doubt and uncertainty, while a decided falling inflection will suggest that you are certain of your ground.

Students dislike to be told that their speeches are "not so bad," spoken with a rising inflection.To enunciate these words with a long falling inflection would indorse the speech rather heartily.

Say good-bye to an imaginary person whom you expect to see again tomorrow; then to a dear friend you never expect to meet again.Note the difference in inflection.

"I have had a delightful time," when spoken at the termination of a formal tea by a frivolous woman takes altogether different inflection than the same words spoken between lovers who have enjoyed themselves.Mimic the two characters in repeating this and observe the difference.

Note how light and short the inflections are in the following brief quotation from "Anthony the Absolute," by Samuel Mervin.

Deliver the two following selections with great earnestness, and note how the inflections differ from the foregoing.Then reread these selections in a light, superficial manner, noting that the change of attitude is expressed through a change of inflection.

—Cranch

It must be made perfectly clear that inflection deals mostly in subtle, delicate shading within single words, and is not by any means accomplished by a general rise or fall in the voice in speaking a sentence. Yet certain sentences may be effectively delivered with just such inflection. Try this sentence in several ways, making no modulation until you come to the last two syllables, as indicated,

Now try this sentence by inflecting the important words so as to bring out various shades of meaning. The first forms, illustrated above, show change of pitch within a single word; the forms you will work out for yourself should show a number of such inflections throughout the sentence.

One of the chief means of securing emphasis is to employ a long falling inflection on the emphatic words—that is, to let the voice fall to a lower pitch on an interior vowel sound in a word. Try it on the words "every," "eleemosynary," and "destroy."

Use long falling inflections on the italicized words in the following selection, noting their emphatic power.Are there any other words here that long falling inflections would help to make expressive?

Be careful not to over-inflect. Too much modulation produces an unpleasant effect of artificiality, like a mature matron trying to be kittenish. It is a short step between true expression and unintentional burlesque. Scrutinize your own tones. Take a single expression like "Oh, no!" or "Oh, I see," or "Indeed," and by patient self-examination see how many shades of meaning may be expressed by inflection. This sort of common-sense practise will do you more good than a book of rules. But don't forget to listen to your own voice.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1.In your own words define (a) cadence, (b) modulation, (c) inflection, (d) emphasis.

2.Name five ways of destroying monotony and gaining effectiveness in speech.

3.What states of mind does falling inflection signify?Make as full a list as you can.

4.Do the same for the rising inflection.

5.How does the voice bend in expressing (a) surprise?(b) shame?(c) hate?(d) formality?(e) excitement?

6.Reread some sentence several times and by using different inflections change the meaning with each reading.

7.Note the inflections employed in some speech or conversation.Were they the best that could be used to bring out the meaning?Criticise and illustrate.

8.Render the following passages:

9.Invent an indirect question and show how it would naturally be inflected.

10.Does a direct question always require a rising inflection?Illustrate.

11.Illustrate how the complete ending of an expression or of a speech is indicated by inflection.

12.Do the same for incompleteness of idea.

13.Illustrate (a) trembling, (b) hesitation, and (c) doubt by means of inflection.

14.Show how contrast may be expressed.

15.Try the effects of both rising and falling inflections on the italicized words in the following sentences.State your preference.

SELECTIONS FOR PRACTISE

In the following selections secure emphasis by means of long falling inflections rather than loudness.

Repeat these selections, attempting to put into practise all the technical principles that we have thus far had; emphasizing important words, subordinating unimportant words, variety of pitch, changing tempo, pause, and inflection.If these principles are applied you will have no trouble with monotony.

Constant practise will give great facility in the use of inflection and will render the voice itself flexible.

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CHAPTER VIII

CONCENTRATION IN DELIVERY

Try to rub the top of your head forward and backward at the same time that you are patting your chest. Unless your powers of coördination are well developed you will find it confusing, if not impossible. The brain needs special training before it can do two or more things efficiently at the same instant. It may seem like splitting a hair between its north and northwest corner, but some psychologists argue that no brain can think two distinct thoughts, absolutely simultaneously—that what seems to be simultaneous is really very rapid rotation from the first thought to the second and back again, just as in the above-cited experiment the attention must shift from one hand to the other until one or the other movement becomes partly or wholly automatic.

Whatever is the psychological truth of this contention it is undeniable that the mind measurably loses grip on one idea the moment the attention is projected decidedly ahead to a second or a third idea.

A fault in public speakers that is as pernicious as it is common is that they try to think of the succeeding sentence while still uttering the former, and in this way their concentration trails off; in consequence, they start their sentences strongly and end them weakly.In a well-prepared written speech the emphatic word usually comes at one end of the sentence.But an emphatic word needs emphatic expression, and this is precisely what it does not get when concentration flags by leaping too soon to that which is next to be uttered.Concentrate all your mental energies on the present sentence.Remember that the mind of your audience follows yours very closely, and if you withdraw your attention from what you are saying to what you are going to say, your audience will also withdraw theirs.They may not do so consciously and deliberately, but they will surely cease to give importance to the things that you yourself slight.It is fatal to either the actor or the speaker to cross his bridges too soon.

Of course, all this is not to say that in the natural pauses of your speech you are not to take swift forward surveys—they are as important as the forward look in driving a motor car; the caution is of quite another sort: while speaking one sentence do not think of the sentence to follow. Let it come from its proper source—within yourself. You cannot deliver a broadside without concentrated force—that is what produces the explosion. In preparation you store and concentrate thought and feeling; in the pauses during delivery you swiftly look ahead and gather yourself for effective attack; during the moments of actual speech, SPEAK—DON'T ANTICIPATEDivide your attention and you divide your power.

This matter of the effect of the inner man upon the outer needs a further word here, particularly as touching concentration.

"What do you read, my lord?"Hamlet replied, "Words.Words.Words."That is a world-old trouble.The mechanical calling of words is not expression, by a long stretch.Did you ever notice how hollow a memorized speech usually sounds?You have listened to the ranting, mechanical cadence of inefficient actors, lawyers and preachers.Their trouble is a mental one—they are not concentratedly thinking thoughts that cause words to issue with sincerity and conviction, but are merely enunciating word-sounds mechanically.Painful experience alike to audience and to speaker!A parrot is equally eloquent.Again let Shakespeare instruct us, this tune in the insincere prayer of the King, Hamlet's uncle.He laments thus pointedly:

The truth is, that as a speaker your words must be born again every time they are spoken, then they will not suffer in their utterance, even though perforce committed to memory and repeated, like Dr. Russell Conwell's lecture, "Acres of Diamonds," five thousand times. Such speeches lose nothing by repetition for the perfectly patent reason that they arise from concentrated thought and feeling and not a mere necessity for saying something—which usually means anything, and that, in turn, is tantamount to nothing. If the thought beneath your words is warm, fresh, spontaneous, a part of your self, your utterance will have breath and life.Words are only a result.Do not try to get the result without stimulating the cause.

Do you ask how to concentrate? Think of the word itself, and of its philological brother, concentricThink of how a lens gathers and concenters the rays of light within a given circle.It centers them by a process of withdrawal.It may seem like a harsh saying, but the man who cannot concentrate is either weak of will, a nervous wreck, or has never learned what will-power is good for.

You must concentrate by resolutely withdrawing your attention from everything else.If you concentrate your thought on a pain which may be afflicting you, that pain will grow more intense."Count your blessings" and they will multiply.Center your thought on your strokes and your tennis play will gradually improve.To concentrate is simply to attend to one thing, and attend to nothing else.If you find that you cannot do that, there is something wrong—attend to that first.Remove the cause and the symptom will disappear.Read the chapter on "Will Power."Cultivate your will by willing and then doing, at all costs.Concentrate—and you will win.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1.Select from any source several sentences suitable for speaking aloud; deliver them first in the manner condemned in this chapter, and second with due regard for emphasis toward the close of each sentence.

2.Put into about one hundred words your impression of the effect produced.

3.Tell of any peculiar methods you may have observed or heard of by which speakers have sought to aid their powers of concentration, such as looking fixedly at a blank spot in the ceiling, or twisting a watch charm.

4.What effect do such habits have on the audience?

5.What relation does pause bear to concentration?

6.Tell why concentration naturally helps a speaker to change pitch, tempo, and emphasis.

7. Read the following selection through to get its meaning and spirit clearly in your mind. Then read it aloud, concentrating solely on the thought that you are expressing—do not trouble about the sentence or thought that is coming. Half the troubles of mankind arise from anticipating trials that never occur. Avoid this in speaking. Make the end of your sentences just as strong as the beginning. CONCENTRATE.

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CHAPTER IX

FORCE

—Byron, Don Juan

You have attended plays that seemed fair, yet they did not move you, grip you.In theatrical parlance, they failed to "get over," which means that their message did not get over the foot-lights to the audience.There was no punch, no jab to them—they had no force.

Of course, all this spells disaster, in big letters, not only in a stage production but in any platform effort.Every such presentation exists solely for the audience, and if it fails to hit them—and the expression is a good one—it has no excuse for living; nor will it live long.

What is Force?

Some of our most obvious words open up secret meanings under scrutiny, and this is one of them.

To begin with, we must recognize the distinction between inner and outer force.The one is cause, the other effect.The one is spiritual, the other physical.In this important particular, animate force differs from inanimate force—the power of man, coming from within and expressing itself outwardly, is of another sort from the force of Shimose powder, which awaits some influence from without to explode it. However susceptive to outside stimuli, the true source of power in man lies within himself. This may seem like "mere psychology," but it has an intensely practical bearing on public speaking, as will appear.

Not only must we discern the difference between human force and mere physical force, but we must not confuse its real essence with some of the things that may—and may not—accompany it.For example, loudness is not force, though force at times may be attended by noise.Mere roaring never made a good speech, yet there are moments—moments, mind you, not minutes—when big voice power may be used with tremendous effect.

Nor is violent motion force—yet force may result in violent motion.Hamlet counseled the players:

Force is both a cause and an effect. Inner force, which must precede outer force, is a combination of four elements, acting progressively. First of all, force arises from convictionYou must be convinced of the truth, or the importance, or the meaning, of what you are about to say before you can give it forceful delivery.It must lay strong hold upon your convictions before it can grip your audience.Conviction convinces.

The Saturday Evening Post in an article on "England's T. R." —Winston Spencer Churchill—attributed much of Churchill's and Roosevelt's public platform success to their forceful delivery. No matter what is in hand, these men make themselves believe for the time being that that one thing is the most important on earth. Hence they speak to their audiences in a Do-this-or-you-PERISH manner.

That kind of speaking wins, and it is that virile, strenuous, aggressive attitude which both distinguishes and maintains the platform careers of our greatest leaders.

But let us look a little closer at the origins of inner force.How does conviction affect the man who feels it? We have answered the inquiry in the very question itself—he feels it: Conviction produces emotional tensionStudy the pictures of Theodore Roosevelt and of Billy Sunday in action—action is the word. Note the tension of their jaw muscles, the taut lines of sinews in their entire bodies when reaching a climax of force. Moral and physical force are alike in being both preceded and accompanied by in-tens-ity—tension—tightness of the cords of power.

It is this tautness of the bow-string, this knotting of the muscles, this contraction before the spring, that makes an audience feel—almost see—the reserve power in a speaker. In some really wonderful way it is more what a speaker does not say and do that reveals the dynamo within. Anything may come from such stored-up force once it is let loose; and that keeps an audience alert, hanging on the lips of a speaker for his next word. After all, it is all a question of manhood, for a stuffed doll has neither convictions nor emotional tension. If you are upholstered with sawdust, keep off the platform, for your own speech will puncture you.

Growing out of this conviction-tension comes resolve to make the audience share that conviction-tensionPurpose is the backbone of force; without it speech is flabby—it may glitter, but it is the iridescence of the spineless jellyfish.You must hold fast to your resolve if you would hold fast to your audience.

Finally, all this conviction-tension-purpose is lifeless and useless unless it results in propulsionYou remember how Young in his wonderful "Night Thoughts" delineates the man who

Let not your force "die a-borning,"—bring it to full life in its conviction, emotional tension, resolve, and propulsive power.

Can Force be Acquired?

Yes, if the acquirer has any such capacities as we have just outlined.How to acquire this vital factor is suggested in its very analysis: Live with your subject until you are convinced of its importance.

If your message does not of itself arouse you to tension, PULL yourself together. When a man faces the necessity of leaping across a crevasse he does not wait for inspiration, he wills his muscles into tensity for the spring—it is not without purpose that our English language uses the same word to depict a mighty though delicate steel contrivance and a quick leap through the air. Then resolve—and let it all end in actual punch

This truth is worth reiteration: The man within is the final factor.He must supply the fuel.The audience, or even the man himself, may add the match—it matters little which, only so that there be fire.However skillfully your engine is constructed, however well it works, you will have no force if the fire has gone out under the boiler.It matters little how well you have mastered poise, pause, modulation, and tempo, if your speech lacks fire it is dead.Neither a dead engine nor a dead speech will move anybody.

Four factors of force are measurably within your control, and in that far may be acquired: ideas, feeling about the subject, wording, and deliveryEach of these is more or less fully discussed in this volume, except wording, which really requires a fuller rhetorical study than can here be ventured.It is, however, of the utmost importance that you should be aware of precisely how wording bears upon force in a sentence.Study "The Working Principles of Rhetoric," by John Franklin Genung, or the rhetorical treatises of Adams Sherman Hill, of Charles Sears Baldwin, or any others whose names may easily be learned from any teacher.

Here are a few suggestions on the use of words to attain force:

Choice of Words

PLAIN words are more forceful than words less commonly used—juggle
has more vigor than prestidigitate

SHORT words are stronger than long words—end has more directness than
terminate

SAXON words are usually more forceful than Latinistic words—for force,
use wars against rather than militate against

SPECIFIC words are stronger than general words—pressman is more
definite than printer

CONNOTATIVE words, those that suggest more than they say, have more
power than ordinary words—"She let herself be married" expresses more
than "She married."

EPITHETS, figuratively descriptive words, are more effective than direct
names—"Go tell that old fox," has more "punch" than "Go tell that
sly fellow."ONOMATOPOETIC words, words that convey the sense by the
sound, are more powerful than other words—crash is more effective
than cataclysm


Arrangement of words

Cut out modifiers.

Cut out connectives.

Begin with words that demand attention.

"End with words that deserve distinction," says Prof. Barrett Wendell.

Set strong ideas over against weaker ones, so as to gain strength by the
contrast.

Avoid elaborate sentence structure—short sentences are stronger than
long ones.

Cut out every useless word, so as to give prominence to the really
important ones.

Let each sentence be a condensed battering ram, swinging to its final
blow on the attention.

A familiar, homely idiom, if not worn by much use, is more effective
than a highly formal, scholarly expression.

Consider well the relative value of different positions in the sentence
so that you may give the prominent place to ideas you wish to emphasize.

"But," says someone, "is it not more honest to depend the inherent interest in a subject, its native truth, clearness and sincerity of presentation, and beauty of utterance, to win your audience?Why not charm men instead of capturing them by assault?"

Why Use Force?

There is much truth in such an appeal, but not all the truth.Clearness, persuasion, beauty, simple statement of truth, are all essential—indeed, they are all definite parts of a forceful presentment of a subject, without being the only parts.Strong meat may not be as attractive as ices, but all depends on the appetite and the stage of the meal.

You can not deliver an aggressive message with caressing little strokes.No!Jab it in with hard, swift solar plexus punches.You cannot strike fire from flint or from an audience with love taps.Say to a crowded theatre in a lackadaisical manner: "It seems to me that the house is on fire," and your announcement may be greeted with a laugh.If you flash out the words: "The house's on fire!"they will crush one another in getting to the exits.

The spirit and the language of force are definite with conviction. No immortal speech in literature contains such expressions as "it seems to me," "I should judge," "in my opinion," "I suppose," "perhaps it is true." The speeches that will live have been delivered by men ablaze with the courage of their convictions, who uttered their words as eternal truth. Of Jesus it was said that "the common people heard Him gladly." Why? "He taught them as one having AUTHORITY." An audience will never be moved by what "seems" to you to be truth or what in your "humble opinion" may be so. If you honestly can, assert convictions as your conclusions. Be sure you are right before you speak your speech, then utter your thoughts as though they were a Gibraltar of unimpeachable truth. Deliver them with the iron hand and confidence of a Cromwell. Assert them with the fire of authority. Pronounce them as an ultimatumIf you cannot speak with conviction, be silent.

What force did that young minister have who, fearing to be too dogmatic, thus exhorted his hearers: "My friends—as I assume that you are—it appears to be my duty to tell you that if you do not repent, so to speak, forsake your sins, as it were, and turn to righteousness, if I may so express it, you will be lost, in a measure"?

Effective speech must reflect the era. This is not a rose water age, and a tepid, half-hearted speech will not win. This is the century of trip hammers, of overland expresses that dash under cities and through mountain tunnels, and you must instill this spirit into your speech if you would move a popular audience. From a front seat listen to a first-class company present a modern Broadway drama—not a comedy, but a gripping, thrilling drama. Do not become absorbed in the story; reserve all your attention for the technique and the force of the acting. There is a kick and a crash as well as an infinitely subtle intensity in the big, climax-speeches that suggest this lesson: the same well-calculated, restrained, delicately shaded force would simply rivet your ideas in the minds of your audience.An air-gun will rattle bird-shot against a window pane—it takes a rifle to wing a bullet through plate glass and the oaken walls beyond.

When to Use Force

An audience is unlike the kingdom of heaven—the violent do not always take it by force.There are times when beauty and serenity should be the only bells in your chime.Force is only one of the great extremes of contrast—use neither it nor quiet utterance to the exclusion of other tones: be various, and in variety find even greater force than you could attain by attempting its constant use.If you are reading an essay on the beauties of the dawn, talking about the dainty bloom of a honey-suckle, or explaining the mechanism of a gas engine, a vigorous style of delivery is entirely out of place.But when you are appealing to wills and consciences for immediate action, forceful delivery wins.In such cases, consider the minds of your audience as so many safes that have been locked and the keys lost.Do not try to figure out the combinations.Pour a little nitro glycerine into the cracks and light the fuse.As these lines are being written a contractor down the street is clearing away the rocks with dynamite to lay the foundations for a great building.When you want to get action, do not fear to use dynamite.

The final argument for the effectiveness of force in public speech is the fact that everything must be enlarged for the purposes of the platform—that is why so few speeches read well in the reports on the morning after: statements appear crude and exaggerated because they are unaccompanied by the forceful delivery of a glowing speaker before an audience heated to attentive enthusiasm. So in preparing your speech you must not err on the side of mild statement—your audience will inevitably tone down your words in the cold grey of afterthought. When Phidias was criticised for the rough, bold outlines of a figure he had submitted in competition, he smiled and asked that his statue and the one wrought by his rival should be set upon the column for which the sculpture was destined. When this was done all the exaggerations and crudities, toned by distances, melted into exquisite grace of line and form. Each speech must be a special study in suitability and proportion.

Omit the thunder of delivery, if you will, but like Wendell Phillips put "silent lightning" into your speech.Make your thoughts breathe and your words burn.Birrell said: "Emerson writes like an electrical cat emitting sparks and shocks in every sentence."Go thou and speak likewise.Get the "big stick" into your delivery—be forceful.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1.Illustrate, by repeating a sentence from memory, what is meant by employing force in speaking.

2.Which in your opinion is the most important of the technical principles of speaking that you have studied so far?Why?

3.What is the effect of too much force in a speech?Too little?

4.Note some uninteresting conversation or ineffective speech, and tell why it failed.

5.Suggest how it might be improved.

6.Why do speeches have to be spoken with more force than do conversations?

7. Read aloud the selection on page 84, using the technical principles outlined in chapters III to VIII, but neglect to put any force behind the interpretation.What is the result?

8.Reread several times, doing your best to achieve force.

9. Which parts of the selection on page 84 require the most force?

10.Write a five-minute speech not only discussing the errors of those who exaggerate and those who minimize the use of force, but by imitation show their weaknesses.Do not burlesque, but closely imitate.

11.Give a list of ten themes for public addresses, saying which seem most likely to require the frequent use of force in delivery.

12.In your own opinion, do speakers usually err from the use of too much or too little force?

13.Define (a) bombast; (b) bathos; (c) sentimentality; (d) squeamish.

14.Say how the foregoing words describe weaknesses in public speech.

15. Recast in twentieth-century English "Hamlet's Directions to the Players," page 88

16. Memorize the following extracts from Wendell Phillips' speeches, and deliver them with the of Wendell Phillips' "silent lightning" delivery.

For practise on forceful selections, use "The Irrepressible Conflict," page 67; "Abraham Lincoln," page 76, "Pass Prosperity Around," page 470; "A Plea for Cuba," page 50

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CHAPTER X

FEELING AND ENTHUSIASM

If you are addressing a body of scientists on such a subject as the veins in a butterfly's wings, or on road structure, naturally your theme will not arouse much feeling in either you or your audience.These are purely mental subjects.But if you want men to vote for a measure that will abolish child labor, or if you would inspire them to take up arms for freedom, you must strike straight at their feelings.We lie on soft beds, sit near the radiator on a cold day, eat cherry pie, and devote our attention to one of the opposite sex, not because we have reasoned out that it is the right thing to do, but because it feels right.No one but a dyspeptic chooses his diet from a chart.Our feelings dictate what we shall eat and generally how we shall act.Man is a feeling animal, hence the public speaker's ability to arouse men to action depends almost wholly on his ability to touch their emotions.

Negro mothers on the auction-block seeing their children sold away from them into slavery have flamed out some of America's most stirring speeches. True, the mother did not have any knowledge of the technique of speaking, but she had something greater than all technique, more effective than reason: feeling. The great speeches of the world have not been delivered on tariff reductions or post-office appropriations.The speeches that will live have been charged with emotional force.Prosperity and peace are poor developers of eloquence.When great wrongs are to be righted, when the public heart is flaming with passion, that is the occasion for memorable speaking.Patrick Henry made an immortal address, for in an epochal crisis he pleaded for liberty.He had roused himself to the point where he could honestly and passionately exclaim, "Give me liberty or give me death."His fame would have been different had he lived to-day and argued for the recall of judges.

The Power of Enthusiasm

Political parties hire bands, and pay for applause—they argue that, for vote-getting, to stir up enthusiasm is more effective than reasoning.How far they are right depends on the hearers, but there can be no doubt about the contagious nature of enthusiasm.A watch manufacturer in New York tried out two series of watch advertisements; one argued the superior construction, workmanship, durability, and guarantee offered with the watch; the other was headed, "A Watch to be Proud of," and dwelt upon the pleasure and pride of ownership.The latter series sold twice as many as the former.A salesman for a locomotive works informed the writer that in selling railroad engines emotional appeal was stronger than an argument based on mechanical excellence.

Illustrations without number might be cited to show that in all our actions we are emotional beings.The speaker who would speak efficiently must develop the power to arouse feeling.

Webster, great debater that he was, knew that the real secret of a speaker's power was an emotional one.He eloquently says of eloquence:

When traveling through the Northwest some time ago, one of the present writers strolled up a village street after dinner and noticed a crowd listening to a "faker" speaking on a corner from a goods-box. Remembering Emerson's advice about learning something from every man we meet, the observer stopped to listen to this speaker's appeal. He was selling a hair tonic, which he claimed to have discovered in Arizona. He removed his hat to show what this remedy had done for him, washed his face in it to demonstrate that it was as harmless as water, and enlarged on its merits in such an enthusiastic manner that the half-dollars poured in on him in a silver flood.When he had supplied the audience with hair tonic, he asked why a greater proportion of men than women were bald.No one knew.He explained that it was because women wore thinner-soled shoes, and so made a good electrical connection with mother earth, while men wore thick, dry-soled shoes that did not transmit the earth's electricity to the body.Men's hair, not having a proper amount of electrical food, died and fell out.Of course he had a remedy—a little copper plate that should be nailed on the bottom of the shoe.He pictured in enthusiastic and vivid terms the desirability of escaping baldness—and paid tributes to his copper plates.Strange as it may seem when the story is told in cold print, the speaker's enthusiasm had swept his audience with him, and they crushed around his stand with outstretched "quarters" in their anxiety to be the possessors of these magical plates!

Emerson's suggestion had been well taken—the observer had seen again the wonderful, persuasive power of enthusiasm!

Enthusiasm sent millions crusading into the Holy Land to redeem it from the Saracens. Enthusiasm plunged Europe into a thirty years' war over religion. Enthusiasm sent three small ships plying the unknown sea to the shores of a new world. When Napoleon's army were worn out and discouraged in their ascent of the Alps, the Little Corporal stopped them and ordered the bands to play the Marseillaise.Under its soul-stirring strains there were no Alps.

Listen!Emerson said: "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."Carlyle declared that "Every great movement in the annals of history has been the triumph of enthusiasm."It is as contagious as measles.Eloquence is half inspiration.Sweep your audience with you in a pulsation of enthusiasm.Let yourself go."A man," said Oliver Cromwell, "never rises so high as when he knows not whither he is going."

How are We to Acquire and Develop Enthusiasm?

It is not to be slipped on like a smoking jacket.A book cannot furnish you with it.It is a growth—an effect.But an effect of what?Let us see.

Emerson wrote: "A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of his form merely,—but, by watching for a time his motion and plays, the painter enters his nature, and then can draw him at will in every attitude.So Roos 'entered into the inmost nature of his sheep.'I knew a draughtsman employed in a public survey, who found that he could not sketch the rocks until their geological structure was first explained to him."

When Sarah Bernhardt plays a difficult role she frequently will speak to no one from four o'clock in the afternoon until after the performance. From the hour of four she lives her character. Booth, it is reported, would not permit anyone to speak to him between the acts of his Shakesperean rôles, for he was Macbeth then—not Booth.Dante, exiled from his beloved Florence, condemned to death, lived in caves, half starved; then Dante wrote out his heart in "The Divine Comedy."Bunyan entered into the spirit of his "Pilgrim's Progress" so thoroughly that he fell down on the floor of Bedford jail and wept for joy.Turner, who lived in a garret, arose before daybreak and walked over the hills nine miles to see the sun rise on the ocean, that he might catch the spirit of its wonderful beauty.Wendell Phillips' sentences were full of "silent lightning" because he bore in his heart the sorrow of five million slaves.

There is only one way to get feeling into your speaking—and whatever else you forget, forget not this: You must actually ENTER INTO the character you impersonate, the cause you advocate, the case you argue—enter into it so deeply that it clothes you, enthralls you, possesses you wholly. Then you are, in the true meaning of the word, in sympathy with your subject, for its feeling is your feeling, you "feel with" it, and therefore your enthusiasm is both genuine and contagious. The Carpenter who spoke as "never man spake" uttered words born out of a passion of love for humanity—he had entered into humanity, and thus became Man.

But we must not look upon the foregoing words as a facile prescription for decocting a feeling which may then be ladled out to a complacent audience in quantities to suit the need of the moment. Genuine feeling in a speech is bone and blood of the speech itself and not something that may be added to it or substracted at will.In the ideal address theme, speaker and audience become one, fused by the emotion and thought of the hour.

The Need of Sympathy for Humanity

It is impossible to lay too much stress on the necessity for the speaker's having a broad and deep tenderness for human nature. One of Victor Hugo's biographers attributes his power as an orator and writer to his wide sympathies and profound religious feelings. Recently we heard the editor of Collier's Weekly speak on short-story writing, and he so often emphasized the necessity for this broad love for humanity, this truly religious feeling, that he apologized twice for delivering a sermon. Few if any of the immortal speeches were ever delivered for a selfish or a narrow cause—they were born out of a passionate desire to help humanity; instances, Paul's address to the Athenians on Mars Hill, Lincoln's Gettysburg speech, The Sermon on the Mount, Henry's address before the Virginia Convention of Delegates.

The seal and sign of greatness is a desire to serve others.Self-preservation is the first law of life, but self-abnegation is the first law of greatness—and of art.Selfishness is the fundamental cause of all sin, it is the thing that all great religions, all worthy philosophies, have struck at.Out of a heart of real sympathy and love come the speeches that move humanity.

Former United States Senator Albert J. Beveridge in an introduction to one of the volumes of "Modern Eloquence," says: "The profoundest feeling among the masses, the most influential element in their character, is the religious element.It is as instinctive and elemental as the law of self-preservation.It informs the whole intellect and personality of the people.And he who would greatly influence the people by uttering their unformed thoughts must have this great and unanalyzable bond of sympathy with them."

When the men of Ulster armed themselves to oppose the passage of the Home Rule Act, one of the present writers assigned to a hundred men "Home Rule" as the topic for an address to be prepared by each.Among this group were some brilliant speakers, several of them experienced lawyers and political campaigners.Some of their addresses showed a remarkable knowledge and grasp of the subject; others were clothed in the most attractive phrases.But a clerk, without a great deal of education and experience, arose and told how he spent his boyhood days in Ulster, how his mother while holding him on her lap had pictured to him Ulster's deeds of valor.He spoke of a picture in his uncle's home that showed the men of Ulster conquering a tyrant and marching on to victory.His voice quivered, and with a hand pointing upward he declared that if the men of Ulster went to war they would not go alone—a great God would go with them.

The speech thrilled and electrified the audience. It thrills yet as we recall it. The high-sounding phrases, the historical knowledge, the philosophical treatment, of the other speakers largely failed to arouse any deep interest, while the genuine conviction and feeling of the modest clerk, speaking on a subject that lay deep in his heart, not only electrified his audience but won their personal sympathy for the cause he advocated.

As Webster said, it is of no use to try to pretend to sympathy or feelings.It cannot be done successfully."Nature is forever putting a premium on reality."What is false is soon detected as such.The thoughts and feelings that create and mould the speech in the study must be born again when the speech is delivered from the platform.Do not let your words say one thing, and your voice and attitude another.There is no room here for half-hearted, nonchalant methods of delivery.Sincerity is the very soul of eloquence.Carlyle was right: "No Mirabeau, Napoleon, Burns, Cromwell, no man adequate to do anything, but is first of all in right earnest about it; what I call a sincere man.I should say sincerity, a great, deep, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic.Not the sincerity that calls itself sincere; ah no, that is a very poor matter indeed; a shallow braggart, conscious sincerity, oftenest self-conceit mainly.The great man's sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak of—is not conscious of."

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

It is one thing to convince the would-be speaker that he ought to put feeling into his speeches; often it is quite another thing for him to do it. The average speaker is afraid to let himself go, and continually suppresses his emotions. When you put enough feeling into your speeches they will sound overdone to you, unless you are an experienced speaker. They will sound too strong, if you are not used to enlarging for platform or stage, for the delineation of the emotions must be enlarged for public delivery.

1.Study the following speech, going back in your imagination to the time and circumstances that brought it forth.Make it not a memorized historical document, but feel the emotions that gave it birth.The speech is only an effect; live over in your own heart the causes that produced it and try to deliver it at white heat.It is not possible for you to put too much real feeling into it, though of course it would be quite easy to rant and fill it with false emotion.This speech, according to Thomas Jefferson, started the ball of the Revolution rolling.Men were then willing to go out and die for liberty.

PATRICK HENRY'S SPEECH

BEFORE THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION OF DELEGATES

2. Live over in your imagination all the solemnity and sorrow that Lincoln felt at the Gettysburg cemetery. The feeling in this speech is very deep, but it is quieter and more subdued than the preceding one. The purpose of Henry's address was to get action; Lincoln's speech was meant only to dedicate the last resting place of those who had acted. Read it over and over (see page 50) until it burns in your soul.Then commit it and repeat it for emotional expression.

3. Beecher's speech on Lincoln, page 76; Thurston's speech on "A Plea for Cuba," page 50; and the following selection, are recommended for practise in developing feeling in delivery.

4.What in your opinion are the relative values of thought and feeling in a speech?

5.Could we dispense with either?

6.What kinds of selections or occasions require much feeling and enthusiasm?Which require little?

7.Invent a list of ten subjects for speeches, saying which would give most room for pure thought and which for feeling.

8. Prepare and deliver a ten-minute speech denouncing the (imaginary) unfeeling plea of an attorney; he may be either the counsel for the defense or the prosecuting attorney, and the accused may be assumed to be either guilty or innocent, at your option.

9.Is feeling more important than the technical principles expounded in chapters III to VII?Why?

10.Analyze the secret of some effective speech or speaker.To what is the success due?

11.Give an example from your own observation of the effect of feeling and enthusiasm on listeners.

12.Memorize Carlyle's and Emerson's remarks on enthusiasm.

13. Deliver Patrick Henry's address, page 110, and Thurston's speech, page 50, without show of feeling or enthusiasm.What is the result?

14.Repeat, with all the feeling these selections demand.What is the result?

15.What steps do you intend to take to develop the power of enthusiasm and feeling in speaking?

16.Write and deliver a five-minute speech ridiculing a speaker who uses bombast, pomposity and over-enthusiasm.Imitate him.

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CHAPTER XI

FLUENCY THROUGH PREPARATION

Take your dictionary and look up the words that contain the Latin stem flu—the results will be suggestive.

At first blush it would seem that fluency consists in a ready, easy use of words.Not so—the flowing quality of speech is much more, for it is a composite effect, with each of its prior conditions deserving of careful notice.

The Sources of Fluency

Speaking broadly, fluency is almost entirely a matter of preparation.Certainly, native gifts figure largely here, as in every art, but even natural facility is dependent on the very same laws of preparation that hold good for the man of supposedly small native endowment.Let this encourage you if, like Moses, you are prone to complain that you are not a ready speaker.

Have you ever stopped to analyze that expression, "a ready speaker?" Readiness, in its prime sense, is preparedness, and they are most ready who are best prepared. Quick firing depends more on the alert finger than on the hair trigger.Your fluency will be in direct ratio to two important conditions: your knowledge of what you are going to say, and your being accustomed to telling what you know to an audience.This gives us the second great element of fluency—to preparation must be added the ease that arises from practise; of which more presently.

Knowledge is Essential

Mr. Bryan is a most fluent speaker when he speaks on political problems, tendencies of the time, and questions of morals.It is to be supposed, however, that he would not be so fluent in speaking on the bird life of the Florida Everglades.Mr. John Burroughs might be at his best on this last subject, yet entirely lost in talking about international law.Do not expect to speak fluently on a subject that you know little or nothing about.Ctesiphon boasted that he could speak all day (a sin in itself) on any subject that an audience would suggest.He was banished by the Spartans.

But preparation goes beyond the getting of the facts in the case you are to present: it includes also the ability to think and arrange your thoughts, a full and precise vocabulary, an easy manner of speech and breathing, absence of self-consciousness, and the several other characteristics of efficient delivery that have deserved special attention in other parts of this book rather than in this chapter.

Preparation may be either general or specific; usually it should be both. A life-time of reading, of companionship with stirring thoughts, of wrestling with the problems of life—this constitutes a general preparation of inestimable worth. Out of a well-stored mind, and—richer still—a broad experience, and—best of all—a warmly sympathetic heart, the speaker will have to draw much material that no immediate study could provide. General preparation consists of all that a man has put into himself, all that heredity and environment have instilled into him, and—that other rich source of preparedness for speech—the friendship of wise companions. When Schiller returned home after a visit with Goethe a friend remarked: "I am amazed by the progress Schiller can make within a single fortnight." It was the progressive influence of a new friendship. Proper friendships form one of the best means for the formation of ideas and ideals, for they enable one to practise in giving expression to thought. The speaker who would speak fluently before an audience should learn to speak fluently and entertainingly with a friend. Clarify your ideas by putting them in words; the talker gains as much from his conversation as the listener. You sometimes begin to converse on a subject thinking you have very little to say, but one idea gives birth to another, and you are surprised to learn that the more you give the more you have to give. This give-and-take of friendly conversation develops mentality, and fluency in expression. Longfellow said: "A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years' study of books," and Holmes whimsically yet none the less truthfully declared that half the time he talked to find out what he thought. But that method must not be applied on the platform!

After all this enrichment of life by storage, must come the special preparation for the particular speech.This is of so definite a sort that it warrants separate chapter-treatment later.

Practise

But preparation must also be of another sort than the gathering, organizing, and shaping of materials—it must include practise, which, like mental preparation, must be both general and special.

Do not feel surprised or discouraged if practise on the principles of delivery herein laid down seems to retard your fluency. For a time, this will be inevitable. While you are working for proper inflection, for instance, inflection will be demanding your first thoughts, and the flow of your speech, for the time being, will be secondary. This warning, however, is strictly for the closet, for your practise at home. Do not carry any thoughts of inflection with you to the platform. There you must think only of your subject. There is an absolute telepathy between the audience and the speaker. If your thought goes to your gesture, their thought will too. If your interest goes to the quality of your voice, they will be regarding that instead of what your voice is uttering.

You have doubtless been adjured to "forget everything but your subject." This advice says either too much or too little. The truth is that while on the platform you must not forget a great many things that are not in your subject, but you must not think of them. Your attention must consciously go only to your message, but subconsciously you will be attending to the points of technique which have become more or less habitual by practise

A nice balance between these two kinds of attention is important.

You can no more escape this law than you can live without air: Your platform gestures, your voice, your inflection, will all be just as good as your habit of gesture, voice, and inflection makes them—no better. Even the thought of whether you are speaking fluently or not will have the effect of marring your flow of speech.

Return to the opening chapter, on self-confidence, and again lay its precepts to heart.Learn by rules to speak without thinking of rules.It is not—or ought not to be—necessary for you to stop to think how to say the alphabet correctly, as a matter of fact it is slightly more difficult for you to repeat Z, Y, X than it is to say X, Y, Z—habit has established the order.Just so you must master the laws of efficiency in speaking until it is a second nature for you to speak correctly rather than otherwise.A beginner at the piano has a great deal of trouble with the mechanics of playing, but as time goes on his fingers become trained and almost instinctively wander over the keys correctly.As an inexperienced speaker you will find a great deal of difficulty at first in putting principles into practise, for you will be scared, like the young swimmer, and make some crude strokes, but if you persevere you will "win out."

Thus, to sum up, the vocabulary you have enlarged by study,[4] the ease in speaking you have developed by practise, the economy of your well-studied emphasis all will subconsciously come to your aid on the platform. Then the habits you have formed will be earning you a splendid dividend. The fluency of your speech will be at the speed of flow your practise has made habitual.

But this means work.What good habit does not?No philosopher's stone that will act as a substitute for laborious practise has ever been found.If it were, it would be thrown away, because it would kill our greatest joy—the delight of acquisition.If public-speaking means to you a fuller life, you will know no greater happiness than a well-spoken speech.The time you have spent in gathering ideas and in private practise of speaking you will find amply rewarded.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1.What advantages has the fluent speaker over the hesitating talker?

2.What influences, within and without the man himself, work against fluency?

3. Select from the daily paper some topic for an address and make a three-minute address on it. Do your words come freely and your sentences flow out rhythmically? Practise on the same topic until they do.

4.Select some subject with which you are familiar and test your fluency by speaking extemporaneously.

5. Take one of the sentiments given below and, following the advice given on pages 118-119, construct a short speech beginning with the last word in the sentence.

6. Put the sentiments of Mr. Bryan's "Prince of Peace," on page 448, into your own words.Honestly criticise your own effort.

7. Take any of the following quotations and make a five-minute speech on it without pausing to prepare. The first efforts may be very lame, but if you want speed on a typewriter, a record for a hundred-yard dash, or facility in speaking, you must practise, practise, PRACTISE

—Tennyson, In Memoriam

—Tennyson, Lady Clara Vere de Vere

—Campbell, Pleasures of Hope

—Goldsmith, The Deserted Village

—Cowper, Needless Alarm

—Paine, Rights of Man

—Pope, Moral Essays[5]

—Shakespeare, Othello

—Henley, Invictus

—Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verses

—Stevenson, Essays

—Emerson, Essays

8.Make a two-minute speech on any of the following general subjects, but you will find that your ideas will come more readily if you narrow your subject by taking some specific phase of it.For instance, instead of trying to speak on "Law" in general, take the proposition, "The Poor Man Cannot Afford to Prosecute;" or instead of dwelling on "Leisure," show how modern speed is creating more leisure.In this way you may expand this subject list indefinitely.

GENERAL THEMES

• Law.
  
• Politics.
  
• Woman's Suffrage.
  
• Initiative and Referendum.
  
• A Larger Navy.
  
• War.
  
• Peace.
  
• Foreign Immigration.
  
• The Liquor Traffic.
  
• Labor Unions.
  
• Strikes.
  
• Socialism.
  
• Single Tax.
  
• Tariff.
  
• Honesty.
  
• Courage.
  
• Hope.
  
• Love.
  
• Mercy.
  
• Kindness.
  
• Justice.
  
• Progress.
  
• Machinery.
  
• Invention.
  
• Wealth.
  
• Poverty.
  
• Agriculture.
  
• Science.
  
• Surgery.
  
• Haste.
  
• Leisure.
  
• Happiness.
  
• Health.
  
• Business.
  
• America.
  
• The Far East.
  
• Mobs.
  
• Colleges.
  
• Sports.
  
• Matrimony.
  
• Divorce.
  
• Child Labor.
  
• Education.
  
• Books.
  
• The Theater.
  
• Literature.
  
• Electricity.
  
• Achievement.
  
• Failure.
  
• Public Speaking.
  
• Ideals.
  
• Conversation.
  
• The Most Dramatic Moment of My Life.
  
• My Happiest Days.
  
• Things Worth While.
  
• What I Hope to Achieve.
  
• My Greatest Desire.
  
• What I Would Do with a Million Dollars.
  
• Is Mankind Progressing?
  
• Our Greatest Need.
  

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CHAPTER XII

THE VOICE

—Longfellow, Christus

The dramatic critic of The London Times once declared that acting is nine-tenths voice work. Leaving the message aside, the same may justly be said of public speaking. A rich, correctly-used voice is the greatest physical factor of persuasiveness and power, often over-topping the effects of reason.

But a good voice, well handled, is not only an effective possession for the professional speaker, it is a mark of personal culture as well, and even a distinct commercial asset.Gladstone, himself the possessor of a deep, musical voice, has said: "Ninety men in every hundred in the crowded professions will probably never rise above mediocrity because the training of the voice is entirely neglected and considered of no importance."These are words worth pondering.

There are three fundamental requisites for a good voice:

1.Ease

Signor Bonci of the Metropolitan Opera Company says that the secret of good voice is relaxation; and this is true, for relaxation is the basis of ease. The air waves that produce voice result in a different kind of tone when striking against relaxed muscles than when striking constricted muscles.Try this for yourself.Contract the muscles of your face and throat as you do in hate, and flame out "I hate you!"Now relax as you do when thinking gentle, tender thoughts, and say, "I love you."How different the voice sounds.

In practising voice exercises, and in speaking, never force your tones. Ease must be your watchword. The voice is a delicate instrument, and you must not handle it with hammer and tongs. Don't make your voice go—let it go. Don't work. Let the yoke of speech be easy and its burden light.

Your throat should be free from strain during speech, therefore it is necessary to avoid muscular contraction.The throat must act as a sort of chimney or funnel for the voice, hence any unnatural constriction will not only harm its tones but injure its health.

Nervousness and mental strain are common sources of mouth and throat constriction, so make the battle for poise and self-confidence for which we pleaded in the opening chapter.

But how can I relax? you ask. By simply willing to relax. Hold your arm out straight from your shoulder. Now—withdraw all power and let it fall. Practise relaxation of the muscles of the throat by letting your neck and head fall forward. Roll the upper part of your body around, with the waist line acting as a pivot. Let your head fall and roll around as you shift the torso to different positions. Do not force your head around—simply relax your neck and let gravity pull it around as your body moves.

Again, let your head fall forward on your breast; raise your head, letting your jaw hang.Relax until your jaw feels heavy, as though it were a weight hung to your face.Remember, you must relax the jaw to obtain command of it.It must be free and flexible for the moulding of tone, and to let the tone pass out unobstructed.

The lips also must be made flexible, to aid in the moulding of clear and beautiful tones. For flexibility of lips repeat the syllables, mo—me. In saying mo, bring the lips up to resemble the shape of the letter O. In repeating me draw them back as you do in a grin. Repeat this exercise rapidly, giving the lips as much exercise as possible.

Try the following exercise in the same manner:

Mo—E—O—E—OO—Ah.

After this exercise has been mastered, the following will also be found excellent for flexibility of lips:

Memorize these sounds indicated (not the expressions) so that you can repeat them rapidly.

All the activity of breathing must be centered, not in the throat, but in the middle of the body—you must breathe from the diaphragm. Note the way you breathe when lying flat on the back, undressed in bed.You will observe that all the activity then centers around the diaphragm.This is the natural and correct method of breathing.By constant watchfulness make this your habitual manner, for it will enable you to relax more perfectly the muscles of the throat.

The next fundamental requisite for good voice is

2.Openness

If the muscles of the throat are constricted, the tone passage partially closed, and the mouth kept half-shut, how can you expect the tone to come out bright and clear, or even to come out at all?Sound is a series of waves, and if you make a prison of your mouth, holding the jaws and lips rigidly, it will be very difficult for the tone to squeeze through, and even when it does escape it will lack force and carrying power.Open your mouth wide, relax all the organs of speech, and let the tone flow out easily.

Start to yawn, but instead of yawning, speak while your throat is open. Make this open-feeling habitual when speaking—we say make because it is a matter of resolution and of practise, if your vocal organs are healthy. Your tone passages may be partly closed by enlarged tonsils, adenoids, or enlarged turbinate bones of the nose. If so, a skilled physician should be consulted.

The nose is an important tone passage and should be kept open and free for perfect tones. What we call "talking through the nose" is not talking through the nose, as you can easily demonstrate by holding your nose as you talk.If you are bothered with nasal tones caused by growths or swellings in the nasal passages, a slight, painless operation will remove the obstruction.This is quite important, aside from voice, for the general health will be much lowered if the lungs are continually starved for air.

The final fundamental requisite for good voice is

3.Forwardness

A voice that is pitched back in the throat is dark, sombre, and unattractive. The tone must be pitched forward, but do not force it forward. You will recall that our first principle was ease. Think the tone forward and out. Believe it is going forward, and allow it to flow easily. You can tell whether you are placing your tone forward or not by inhaling a deep breath and singing ah with the mouth wide open, trying to feel the little delicate sound waves strike the bony arch of the mouth just above the front teeth. The sensation is so slight that you will probably not be able to detect it at once, but persevere in your practise, always thinking the tone forward, and you will be rewarded by feeling your voice strike the roof of your mouth. A correct forward-placing of the tone will do away with the dark, throaty tones that are so unpleasant, inefficient, and harmful to the throat.

Close the lips, humming ng, im, or anThink the tone forward.Do you feel it strike the lips?

Hold the palm of your hand in front of your face and say vigorously crash, dash, whirl, buzz. Can you feel the forward tones strike against your hand? Practise until you can. Remember, the only way to get your voice forward is to put it forward.

How to Develop the Carrying Power of the Voice

It is not necessary to speak loudly in order to be heard at a distance.It is necessary only to speak correctly.Edith Wynne Matthison's voice will carry in a whisper throughout a large theater.A paper rustling on the stage of a large auditorium can be heard distinctly in the furthermost seat in the gallery.If you will only use your voice correctly, you will not have much difficulty in being heard.Of course it is always well to address your speech to your furthest auditors; if they get it, those nearer will have no trouble, but aside from this obvious suggestion, you must observe these laws of voice production:

Remember to apply the principles of ease, openness and forwardness—they are the prime factors in enabling your voice to be heard at a distance.

Do not gaze at the floor as you talk.This habit not only gives the speaker an amateurish appearance but if the head is hung forward the voice will be directed towards the ground instead of floating out over the audience.

Voice is a series of air vibrations.To strengthen it two things are necessary: more air or breath, and more vibration.

Breath is the very basis of voice.As a bullet with little powder behind it will not have force and carrying power, so the voice that has little breath behind it will be weak.Not only will deep breathing—breathing from the diaphragm—give the voice a better support, but it will give it a stronger resonance by improving the general health.

Usually, ill health means a weak voice, while abundant physical vitality is shown through a strong, vibrant voice. Therefore anything that improves the general vitality is an excellent voice strengthener, provided you use the voice properly. Authorities differ on most of the rules of hygiene but on one point they all agree: vitality and longevity are increased by deep breathing. Practise this until it becomes second nature. Whenever you are speaking, take in deep breaths, but in such a manner that the inhalations will be silent.

Do not try to speak too long without renewing your breath.Nature cares for this pretty well unconsciously in conversation, and she will do the same for you in platform speaking if you do not interfere with her premonitions.

A certain very successful speaker developed voice carrying power by running across country, practising his speeches as he went.The vigorous exercise forced him to take deep breaths, and developed lung power.A hard-fought basketball or tennis game is an efficient way of practising deep breathing.When these methods are not convenient, we recommend the following:

Place your hands at your sides, on the waist line.

By trying to encompass your waist with your fingers and thumbs, force all the air out of the lungs.

Take a deep breath. Remember, all the activity is to be centered in the middle of the body; do not raise the shoulders. As the breath is taken your hands will be forced out.

Repeat the exercise, placing your hands on the small of the back and forcing them out as you inhale.

Many methods for deep breathing have been given by various authorities.Get the air into your lungs—that is the important thing.

The body acts as a sounding board for the voice just as the body of the violin acts as a sounding board for its tones.You can increase its vibrations by practise.

Place your finger on your lip and hum the musical scale, thinking and placing the voice forward on the lips.Do you feel the lips vibrate?After a little practise they will vibrate, giving a tickling sensation.

Repeat this exercise, throwing the humming sound into the nose.Hold the upper part of the nose between the thumb and forefinger.Can you feel the nose vibrate?

Placing the palm of your hand on top of your head, repeat this humming exercise.Think the voice there as you hum in head tones.Can you feel the vibration there?

Now place the palm of your hand on the back of your head, repeating the foregoing process.Then try it on the chest.Always remember to think your tone where you desire to feel the vibrations.The mere act of thinking about any portion of your body will tend to make it vibrate.

Repeat the following, after a deep inhalation, endeavoring to feel all portions of your body vibrate at the same time.When you have attained this you will find that it is a pleasant sensation.

Purity of Voice

This quality is sometimes destroyed by wasting the breath.Carefully control the breath, using only as much as is necessary for the production of tone.Utilize all that you give out.Failure to do this results in a breathy tone.Take in breath like a prodigal; in speaking, give it out like a miser.

Voice Suggestions

Never attempt to force your voice when hoarse.

Do not drink cold water when speaking.The sudden shock to the heated organs of speech will injure the voice.

Avoid pitching your voice too high—it will make it raspy.This is a common fault.When you find your voice in too high a range, lower it.Do not wait until you get to the platform to try this.Practise it in your daily conversation.Repeat the alphabet, beginning A on the lowest scale possible and going up a note on each succeeding letter, for the development of range.A wide range will give you facility in making numerous changes of pitch.

Do not form the habit of listening to your voice when speaking.You will need your brain to think of what you are saying—reserve your observation for private practise.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1.What are the prime requisites for good voice?

2.Tell why each one is necessary for good voice production.

3.Give some exercises for development of these conditions.

4.Why is range of voice desirable?

5.Tell how range of voice may be cultivated.

6.How much daily practise do you consider necessary for the proper development of your voice?

7.How can resonance and carrying power be developed?

8.What are your voice faults?

9.How are you trying to correct them?

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CHAPTER XIII

VOICE CHARM

Poe said that "the tone of beauty is sadness," but he was evidently thinking from cause to effect, not contrariwise, for sadness is rarely a producer of beauty—that is peculiarly the province of joy.

The exquisite beauty of a sunset is not exhilarating but tends to a sort of melancholy that is not far from delight The haunting beauty of deep, quiet music holds more than a tinge of sadness.The lovely minor cadences of bird song at twilight are almost depressing.

The reason we are affected to sadness by certain forms of placid beauty is twofold: movement is stimulating and joy-producing, while quietude leads to reflection, and reflection in turn often brings out the tone of regretful longing for that which is past; secondly, quiet beauty produces a vague aspiration for the relatively unattainable, yet does not stimulate to the tremendous effort necessary to make the dimly desired state or object ours.

We must distinguish, for these reasons, between the sadness of beauty and the joy of beauty. True, joy is a deep, inner thing and takes in much more than the idea of bounding, sanguine spirits, for it includes a certain active contentedness of heart. In this chapter, however the word will have its optimistic, exuberant connotation—we are thinking now of vivid, bright-eyed, laughing joy.

Musical, joyous tones constitute voice charm, a subtle magnetism that is delightfully contagious.Now it might seem to the desultory reader that to take the lancet and cut into this alluring voice quality would be to dissect a butterfly wing and so destroy its charm.Yet how can we induce an effect if we are not certain as to the cause?

Nasal Resonance Produces the Bell-tones of the Voice

The tone passages of the nose must be kept entirely free for the bright tones of voice—and after our warning in the preceding chapter you will not confuse what is popularly and erroneously called a "nasal" tone with the true nasal quality, which is so well illustrated by the voice work of trained French singers and speakers.

To develop nasal resonance sing the following, dwelling as long as possible on the ng sounds. Pitch the voice in the nasal cavity. Practise both in high and low registers, and develop range—with brightness

Practise in the falsetto voice develops a bright quality in the normal speaking-voice.Try the following, and any other selections you choose, in a falsetto voice.A man's falsetto voice is extremely high and womanish, so men should not practise in falsetto after the exercise becomes tiresome.

The actress Mary Anderson asked the poet Longfellow what she could do to improve her voice.He replied, "Read aloud daily, joyous, lyric poetry."

The joyous tones are the bright tones.Develop them by exercise.Practise your voice exercises in an attitude of joy.Under the influence of pleasure the body expands, the tone passages open, the action of heart and lungs is accelerated, and all the primary conditions for good tone are established.

More songs float out from the broken windows of the negro cabins in the South than from the palatial homes on Fifth Avenue.Henry Ward Beecher said the happiest days of his life were not when he had become an international character, but when he was an unknown minister out in Lawrenceville, Ohio, sweeping his own church, and working as a carpenter to help pay the grocer.Happiness is largely an attitude of mind, of viewing life from the right angle.The optimistic attitude can be cultivated, and it will express itself in voice charm.A telephone company recently placarded this motto in their booths: "The Voice with the Smile Wins."It does.Try it.

Reading joyous prose, or lyric poetry, will help put smile and joy of soul into your voice.The following selections are excellent for practise.

REMEMBER that when you first practise these classics you are to give sole attention to two things: a joyous attitude of heart and body, and bright tones of voice. After these ends have been attained to your satisfaction, carefully review the principles of public speaking laid down in the preceding chapters and put them into practise as you read these passages again and again. It would be better to commit each selection to memory.

SELECTIONS FOR PRACTISE

FROM MILTON'S "L'ALLEGRO"

THE SEA

—Barry Cornwall

THE LARK

—James Hogg

In joyous conversation there is an elastic touch, a delicate stroke, upon the central ideas, generally following a pause.This elastic touch adds vivacity to the voice.If you try repeatedly, it can be sensed by feeling the tongue strike the teeth.The entire absence of elastic touch in the voice can be observed in the thick tongue of the intoxicated man.Try to talk with the tongue lying still in the bottom of the mouth, and you will obtain largely the same effect.Vivacity of utterance is gained by using the tongue to strike off the emphatic idea with a decisive, elastic touch.

Deliver the following with decisive strokes on the emphatic ideas. Deliver it in a vivacious manner, noting the elastic touch-action of the tongue. A flexible, responsive tongue is absolutely essential to good voice work.

Practise the following selection, for the development of elastic touch; say it in a joyous spirit, using the exercise to develop voice charm in all the ways suggested in this chapter.

THE BROOK

—Alfred Tennyson

The children at play on the street, glad from sheer physical vitality, display a resonance and charm in their voices quite different from the voices that float through the silent halls of the hospitals.A skilled physician can tell much about his patient's condition from the mere sound of the voice.Failing health, or even physical weariness, tells through the voice.It is always well to rest and be entirely refreshed before attempting to deliver a public address.As to health, neither scope nor space permits us to discuss here the laws of hygiene.There are many excellent books on this subject.In the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius, one senator wrote to another: "To the wise, a word is sufficient."

"The apparel oft proclaims the man;" the voice always does—it is one of the greatest revealers of character. The superficial woman, the brutish man, the reprobate, the person of culture, often discloses inner nature in the voice, for even the cleverest dissembler cannot entirely prevent its tones and qualities being affected by the slightest change of thought or emotion. In anger it becomes high, harsh, and unpleasant; in love low, soft, and melodious—the variations are as limitless as they are fascinating to observe. Visit a theatrical hotel in a large city, and listen to the buzz-saw voices of the chorus girls from some burlesque "attraction."The explanation is simple—buzz-saw lives.Emerson said: "When a man lives with God his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook or the rustle of the corn."It is impossible to think selfish thoughts and have either an attractive personality, a lovely character, or a charming voice.If you want to possess voice charm, cultivate a deep, sincere sympathy for mankind.Love will shine out through your eyes and proclaim itself in your tones.One secret of the sweetness of the canary's song may be his freedom from tainted thoughts.Your character beautifies or mars your voice.As a man thinketh in his heart so is his voice.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1.Define (a) charm; (b) joy; (c) beauty.

2. Make a list of all the words related to joy

3.Write a three-minute eulogy of "The Joyful Man."

4.Deliver it without the use of notes.Have you carefully considered all the qualities that go to make up voice-charm in its delivery?

5.Tell briefly in your own words what means may be employed to develop a charming voice.

6.Discuss the effect of voice on character.

7.Discuss the effect of character on voice.

8.Analyze the voice charm of any speaker or singer you choose.

9.Analyze the defects of any given voice.

10.Make a short humorous speech imitating certain voice defects, pointing out reasons.

11.Commit the following stanza and interpret each phase of delight suggested or expressed by the poet.

—Byron, Don Juan

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CHAPTER XIV

DISTINCTNESS AND PRECISION OF UTTERANCE

—Hesiod, Words and Days

—Homer, Iliad

In popular usage the terms "pronunciation," "enunciation," and "articulation" are synonymous, but real pronunciation includes three distinct processes, and may therefore be defined as, the utterance of a syllable or a group of syllables with regard to articulation, accentuation, and enunciation

Distinct and precise utterance is one of the most important considerations of public speech.How preposterous it is to hear a speaker making sounds of "inarticulate earnestness" under the contented delusion that he is telling something to his audience!Telling?Telling means communicating, and how can he actually communicate without making every word distinct?

Slovenly pronunciation results from either physical deformity or habit.A surgeon or a surgeon dentist may correct a deformity, but your own will, working by self-observation and resolution in drill, will break a habit.All depends upon whether you think it worth while.

Defective speech is so widespread that freedom from it is the exception. It is painfully common to hear public speakers mutilate the king's English. If they do not actually murder it, as Curran once said, they often knock an i out.

A Canadian clergyman, writing in the Homiletic Review, relates that in his student days "a classmate who was an Englishman supplied a country church for a Sunday.On the following Monday he conducted a missionary meeting.In the course of his address he said some farmers thought they were doing their duty toward missions when they gave their 'hodds and hends' to the work, but the Lord required more.At the close of the meeting a young woman seriously said to a friend: 'I am sure the farmers do well if they give their hogs and hens to missions.It is more than most people can afford.'"

It is insufferable effrontery for any man to appear before an audience who persists in driving the h out of happiness, home and heaven, and, to paraphrase Waldo Messaros, will not let it rest in hell. He who does not show enough self-knowledge to see in himself such glaring faults, nor enough self-mastery to correct them, has no business to instruct others. If he can do no better, he should be silent. If he will do no better, he should also be silent.

Barring incurable physical defects—and few are incurable nowadays—the whole matter is one of will.The catalogue of those who have done the impossible by faithful work is as inspiring as a roll-call of warriors."The less there is of you," says Nathan Sheppard, "the more need for you to make the most of what there is of you."

Articulation

Articulation is the forming and joining of the elementary sounds of speech. It seems an appalling task to utter articulately the third-of-a million words that go to make up our English vocabulary, but the way to make a beginning is really simple: learn to utter correctly, and with easy change from one to the other, each of the forty-four elementary sounds in our language

The reasons why articulation is so painfully slurred by a great many public speakers are four: ignorance of the elemental sounds; failure to discriminate between sounds nearly alike; a slovenly, lazy use of the vocal organs; and a torpid will.Anyone who is still master of himself will know how to handle each of these defects.

The vowel sounds are the most vexing source of errors, especially where diphthongs are found.Who has not heard such errors as are hit off in this inimitable verse by Oliver Wendell Holmes: