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.
Machinery has created a new economic world.
The Socialist Party is a strenuous worker for peace.
He was a crushed and broken man when he left prison.
War must ultimately give way to world-wide arbitration.
The labor unions demand a more equal distribution of the wealth
that labor creates.
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_.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
--TENNYSON, _In Memoriam_.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
--TENNYSON, _Lady Clara Vere de Vere_.
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
--CAMPBELL, _Pleasures of Hope_.
His best companions, innocence and health,
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
--GOLDSMITH, _The Deserted Village_.
Beware of desperate steps! The darkest day,
Live till tomorrow, will have passed away.
--COWPER, _Needless Alarm_.
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
--PAINE, _Rights of Man_.
Trade it may help, society extend,
But lures the pirate, and corrupts the friend:
It raises armies in a nation's aid,
But bribes a senate, and the land's betray'd.
--POPE, _Moral Essays_.[5]
O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal
away their brains!
--SHAKESPEARE, _Othello_.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
--HENLEY, _Invictus_.
The world is so full of a number of things,
I am sure we should all be happy