The Art of Public Speaking | Page 3

or drive or pasture him where he would frequently see the
machines?
Apply horse-sense to ridding yourself of self-consciousness and fear:
face an audience as frequently as you can, and you will soon stop
shying. You can never attain freedom from stage-fright by reading a
treatise. A book may give you excellent suggestions on how best to
conduct yourself in the water, but sooner or later you must get wet,
perhaps even strangle and be "half scared to death." There are a great
many "wetless" bathing suits worn at the seashore, but no one ever

learns to swim in them. To plunge is the only way.
Practise, practise, PRACTISE in speaking before an audience will tend
to remove all fear of audiences, just as practise in swimming will lead
to confidence and facility in the water. You must learn to speak by
speaking.
The Apostle Paul tells us that every man must work out his own
salvation. All we can do here is to offer you suggestions as to how best
to prepare for your plunge. The real plunge no one can take for you. A
doctor may prescribe, but you must take the medicine.
Do not be disheartened if at first you suffer from stage-fright. Dan
Patch was more susceptible to suffering than a superannuated dray
horse would be. It never hurts a fool to appear before an audience, for
his capacity is not a capacity for feeling. A blow that would kill a
civilized man soon heals on a savage. The higher we go in the scale of
life, the greater is the capacity for suffering.
For one reason or another, some master-speakers never entirely
overcome stage-fright, but it will pay you to spare no pains to conquer
it. Daniel Webster failed in his first appearance and had to take his seat
without finishing his speech because he was nervous. Gladstone was
often troubled with self-consciousness in the beginning of an address.
Beecher was always perturbed before talking in public.
Blacksmiths sometimes twist a rope tight around the nose of a horse,
and by thus inflicting a little pain they distract his attention from the
shoeing process. One way to get air out of a glass is to pour in water.
Be Absorbed by Your Subject
Apply the blacksmith's homely principle when you are speaking. If you
feel deeply about your subject you will be able to think of little else.
Concentration is a process of distraction from less important matters. It
is too late to think about the cut of your coat when once you are upon
the platform, so centre your interest on what you are about to say--fill
your mind with your speech-material and, like the infilling water in the

glass, it will drive out your unsubstantial fears.
Self-consciousness is undue consciousness of self, and, for the purpose
of delivery, self is secondary to your subject, not only in the opinion of
the audience, but, if you are wise, in your own. To hold any other view
is to regard yourself as an exhibit instead of as a messenger with a
message worth delivering. Do you remember Elbert Hubbard's
tremendous little tract, "A Message to Garcia"? The youth subordinated
himself to the message he bore. So must you, by all the determination
you can muster. It is sheer egotism to fill your mind with thoughts of
self when a greater thing is there--TRUTH. Say this to yourself sternly,
and shame your self-consciousness into quiescence. If the theater
caught fire you could rush to the stage and shout directions to the
audience without any self-consciousness, for the importance of what
you were saying would drive all fear-thoughts out of your mind.
Far worse than self-consciousness through fear of doing poorly is
self-consciousness through assumption of doing well. The first sign of
greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and act great. Before
you can call yourself a man at all, Kipling assures us, you must "not
look too good nor talk too wise."
Nothing advertises itself so thoroughly as conceit. One may be so full
of self as to be empty. Voltaire said, "We must conceal self-love." But
that can not be done. You know this to be true, for you have recognized
overweening self-love in others. If you have it, others are seeing it in
you. There are things in this world bigger than self, and in working for
them self will be forgotten, or--what is better--remembered only so as
to help us win toward higher things.
Have Something to Say
The trouble with many speakers is that they go before an audience with
their minds a blank. It is no wonder that nature, abhorring a vacuum,
fills them with the nearest thing handy, which generally happens to be,
"I wonder if I am