The Art of Public Speaking | Page 5

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.
CHAPTER II
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 hours of the day but
change that marble from one point to another and back again, and you
will go insane if you continue long enough.
So this thing that shortens life, and is used as the most cruel of
punishments in our prisons, is the thing that will destroy all the life and
force of a speech. Avoid it as you would shun a deadly dull bore. The
"idle rich" can have half-a-dozen homes,