The Art of Public SpeakingACQUIRING CONFIDENCE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE There is a strange sensation often experienced in the presence of an audience. It may proceed from the gaze of the many eyes that turn upon the speaker, especially if he permits himself to steadily return that gaze. Most speakers have been conscious of this in a nameless thrill, a real something, pervading the atmosphere, tangible, evanescent, indescribable. All writers have borne testimony to the power of a speaker's eye in impressing an audience. This influence which we are now considering is the reverse of that picture--the power _their_ eyes may exert upon him, especially before he begins to speak: after the inward fires of oratory are fanned into flame the eyes of the audience lose all terror. |
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Page vii
... THE VOICE • 125 CHAPTER XIII + VOICE CHARM · 134 CHAPTER XIV DISTINCTNESS AND PRECISION OF UTTERANCE 146 CHAPTER XV - THE TRUTH ABOUT GESTURE • 156 CHAPTER XVI - METHODS OF DELIVERY 171 . Page • 199 218 231 249 CHAPTER XVII -
... THE VOICE • 125 CHAPTER XIII + VOICE CHARM · 134 CHAPTER XIV DISTINCTNESS AND PRECISION OF UTTERANCE 146 CHAPTER XV - THE TRUTH ABOUT GESTURE • 156 CHAPTER XVI - METHODS OF DELIVERY 171 . Page • 199 218 231 249 CHAPTER XVII -
Page x
... gesture , and what not , unless these two principles of having something to say and making the will sovereign have at least begun to make themselves felt in the life . The third principle will , we surmise , arouse no dispute : No one ...
... gesture , and what not , unless these two principles of having something to say and making the will sovereign have at least begun to make themselves felt in the life . The third principle will , we surmise , arouse no dispute : No one ...
Page 113
... gesture , in posture , in the whole animated man , is in strict analogy with the divine thought and the divine ar- rangement ; and there is no misconstruction more utterly untrue and fatal than this : that oratory is an artificial thing ...
... gesture , in posture , in the whole animated man , is in strict analogy with the divine thought and the divine ar- rangement ; and there is no misconstruction more utterly untrue and fatal than this : that oratory is an artificial thing ...
Page 118
... gesture , their thought will too . If your interest goes to the quality of your voice , they will be regarding that in- stead of what your voice is uttering . You have doubtless been adjured to " forget everything but your subject ...
... gesture , their thought will too . If your interest goes to the quality of your voice , they will be regarding that in- stead of what your voice is uttering . You have doubtless been adjured to " forget everything but your subject ...
Page 119
... gestures , your voice , your in- flection , 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 ...
... gestures , your voice , your in- flection , 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 ...
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Common terms and phrases
Abraham Lincoln American appeal argument attention audience beauty Belgium Berg Esenwein Cæsar cause chapter crowd deliver delivery effect emotions emphasis exposition expression eyes fact fear feeling force friends gathered gesture give hand hear hearers heart Henry Ward Beecher honor human ideas important inflection Julius Cæsar labor liberty lives look matter means memory methods mind MINOR PREMISE monotony Monroe Doctrine moral nation nature never notes party pause peace pitch platform political practise principle progress Progressive party public speaking QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES race remember Republic reserve power rich Robert Louis Stevenson sentence sound speaker speech stand suggestion tariff tell tempo things thought tion to-day tone Toussaint l'Ouverture truth utterance voice Wendell Phillips Woodrow Wilson words wrong
Popular passages
Page 111 - Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation ? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love ? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir.
Page 63 - A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness — Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
Page 103 - The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments, and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour.
Page 111 - We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parliament. Our petitions have been slighted, our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult, our supplications have been disregarded, and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne.
Page 112 - Three millions of People, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.
Page 141 - I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley. By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges.
Page 316 - And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue In every wound of Caesar that should move The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.
Page 110 - Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and to provide for it.
Page 88 - Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor : suit the action to the word, the word to the action ; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature : for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature ; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
Page 111 - No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us : they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging.