J. BERG ESENWEIN DALE CARNAGEY - THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

to soak in. The farmer's wife follows this same principle in doing her

washing when she puts the clothes in water--and pauses for several hours

that the water may soak in. The physician puts cocaine on your

turbinates--and pauses to let it take hold before he removes them. Why

do we use this principle everywhere except in the communication of

ideas? If you have given the audience a big idea, pause for a second or

two and let them turn it over. See what effect it has. After the smoke

clears away you may have to fire another 14-inch shell on the same

subject before you demolish the citadel of error that you are trying to

destroy. Take time. Don't let your speech resemble those tourists who

try "to do" New York in a day. They spend fifteen minutes looking at the

masterpieces in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, ten minutes in the

Museum of Natural History, take a peep into the Aquarium, hurry across

the Brooklyn Bridge, rush up to the Zoo, and back by Grant's Tomb--and

call that "Seeing New York." If you hasten by your important points

without pausing, your audience will have just about as adequate an idea

of what you have tried to convey.

Take time, you have just as much of it as our richest multimillionaire.

Your audience will wait for you. It is a sign of smallness to hurry. The

great redwood trees of California had burst through the soil five

hundred years before Socrates drank his cup of hemlock poison, and are

only in their prime today. Nature shames us with our petty haste.

Silence is one of the most eloquent things in the world. Master it, and

use it through pause.

* * * * *

In the following selections dashes have been inserted where pauses may

be used effectively. Naturally, you may omit some of these and insert

others without going wrong--one speaker would interpret a passage in one

way, one in another; it is largely a matter of personal preference. A

dozen great actors have played Hamlet well, and yet each has played the

part differently. Which comes the nearest to perfection is a question

of opinion. You will succeed best by daring to follow your own

course--if you are individual enough to blaze an original trail.

A moment's halt--a momentary taste of being from the well amid

the waste--and lo! the phantom caravan has reached--the nothing

it set out from--Oh make haste!

The worldly hope men set their hearts upon--turns ashes--or it

prospers;--and anon like snow upon the desert's dusty

face--lighting a little hour or two--is gone.

The bird of time has but a little way to flutter,--and the bird

is on the wing.

You will note that the punctuation marks have nothing to do with the

pausing. You may run by a period very quickly and make a long pause

where there is no kind of punctuation. Thought is greater than

punctuation. It must guide you in your pauses.

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.

You must not confuse the pause for emphasis with the natural pauses that

come through taking breath and phrasing. For example, note the pauses

indicated in this selection from Byron:

But _hush!_--_hark!_--that deep sound breaks in once more,

And _nearer!_--_clearer!_--_deadlier_ than before.

_Arm_, ARM!--it is--it is the cannon's opening roar!

It is not necessary to dwell at length upon these obvious distinctions.

You will observe that in natural conversation our words are gathered

into clusters or phrases, and we often pause to take breath between

them. So in public speech, breathe naturally and do not talk until you

must gasp for breath; nor until the audience is equally winded.

A serious word of caution must here be uttered: do not overwork the

pause. To do so will make your speech heavy and stilted. And do not

think that pause can transmute commonplace thoughts into great and

dignified utterance. A grand manner combined with insignificant ideas is

like harnessing a Hambletonian with an ass. You remember the farcical

old school declamation, "A Midnight Murder," that proceeded in grandiose

manner to a thrilling climax, and ended--"and relentlessly murdered--a

mosquito!"

The pause, dramatically handled, always drew a laugh from the tolerant

hearers. This is all very well in farce, but such anti-climax becomes

painful when the speaker falls from the sublime to the ridiculous quite

unintentionally. The pause, to be effective in some other manner than in

that of the boomerang, must precede or follow a thought that is really

worth while, or at least an idea whose bearing upon the rest of the

speech is important.

William Pittenger relates in his volume, "Extempore Speech," an instance

of the unconsciously farcical use of the pause by a really great

American statesman and orator. "He had visited Niagara Falls and was to

make an oration at Buffalo the same day, but, unfortunately, he sat too

long over the wine after dinner. When he arose to speak, the oratorical

instinct struggled with difficulties, as he declared, 'Gentlemen, I have

been to look upon your mag--mag--magnificent cataract, one hundred--and

forty--seven--feet high! Gentlemen, Greece and Rome in their palmiest

days never had a cataract one hundred--and forty--seven--feet high!'"

1. Name four methods for destroying monotony and gaining power in

speaking.

2. What are the four special effects of pause?

3. Note the pauses in a conversation, play, or speech. Were they the

best that could have been used? Illustrate.

4. Read aloud selections on pages 50-54, paying special attention to

pause.

5. Read the following without making any pauses. Reread correctly and

note the difference:

Soon the night will pass; and when, of the Sentinel on the

ramparts of Liberty the anxious ask: | "Watchman, what of the

night?" his answer will be | "Lo, the morn appeareth."

Knowing the price we must pay, | the sacrifice | we must make, |

the burdens | we must carry, | the assaults | we must endure, |

knowing full well the cost, | yet we enlist, and we enlist | for

the war. | For we know the justice of our cause, | and we know,

too, its certain triumph. |

Not reluctantly, then, | but eagerly, | not with faint hearts, |

but strong, do we now advance upon the enemies of the people. |

For the call that comes to us is the call that came to our

fathers. | As they responded, so shall we.

"He hath sounded forth a trumpet | that shall never call retreat,

He is sifting out the hearts of men | before His judgment seat.

Oh, be swift | our souls to answer Him, | be jubilant our feet,

Our God | is marching on."

--ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE, _From his speech as temporary chairman of

Progressive National Convention, Chicago, 1912_.

6. Bring out the contrasting ideas in the following by using the pause:

Contrast now the circumstances of your life and mine, gently and

with temper, Æschines; and then ask these people whose fortune

they would each of them prefer. You taught reading, I went to

school: you performed initiations, I received them: you danced

in the chorus, I furnished it: you were assembly-clerk, I was a

speaker: you acted third parts, I heard you: you broke down, and

I hissed: you have worked as a statesman for the enemy, I for my

country. I pass by the rest; but this very day I am on my