The Art of Public Speaking Dale Carnagey

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Intervention means force. Force means war. War means blood. But
it will be God's force. When has a battle for humanity and
liberty ever been won except by force? What barricade of wrong,
injustice, and oppression has ever been carried except by force?
Force compelled the signature of unwilling royalty to the great
Magna Charta; force put life into the Declaration of
Independence and made effective the Emancipation Proclamation;
force beat with naked hands upon the iron gateway of the Bastile
and made reprisal in one awful hour for centuries of kingly
crime; force waved the flag of revolution over Bunker Hill and
marked the snows of Valley Forge with blood-stained feet; force
held the broken line of Shiloh, climbed the flame-swept hill at
Chattanooga, and stormed the clouds on Lookout Heights; force
marched with Sherman to the sea, rode with Sheridan in the
valley of the Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory at Appomattox;
force saved the Union, kept the stars in the flag, made
"niggers" men. The time for God's force has come again. Let the
impassioned lips of American patriots once more take up the
"1_1_5">CHAPTER V. EFFICIENCY THROUGH CHANGE OF PACE 33
The Art of Public Speaking
song:--
"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea.
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.
While God is marching on."
Others may hesitate, others may procrastinate, others may plead
for further diplomatic negotiation, which means delay; but for
me, I am ready to act now, and for my action I am ready to
answer to my conscience, my country, and my God.
--JAMES MELLEN THURSTON.
"1_1_6">CHAPTER VI. PAUSE AND POWER
The true business of the literary artist is to plait or weave
his meaning, involving it around itself; so that each sentence,
by successive phrases, shall first come into a kind of knot, and
then, after a moment of suspended meaning, solve and clear
itself.
--GEORGE SAINTSBURY, on English Prose Style, in Miscellaneous
Essays.
... pause ... has a distinctive value, expressed in silence; in
other words, while the voice is waiting, the music of the
movement is going on ... To manage it, with its delicacies and
compensations, requires that same fineness of ear on which we
must depend for all faultless prose rhythm. When there is no
compensation, when the pause is inadvertent ... there is a sense
of jolting and lack, as if some pin or fastening had fallen out.
--JOHN FRANKLIN GENUNG, The Working Principles of Rhetoric.
Pause, in public speech, is not mere silence--it is silence made designedly eloquent.
When a man says: "I-uh-it is with profound-ah-pleasure that-er-I have been permitted to speak to you
tonight and-uh-uh-I should say-er"--that is not pausing; that is stumbling. It is conceivable that a speaker
may be effective in spite of stumbling--but never because of it.
On the other hand, one of the most important means of developing power in public speaking is to pause either
before or after, or both before and after, an important word or phrase. No one who would be a forceful speaker
can afford to neglect this principle--one of the most significant that has ever been inferred from listening to
great orators. Study this potential device until you have absorbed and assimilated it.
It would seem that this principle of rhetorical pause ought to be easily grasped and applied, but a long
experience in training both college men and maturer speakers has demonstrated that the device is no more
readily understood by the average man when it is first explained to him than if it were spoken in Hindoostani.
Perhaps this is because we do not eagerly devour the fruit of experience when it is impressively set before us
"1_1_6">CHAPTER VI. PAUSE AND POWER 34
The Art of Public Speaking
on the platter of authority; we like to pluck fruit for ourselves--it not only tastes better, but we never forget
that tree! Fortunately, this is no difficult task, in this instance, for the trees stand thick all about us.
One man is pleading the cause of another:
"This man, my friends, has made this wonderful sacrifice--for
you and me."
Did not the pause surprisingly enhance the power of this statement? See how he gathered up reserve force and
impressiveness to deliver the words "for you and me." Repeat this passage without making a pause. Did it lose
in effectiveness?
Naturally enough, during a premeditated pause of this kind the mind of the speaker is concentrated on the
thought to which he is about to give expression. He will not dare to allow his thoughts to wander for an
instant--he will rather supremely center his thought and his emotion upon the sacrifice whose service,
sweetness and divinity he is enforcing by his appeal.
Concentration, then, is the big word here--no pause without it can perfectly hit the mark.
Efficient pausing accomplishes one or all of four results:
1. Pause Enables the Mind of the Speaker to Gather His Forces Before Delivering the Final Volley
It is often dangerous to rush into battle without pausing for preparation or waiting for recruits. Consider
Custer's massacre as an instance.
You can light a match by holding it beneath a lens and concentrating the sun's rays. You would not expect the
match to flame if you jerked the lens back and forth quickly. Pause, and the lens gathers the heat. Your
thoughts will not set fire to the minds of your hearers unless you pause to gather the force that comes by a
second or two of concentration. Maple trees and gas wells are rarely tapped continually; when a stronger flow [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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