The Art of Public Speaking
sound of the sharp thunder among rocky mountains--the crash of ball
against ten-pins may suggest it. Or image (the word is imperfect, for it
seems to suggest only the eye) the sound of tearing ropes when some
precious weight hangs in danger. Or recall the bay of a hound almost
upon you in pursuit--choose your own sound, and see how pleasantly or
terribly real it becomes when imaged in your brain.
(c) _The motor image_ is a close competitor with the auditory for second
place. Have you ever awakened in the night, every muscle taut and
striving, to feel your self straining against the opposing football
line that held like a stone-wall--or as firmly as the headboard of your
bed? Or voluntarily recall the movement of the boat when you cried
inwardly, "It's all up with me!" The perilous lurch of a train, the
sudden sinking of an elevator, or the unexpected toppling of a
rocking-chair may serve as further experiments.
(d) _The gustatory image_ is common enough, as the idea of eating lemons
will testify. Sometimes the pleasurable recollection of a delightful
dinner will cause the mouth to water years afterward, or the "image" of
particularly atrocious medicine will wrinkle the nose long after it made
one day in boyhood wretched.
(e) _The olfactory image_ is even more delicate. Some there are who are
affected to illness by the memory of certain odors, while others
experience the most delectable sensations by the rise of pleasing
olfactory images.
(f) _The tactile image_, to name no others, is well nigh as potent. Do
you shudder at the thought of velvet rubbed by short-nailed finger tips?
Or were you ever "burned" by touching an ice-cold stove? Or, happier
memory, can you still feel the touch of a well-loved absent hand?
Be it remembered that few of these images are present in our minds
except in combination--the sight and sound of the crashing avalanche are
one; so are the flash and report of the huntman's gun that came so near
"doing for us."
Thus, imaging--especially conscious reproductive imagination--will
become a valuable part of our mental processes in proportion as we
direct and control it.
_2. Productive Imagination_
All of the foregoing examples, and doubtless also many of the
experiments you yourself may originate, are merely reproductive.
Pleasurable or horrific as these may be, they are far less important
than the images evoked by the productive imagination--though that does
not infer a separate faculty.
Recall, again for experiment, some scene whose beginning you once saw
enacted on a street corner but passed by before the denouement was ready
to be disclosed. Recall it all--that far the image is reproductive. But
what followed? Let your fantasy roam at pleasure--the succeeding scenes
are productive, for you have more or less consciously invented the
unreal on the basis of the real.
And just here the fictionist, the poet, and the public speaker will see
the value of productive imagery. True, the feet of the idol you build
are on the ground, but its head pierces the clouds, it is a son of both
earth and heaven.
One fact it is important to note here: Imagery is a valuable mental
asset in proportion as it is controlled by the higher intellectual power
of pure reason. The untutored child of nature thinks largely in images
and therefore attaches to them undue importance. He readily confuses the
real with the unreal--to him they are of like value. But the man of
training readily distinguishes the one from the other and evaluates each
with some, if not with perfect, justice.
So we see that unrestrained imaging may produce a rudderless steamer,
while the trained faculty is the graceful sloop, skimming the seas at
her skipper's will, her course steadied by the helm of reason and her
lightsome wings catching every air of heaven.
The game of chess, the war-lord's tactical plan, the evolution of a
geometrical theorem, the devising of a great business campaign, the
elimination of waste in a factory, the denouement of a powerful drama,
the overcoming of an economic obstacle, the scheme for a sublime poem,
and the convincing siege of an audience may--nay, indeed must--each be
conceived in an image and wrought to reality according to the plans and
specifications laid upon the trestle board by some modern imaginative
Hiram. The farmer who would be content with the seed he possesses would
have no harvest. Do not rest satisfied with the ability to recall
images, but cultivate your creative imagination by building "what might
be" upon the foundation of "what is."
II. THE USES OF IMAGING IN PUBLIC SPEAKING
By this time you will have already made some general application of
these ideas to the art of the platform, but to several specific uses we
must now refer.
_1. Imaging in Speech-Preparation_
(a) _Set the image of your audience before you while you prepare._
Disappointment may lurk here, and you cannot be forearmed for every
emergency, but in the main you must meet your audience before you
actually do--image its probable mood and attitude toward the occasion,
the theme, and the speaker.
(b) _Conceive your speech as a whole while you are preparing its parts_,
else can you not see--image--how its parts shall be fitly framed
together.
(c) _Image the language you will use_, so far as written or
extemporaneous speech may dictate. The habit of imaging will give you
choice of varied figures of speech, for remember that an address without
_fresh_ comparisons is like a garden without blooms. Do not be content
with the first hackneyed figure that comes flowing to your pen-point,
but dream on until the striking, the unusual, yet the vividly real
comparison points your thought like steel does the arrow-tip.
Note the freshness and effectiveness of the following description from
the opening of O. Henry's story, "The Harbinger."
Long before the springtide is felt in the dull bosom of the
yokel does the city man know that the grass-green goddess is
upon her throne. He sits at his breakfast eggs and toast, begirt
by stone walls, opens his morning paper and sees journalism
leave vernalism at the post.
For whereas Spring's couriers were once the evidence of our
finer senses, now the Associated Press does the trick.
The warble of the first robin in Hackensack, the stirring of the
maple sap in Bennington, the budding of the pussy willows along
the main street in Syracuse, the first chirp of the blue bird,
the swan song of the blue point, the annual tornado in St.
Louis, the plaint of the peach pessimist from Pompton, N.J., the
regular visit of the tame wild goose with a broken leg to the
pond near Bilgewater Junction, the base attempt of the Drug
Trust to boost the price of quinine foiled in the House by
Congressman Jinks, the first tall poplar struck by lightning and
the usual stunned picknickers who had taken refuge, the first
crack of the ice jamb in the Allegheny River, the finding of a
violet in its mossy bed by the correspondent at Round
Corners--these are the advanced signs of the burgeoning season
that are wired into the wise city, while the farmer sees nothing
but winter upon his dreary fields.
But these be mere externals. The true harbinger is the heart.
When Strephon seeks his Chloe and Mike his Maggie, then only is
Spring arrived and the newspaper report of the five foot rattler
killed in Squire Pettregrew's pasture confirmed.
A hackneyed writer would probably have said that the newspaper told the
city man about spring before the farmer could see any evidence of it,
but that the real harbinger of spring was love and that "In the Spring a
young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."
_2. Imaging in Speech-Delivery_
When once the passion of speech is on you and you are "warmed
up"--perhaps by striking _till_ the iron is hot so that you may not fail
to strike _when_ it is hot--your mood will be one of vision.
Then (a) _Re-image past emotion_--of which more elsewhere. The actor
re-calls the old feelings every time he renders his telling lines.
(b) _Reconstruct in image the scenes you are to describe._
(c) _Image the objects in nature whose tone you are delineating_, so
that bearing and voice and movement (gesture) will picture forth the
whole convincingly. Instead of merely stating the fact that whiskey
ruins homes, the temperance speaker paints a drunkard coming home to
abuse his wife and strike his children. It is much more effective than
telling the truth in abstract terms. To depict the cruelness of war, do
not assert the fact abstractly--"War is cruel." Show the soldier, an arm
swept away by a bursting shell, lying on the battlefield pleading for
water; show the children with tear-stained faces pressed against the
window pane praying for their dead father to return. Avoid general and
prosaic terms. Paint pictures. Evolve images for the imagination of your
audience to construct into pictures of their own.
III. HOW TO ACQUIRE THE IMAGING HABIT
You remember the American statesman who asserted that "the way to resume
is to resume"? The application is obvious. Beginning with the first
simple analyses of this chapter, test your own qualities of
image-making. One by one practise the several kinds of images; then
add--even invent--others in combination, for many images come to us in
complex form, like the combined noise and shoving and hot odor of a
cheering crowd.
After practising on reproductive imaging, turn to the productive,
beginning with the reproductive and adding productive features for the
sake of cultivating invention.
Frequently, allow your originating gifts full swing by weaving complete
imaginary fabrics--sights, sounds, scenes; all the fine world of fantasy
lies open to the journeyings of your winged steed.
In like manner train yourself in the use of figurative language. Learn
first to distinguish and then to use its varied forms. _When used with
restraint_, nothing can be more effective than the trope; but once let
extravagance creep in by the window, and power will flee by the door.
All in all, master your images--let not them master you.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Give original examples of each kind of reproductive imagination.
2. Build two of these into imaginary incidents for platform use, using
your productive, or creative, imagination.
3. Define (_a_) phantasy; (_b_) vision; (_c_) fantastic; (_d_)
phantasmagoria; (_e_) transmogrify; (_f_) recollection.
4. What is a "figure of speech"?
5. Define and give two examples of each of the following figures of
speech[30]. At least one of the examples under each type would better be
original. (_a_) simile; (_b_) metaphor; (_c_) metonymy; (_d_)
synecdoche; (_e_) apostrophe; (_f_) vision; (_g_) personification; (_h_)
hyperbole; (_i_) irony.
6. (_a_) What is an allegory? (_b_) Name one example. (_c_) How could a
short allegory be used as part of a public address?
7. Write a short fable[31] for use in a speech. Follow either the
ancient form (AEsop) or the modern (George Ade, Josephine Dodge Daskam).
8. What do you understand by "the historical present?" Illustrate how it
may be used (_ONLY_ occasionally) in a public address.
9. Recall some disturbance on the street, (_a_) Describe it as you would
on the platform; (_b_) imagine what preceded the disturbance; (_c_)
imagine what followed it; (_d_) connect the whole in a terse, dramatic
narration for the platform and deliver it with careful attention to all
that you have learned of the public speaker's art.
10. Do the same with other incidents you have seen or heard of, or read
of in the newspapers.
NOTE: It is hoped that this exercise will be varied and expanded until