Acres of Diamonds |
|
listen. It is quality, temperament, control—the word is immaterial, but the fact is very material indeed.
Some quarter of a century ago Conwell published a little book for students on the study and practice of oratory. That "clear-cut articulation is the charm of eloquence" is one of his insisted-upon statements, and it well illustrates the lifelong practice of the man himself, for every word as he talks can be heard in every part of a large building, yet always he speaks without apparent effort. He avoids "elocution." His voice is soft-pitched and never breaks, even now when he is over seventy, because, so he explains it, he always speaks in his natural voice. There is never a straining after effect.
"A speaker must possess a large-hearted regard for the welfare of his audience," he writes, and here again we see Conwell explaining Conwellism. "Enthusiasm invites enthusiasm," is another of his points of importance; and one understands that it is by deliberate purpose, and not by chance, that he tries with such tremendous effort to put enthusiasm into his hearers with every sermon and every lecture that he delivers.
"It is easy to raise a laugh, but dangerous, for it is the greatest test of an orator's control of his audience to be able to land them again on the solid earth of sober thinking." I have known him at the very end of a sermon have a ripple of laughter sweep freely over the entire congregation, and then in a moment he has every individual under his control, listening soberly to his words.
He never fears to use humor, and it is always very simple and obvious and effective. With him even a very simple pun may be used, not only with-out taking away from the strength of what he is saying, but with a vivid increase of impressiveness. And when he says something funny it is in such a delightful and confidential way, with such a genial, quiet, infectious humorousness, that his audience is captivated. And they never think that he is telling something funny of his own; it seems, such is the skill of the man, that he is just letting them know of something humorous that they are to enjoy with him.
"Be absolutely truthful and scrupulously clear," he writes; and with delightfully terse common sense, he says, "Use illustrations that illustrate"—and never did an orator live [ Continue » ]