The following exercise should be spoken in a purely conversational tone, with numerous changes of pitch.  Practise it until your delivery would cause a stranger in the next room to think you were discussing an actual incident with a friend, instead of delivering a memorized monologue.  If you are in doubt about the effect you have secured, repeat it to a friend and ask him if it sounds like memorized words.  If it does, it is wrong.

    A SIMILAR CASE

Jack, I hear you’ve gone and done it.—­Yes, I know; most fellows will; went and tried it once myself, sir, though you see I’m single still.  And you met her—­did you tell me—­down at Newport, last July, and resolved to ask the question at a soiree?  So did I.

I suppose you left the ball-room, with its music and its light; for they say love’s flame is brightest in the darkness of the night.  Well, you walked along together, overhead the starlit sky; and I’ll bet—­old man, confess it—­you were frightened.  So was I.

So you strolled along the terrace, saw the summer moonlight pour all its radiance on the waters, as they rippled on the shore, till at length you gathered courage, when you saw that none was nigh—­did you draw her close and tell her that you loved her?  So did I.

Well, I needn’t ask you further, and I’m sure I wish you joy.  Think I’ll wander down and see you when you’re married—­eh, my boy?  When the honeymoon is over and you’re settled down, we’ll try—­What? the deuce you say!  Rejected—­you rejected?  So was I.

    —­Anonymous.

The necessity for changing pitch is so self-evident that it should be grasped and applied immediately.  However, it requires patient drill to free yourself from monotony of pitch.

In natural conversation you think of an idea first, and then find words to express it.  In memorized speeches you are liable to speak the words, and then think what they mean—­and many speakers seem to trouble very little even about that.  Is it any wonder that reversing the process should reverse the result?  Get back to nature in your methods of expression.

Read the following selection in a nonchalant manner, never pausing to think what the words really mean.  Try it again, carefully studying the thought you have assimilated.  Believe the idea, desire to express it effectively, and imagine an audience before you.  Look them earnestly in the face and repeat this truth.  If you follow directions, you will note that you have made many changes of pitch after several readings.

It is not work that kills men; it is worry.  Work is healthy; you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear.  Worry is rust upon the blade.  It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery but the friction.

    —­HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Change of Pitch Produces Emphasis