From a lecture delivered in Exeter Hall, London, 1886, when making
    his last tour of Great Britain.

In Case of Trouble

But what are you to do if, notwithstanding all your efforts, you should forget your points, and your mind, for the minute, becomes blank?  This is a deplorable condition that sometimes arises and must be dealt with.  Obviously, you can sit down and admit defeat.  Such a consummation is devoutly to be shunned.

Walking slowly across the platform may give you time to grip yourself, compose your thoughts, and stave off disaster.  Perhaps the surest and most practical method is to begin a new sentence with your last important word.  This is not advocated as a method of composing a speech—­it is merely an extreme measure which may save you in tight circumstances.  It is like the fire department—­the less you must use it the better.  If this method is followed very long you are likely to find yourself talking about plum pudding or Chinese Gordon in the most unexpected manner, so of course you will get back to your lines the earliest moment that your feet have hit the platform.

Let us see how this plan works—­obviously, your extemporized words will lack somewhat of polish, but in such a pass crudity is better than failure.

Now you have come to a dead wall after saying:  “Joan of Arc fought for liberty.”  By this method you might get something like this: 

“Liberty is a sacred privilege for which mankind always had to fight.  These struggles [Platitude—­but push on] fill the pages of history.  History records the gradual triumph of the serf over the lord, the slave over the master.  The master has continually tried to usurp unlimited powers.  Power during the medieval ages accrued to the owner of the land with a spear and a strong castle; but the strong castle and spear were of little avail after the discovery of gunpowder.  Gunpowder was the greatest boon that liberty had ever known.”

Thus far you have linked one idea with another rather obviously, but you are getting your second wind now and may venture to relax your grip on the too-evident chain; and so you say: 

“With gunpowder the humblest serf in all the land could put an end to the life of the tyrannical baron behind the castle walls.  The struggle for liberty, with gunpowder as its aid, wrecked empires, and built up a new era for all mankind.”

In a moment more you have gotten back to your outline and the day is saved.

Practising exercises like the above will not only fortify you against the death of your speech when your memory misses fire, but it will also provide an excellent training for fluency in speaking. Stock up with ideas.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1.  Pick out and state briefly the nine helps to memorizing suggested in this chapter.

2.  Report on whatever success you may have had with any of the plans for memory culture suggested in this chapter.  Have any been less successful than others?