These all realized their strongest desires.  The law is universal.  Desire greatly, and you shall achieve; sacrifice much, and you shall obtain.

Stanton Davis Kirkham has beautifully expressed this thought:  “You may be keeping accounts, and presently you shall walk out of the door that has for so long seemed to you the barrier of your ideals, and shall find yourself before an audience—­the pen still behind your ear, the ink stains on your fingers—­and then and there shall pour out the torrent of your inspiration.  You may be driving sheep, and you shall wander to the city—­bucolic and open-mouthed; shall wander under the intrepid guidance of the spirit into the studio of the master, and after a time he shall say, ‘I have nothing more to teach you.’  And now you have become the master, who did so recently dream of great things while driving sheep.  You shall lay down the saw and the plane to take upon yourself the regeneration of the world.”

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1.  What, in your own words, is personality?

2.  How does personality in a speaker affect you as a listener?

3.  In what ways does personality show itself in a speaker?

4.  Deliver a short speech on “The Power of Will in the Public Speaker.”

5.  Deliver a short address based on any sentence you choose from this chapter.

CHAPTER XXX

AFTER-DINNER AND OTHER OCCASIONAL SPEAKING

    The perception of the ludicrous is a pledge of sanity.

    —­RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Essays.

    And let him be sure to leave other men their turns to speak.

    —­FRANCIS BACON, Essay on Civil and Moral Discourse.

Perhaps the most brilliant, and certainly the most entertaining, of all speeches are those delivered on after-dinner and other special occasions.  The air of well-fed content in the former, and of expectancy well primed in the latter, furnishes an audience which, though not readily won, is prepared for the best, while the speaker himself is pretty sure to have been chosen for his gifts of oratory.

The first essential of good occasional speaking is to study the occasion.  Precisely what is the object of the meeting?  How important is the occasion to the audience?  How large will the audience be?  What sort of people are they?  How large is the auditorium?  Who selects the speakers’ themes?  Who else is to speak?  What are they to speak about?  Precisely how long am I to speak?  Who speaks before I do and who follows?

If you want to hit the nail on the head ask such questions as these.[35] No occasional address can succeed unless it fits the occasion to a T. Many prominent men have lost prestige because they were too careless or too busy or too self-confident to respect the occasion and the audience by learning the exact conditions under which they were to speak.  Leaving too much to the moment is taking a long chance and generally means a less effective speech, if not a failure.