Omit the thunder of delivery, if you will, but like Wendell Phillips put “silent lightning” into your speech.  Make your thoughts breathe and your words burn.  Birrell said:  “Emerson writes like an electrical cat emitting sparks and shocks in every sentence.”  Go thou and speak likewise.  Get the “big stick” into your delivery—­be forceful.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1.  Illustrate, by repeating a sentence from memory, what is meant by employing force in speaking.

2.  Which in your opinion is the most important of the technical principles of speaking that you have studied so far?  Why?

3.  What is the effect of too much force in a speech?  Too little?

4.  Note some uninteresting conversation or ineffective speech, and tell why it failed.

5.  Suggest how it might be improved.

6.  Why do speeches have to be spoken with more force than do conversations?

7.  Read aloud the selection on page 84, using the technical principles outlined in chapters III to VIII, but neglect to put any force behind the interpretation.  What is the result?

8.  Reread several times, doing your best to achieve force.

9.  Which parts of the selection on page 84 require the most force?

10.  Write a five-minute speech not only discussing the errors of those who exaggerate and those who minimize the use of force, but by imitation show their weaknesses.  Do not burlesque, but closely imitate.

11.  Give a list of ten themes for public addresses, saying which seem most likely to require the frequent use of force in delivery.

12.  In your own opinion, do speakers usually err from the use of too much or too little force?

13.  Define (a) bombast; (b) bathos; (c) sentimentality; (d) squeamish.

14.  Say how the foregoing words describe weaknesses in public speech.

15.  Recast in twentieth-century English “Hamlet’s Directions to the Players,” page 88.

16.  Memorize the following extracts from Wendell Phillips’ speeches, and deliver them with the of Wendell Phillips’ “silent lightning” delivery.

We are for a revolution!  We say in behalf of these hunted lyings, whom God created, and who law-abiding Webster and Winthrop have sworn shall not find shelter in Massachusetts,—­we say that they may make their little motions, and pass their little laws in Washington, but that Faneuil Hall repeals them in the name of humanity and the old Bay State!

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    My advice to workingmen is this: