suggest this lesson: the same well-calculated,
restrained, delicately shaded force would simply _rivet_ your ideas in
the minds of your audience. An air-gun will rattle bird-shot against a
window pane--it takes a rifle to wing a bullet through plate glass and
the oaken walls beyond.

_When to Use Force_

An audience is unlike the kingdom of heaven--the violent do not always
take it by force. There are times when beauty and serenity should be the
only bells in your chime. Force is only one of the great extremes of
contrast--use neither it nor quiet utterance to the exclusion of other
tones: be various, and in variety find even greater force than you could
attain by attempting its constant use. If you are reading an essay on
the beauties of the dawn, talking about the dainty bloom of a
honey-suckle, or explaining the mechanism of a gas engine, a vigorous
style of delivery is entirely out of place. But when you are appealing
to wills and consciences for immediate action, forceful delivery wins.
In such cases, consider the minds of your audience as so many safes that
have been locked and the keys lost. Do not try to figure out the
combinations. Pour a little nitro glycerine into the cracks and light
the fuse. As these lines are being written a contractor down the street
is clearing away the rocks with dynamite to lay the foundations for a
great building. When you want to get action, do not fear to use
dynamite.

The final argument for the effectiveness of force in public speech is
the fact that everything must be enlarged for the purposes of the
platform--that is why so few speeches read well in the reports on the
morning after: statements appear crude and exaggerated because they are
unaccompanied by the forceful delivery of a glowing speaker before an
audience heated to attentive enthusiasm. So in preparing your speech you
must not err on the side of mild statement--your audience will
inevitably tone down your words in the cold grey of afterthought. When
Phidias was criticised for the rough, bold outlines of a figure he had
submitted in competition, he smiled and asked that his statue and the
one wrought by his rival should be set upon the column for which the
sculpture was destined. When this was done all the exaggerations and
crudities, toned by distances, melted into exquisite grace of line and
form. Each speech must be a special study in suitability and proportion.

Omit the thunder of delivery, if you will, bu