t 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!

* * * * *

My advice to workingmen is this:

If you want power in this country; if you