eaction against over-confidence and
over-suggestion ought to warn those whose chief asset is mere bluff.

A short time ago a speaker arose in a public-speaking club and asserted
that grass would spring from wood-ashes sprinkled over the soil, without
the aid of seed. This idea was greeted with a laugh, but the speaker was
so sure of his position that he reiterated the statement forcefully
several times and cited his own personal experience as proof. One of
the most intelligent men in the audience, who at first had derided the
idea, at length came to believe in it. When asked the reason for his
sudden change of attitude, he replied: "Because the speaker is so
confident." In fact, he was so confident that it took a letter from the
U.S. Department of Agriculture to dislodge his error.

If by a speaker's confidence, intelligent men can be made to believe
such preposterous theories as this where will the power of self-reliance
cease when plausible propositions are under consideration, advanced with
all the power of convincing speech?

Note the utter assurance in these selections:

I know not what course others may take, but as for me give me
liberty or give me death.

--PATRICK HENRY.

I ne'er will ask ye quarter, and I ne'er will be your slave;
But I'll swim the sea of slaughter, till I sink beneath its wave.

--PATTEN.

Come one, come all. This rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.

--SIR WALTER SCOTT.

_INVICTUS_

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever Gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud;
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

--WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY.

_Authority is a factor in suggestion._ We generally accept as truth, and
without criticism, the words of an authority. When he speaks,
contradictory ideas rarely arise in the mind to inhibit the action he
suggests. A judge of the Supreme Court has the power of his words
multiplied by the virtue of his position.