n conclusion is victoriously proclaimed and
driven home.

Even if an element of pathos enters into the peroration, it is a mistake
to allow the voice to weaken. If it takes a lower note, it must make up
in strength and intensity what it loses in height. Anything else is sure
to prove an anticlimax.

The matter of the peroration should consist of the main conclusion of
the lecture, and should begin by gathering together the principal
threads of the discourse which should lead to that conclusion.

The necessity for a peroration, or strong finish, is recognized in
music, the drama, and everything presented before an audience. Most band
selections end in a crash, the majority of instruments working at full
capacity. Every musical comedy concludes with its full cast on the stage
singing the most effective air. Every vaudeville performer strives to
reach a climax and, where talent breaks down, refuge is sought in some
such miserable subterfuge as waving the flag or presenting a picture of
the bulldog countenance of Theodore Roosevelt.

The entertainer, however, appeals to prevailing opinions and prejudices;
he gives the audience what they want. The lecturer should be an
instructor and his theme may be a new and, as yet, unpopular truth, and
it is his duty to give the audience what they should have.

Therefore the peroration should be full of that persuasive eloquence
which will lead the audience to a favorable consideration of the
positions which have been carefully and judiciously presented in the
body of the lecture.

CHAPTER VI

READ WIDELY

I had just concluded a lecture in Grand Junction, Colo., over a year
ago, when a burly railroad man stepped forward and introduced himself. I
forget his name, but remember well what he said. Here it is, about word
for word:

"I was an engineer years ago, as I am today, but in those days Debs was
my fireman. Having a little better job than he, I naturally thought I
was the smarter man. We used to sleep in the same room. We would both
turn in all tired from a long trip and I would be asleep before you
could count ten. After I had slept three or four hours I would wake up
about two in the morning and there would be Debs with a candle, shaded
so as not to disturb me, reading away at a book as if everything
depended on his understanding all there was in it. Many a time he only
got one or two hours' rest before going to work again.

"I told him he was a d--d fool, and I