uditor's mind.

We shall concern ourselves in this first study with the last of these
three factors--the mind of the auditor, or, to put it more definitely,
your attitude toward the mind of your auditor. We shall make this our
first concern, not because it is more essential to successful delivery
than the other two elements of the problem, but because failure at this
point is a fundamental failure. Such failure involves the whole
structure in ruin.

Let me make this point explicit. Failure of the speaker to direct the
thought toward a receiving mind--the mind of an auditor--results in
blurred thought, robs the voice of all aim, and reduces the
interpretation to a meaningless recital of words. Consider the first
factor in the problem of interpretation--the thought of the author. Take
these first two sentences:

Do you ask me, then, what is this Puritan principle?

The Puritan principle in its essence is simply individual freedom!

A wholly satisfying interpretation of these lines involves a knowledge
of the speech from which they are taken, and a knowledge of the
circumstances under which it was delivered. Complete possession of the
thought, which alone insures perfect expression, requires a grasp of
the situation out of which it was born and an appreciation of the mind
which conceived it. But with no context and no knowledge of these
conditions, and so only an approximate appreciation of the thought in
all its fulness, the interpreter, under the stimulus of an intent to
convince another of the truth contained in the detached sentence, may
deliver the lines convincingly! And to carry conviction is the first and
fundamental requisite of all good delivery.

So it is with the second factor in your problem. Your voice may fail at
a dozen different points, but _directed_ thought can employ so skilfully
even an inefficient instrument that the resultant expression, while
never satisfying, may still carry conviction.

But let the one who speaks these lines feel no responsibility toward
another, let him fail to direct the idea toward another mind, and the
most complete possession of the author's thought, plus the most perfect
control of the voice, will fail to make the interpretation convincing.
You must establish a relation with your auditor! You must have an aim.
You must "have something to say," but you must also have some one "to
say it at." You cannot hope to become an expert marksman by "shooting
into the