When you have mastered the mechanics of speech outlined in the next few chapters you will no longer be troubled with monotony.  The complete knowledge of these principles and the ability to apply them will give you great variety in your powers of expression.  But they cannot be mastered and applied by thinking or reading about them—­you must practise, practise, PRACTISE.  If no one else will listen to you, listen to yourself—­you must always be your own best critic, and the severest one of all.

The technical principles that we lay down in the following chapters are not arbitrary creations of our own.  They are all founded on the practices that good speakers and actors adopt—­either naturally and unconsciously or under instruction—­in getting their effects.

It is useless to warn the student that he must be natural.  To be natural may be to be monotonous.  The little strawberry up in the arctics with a few tiny seeds and an acid tang is a natural berry, but it is not to be compared with the improved variety that we enjoy here.  The dwarfed oak on the rocky hillside is natural, but a poor thing compared with the beautiful tree found in the rich, moist bottom lands.  Be natural—­but improve your natural gifts until you have approached the ideal, for we must strive after idealized nature, in fruit, tree, and speech.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES.

1.  What are the causes of monotony?

2.  Cite some instances in nature.

3.  Cite instances in man’s daily life.

4.  Describe some of the effects of monotony in both cases.

5.  Read aloud some speech without paying particular attention to its meaning or force.

6.  Now repeat it after you have thoroughly assimilated its matter and spirit.  What difference do you notice in its rendition?

7.  Why is monotony one of the worst as well as one of the most common faults of speakers?

CHAPTER III

EFFICIENCY THROUGH EMPHASIS AND SUBORDINATION

    In a word, the principle of emphasis...is followed best, not
    by remembering particular rules, but by being full of a
    particular feeling.

    —­C.S.  BALDWIN, Writing and Speaking.

The gun that scatters too much does not bag the birds.  The same principle applies to speech.  The speaker that fires his force and emphasis at random into a sentence will not get results.  Not every word is of special importance—­therefore only certain words demand emphasis.

You say Massa_CHU_setts and Minne_AP_olis, you do not emphasize each syllable alike, but hit the accented syllable with force and hurry over the unimportant ones.  Now why do you not apply this principle in speaking a sentence?  To some extent you do, in ordinary speech; but do you in public discourse?  It is there that monotony caused by lack of emphasis is so painfully apparent.