It does not mean the trite, or the commonplace,
or the obvious. It is a strong and sturdy quality, is this simplicity of
which I am speaking, and nothing else will atone for lack of it in the
public speaker.
Longfellow calls it the supreme excellence, since it is the quality
which above all others brings serenity to the soul and makes life
really worth living. Every man should earnestly seek to cultivate this
great quality as essential to noble character.
This speech is conspicuous for another indispensable quality for
effective public speaking,--the quality of sincerity. It grows largely
out of simplicity and is the product of integrity of mind and heart. Men
recognize it quickly, though they cannot easily tell whence it comes. We
find it highly developed in great leaders in business and professional
life. There has never been a really great public speaker who was not
preeminently a sincere man.
Beecher said, "Let no man who is a sneak try to be an orator." Such a
man can not be. He will shortly be found out. The world's ultimate
estimate of a man is not far wrong.
A politician of much promise was addressing a distinguished audience in
Washington. The Opera House was crowded to the doors to hear him and
apparently he was making a good impression upon all his hearers. But
suddenly, at the very climax of his speech, while upwards of two
thousand eyes were rivetted upon him, he was seen to wink at a personal
friend of his sitting in a nearby box, and at that instant his future
political prospects were shattered as a vase struck by lightning.
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