CHAPTER I

 

ACQUIRING CONFIDENCE BEFORE AN AUDIENCE

 

There is a strange sensation often experienced in the presence of an audience.

It may proceed from the gaze of the many eyes that turn upon the speaker,

especially if he permits himself to steadily return that gaze. Most speakers

have been conscious of this in a nameless thrill, a real something, pervading

the atmosphere, tangible, evanescent, indescribable. All writers have borne

testimony to the power of a speaker's eye in impressing an audience. This

influence which we are now considering is the reverse of that picture--the power

_their_ eyes may exert upon him, especially before he begins to speak: after the

inward fires of oratory are fanned into flame the eyes of the audience lose all

terror.

 

--WILLIAM PITTENGER, _Extempore Speech_.

 

Students of public speaking continually ask, "How can I overcome

self-consciousness and the fear that paralyzes me before an audience?"

 

Did you ever notice in looking from a train window that some horses feed near

the track and never even pause to look up at the thundering cars, while just

ahead at the next railroad crossing a farmer's wife will be nervously trying to

quiet her scared horse as the train goes by?