you were speaking to one large friend. You will not find it half so bad as you

imagined; really, it is like taking a cold plunge: after you are in, the water

is fine. In fact, having spoken a few times you will even anticipate the plunge

with exhilaration. To stand before an audience and make them think your thoughts

after you is one of the greatest pleasures you can ever know. Instead of fearing

it, you ought to be as anxious as the fox hounds straining at their leashes, or

the race horses tugging at their reins.

 

So cast out fear, for fear is cowardly--when it is not mastered. The bravest

know fear, but they do not yield to it. Face your audience pluckily--if your

knees quake, _MAKE_ them stop. In your audience lies some victory for you and

the cause you represent. Go win it. Suppose Charles Martell had been afraid to

hammer the Saracen at Tours; suppose Columbus had feared to venture out into the

unknown West; suppose our forefathers had been too timid to oppose the tyranny

of George the Third; suppose that any man who ever did anything worth while had

been a coward! The world owes its progress to the men who have dared, and you

must dare to speak the effective word that is in your heart to speak--for often

it requires courage to utter a single sentence. But remember that men erect no

monuments and weave no laurels for those who fear to do what they can.

 

Is all this unsympathetic, do you say?

 

Man, what you need is not sympathy, but a push. No one doubts that temperament

and nerves and illness and even praiseworthy modesty may, singly or combined,

cause the speaker's cheek to blanch before an audience, but neither can any one