In its effect on its victim, monotony is actually deadly--it will drive the

bloom from the cheek and the lustre from the eye as quickly as sin, and often

leads to viciousness. The worst punishment that human ingenuity has ever been

able to invent is extreme monotony--solitary confinement. Lay a marble on the

table and do nothing eighteen hours of the day but change that marble from one

point to another and back again, and you will go insane if you continue long

enough.

 

So this thing that shortens life, and is used as the most cruel of punishments

in our prisons, is the thing that will destroy all the life and force of a

speech. Avoid it as you would shun a deadly dull bore. The "idle rich" can have

half-a-dozen homes, command all the varieties of foods gathered from the four

corners of the earth, and sail for Africa or Alaska at their pleasure; but the

poverty-stricken man must walk or take a street car--he does not have the choice

of yacht, auto, or special train. He must spend the most of his life in labor

and be content with the staples of the food-market. Monotony is poverty, whether

in speech or in life. Strive to increase the variety of your speech as the

business man labors to augment his wealth.

 

Bird-songs, forest glens, and mountains are not monotonous--it is the long rows

of brown-stone fronts and the miles of paved streets that are so terribly same.

Nature in her wealth gives us endless variety; man with his limitations is often

monotonous. Get back to nature in your methods of speech-making.