striking news of the day.

 

It would be a boon to speech-making if speakers would conserve the attention of

their audiences in the same way and emphasize only the words representing the

important ideas. The average speaker will deliver the foregoing line on destiny

with about the same amount of emphasis on each word. Instead of saying, "It is a

matter of _CHOICE_," he will deliver it, "It is a matter of choice," or "_IT IS

A MATTER OF CHOICE_"--both equally bad.

 

Charles Dana, the famous editor of _The New York Sun_, told one of his reporters

that if he went up the street and saw a dog bite a man, to pay no attention to

it. _The Sun_ could not afford to waste the time and attention of its readers on

such unimportant happenings. "But," said Mr. Dana, "if you see a man bite a dog,

hurry back to the office and write the story." Of course that is news; that is

unusual.

 

Now the speaker who says "_IT IS A MATTER OF CHOICE_" is putting too much

emphasis upon things that are of no more importance to metropolitan readers than

a dog bite, and when he fails to emphasize "choice" he is like the reporter who

"passes up" the man's biting a dog. The ideal speaker makes his big words stand

out like mountain peaks; his unimportant words are submerged like stream-beds.

His big thoughts stand like huge oaks; his ideas of no especial value are merely

like the grass around the tree.

 

From all this we may deduce this important principle: _EMPHASIS_ is a matter of