done _would_ have been cowardly. Otherwise, it is justified."

 

A Fifth Avenue bus would attract attention up at Minisink Ford, New York, while

one of the ox teams that frequently pass there would attract attention on Fifth

Avenue. To make a word emphatic, deliver it differently from the manner in which

the words surrounding it are delivered. If you have been talking loudly, utter

the emphatic word in a concentrated whisper--and you have intense emphasis. If

you have been going fast, go very slow on the emphatic word. If you have been

talking on a low pitch, jump to a high one on the emphatic word. If you have

been talking on a high pitch, take a low one on your emphatic ideas. Read the

chapters on "Inflection," "Feeling," "Pause," "Change of Pitch," "Change of

Tempo." Each of these will explain in detail how to get emphasis through the use

of a certain principle.

 

In this chapter, however, we are considering only one form of emphasis: that of

applying force to the important word and subordinating the unimportant words. Do

not forget: this is one of the main methods that you must continually employ in

getting your effects.

 

Let us not confound loudness with emphasis. To yell is not a sign of

earnestness, intelligence, or feeling. The kind of force that we want applied to

the emphatic word is not entirely physical. True, the emphatic word may be

spoken more loudly, or it may be spoken more softly, but the _real_ quality

desired is intensity, earnestness. It must come from within, outward.