emphatic word usually comes at one end of the sentence. But an emphatic word

needs emphatic expression, and this is precisely what it does not get when

concentration flags by leaping too soon to that which is next to be uttered.

Concentrate all your mental energies on the present sentence. Remember that the

mind of your audience follows yours very closely, and if you withdraw your

attention from what you are saying to what you are going to say, your audience

will also withdraw theirs. They may not do so consciously and deliberately, but

they will surely cease to give importance to the things that you yourself

slight. It is fatal to either the actor or the speaker to cross his bridges too

soon.

 

Of course, all this is not to say that in the natural pauses of your speech you

are not to take swift forward surveys--they are as important as the forward look

in driving a motor car; the caution is of quite another sort: _while speaking

one sentence do not think of the sentence to follow_. Let it come from its

proper source--within yourself. You cannot deliver a broadside without

concentrated force--that is what produces the explosion. In preparation you

store and concentrate thought and feeling; in the pauses during delivery you

swiftly look ahead and gather yourself for effective attack; during the moments

of actual speech, _SPEAK--DON'T ANTICIPATE_. Divide your attention and you

divide your power.

 

This matter of the effect of the inner man upon the outer needs a further word

here, particularly as touching concentration.