ideas, and don't speak until you do get them.

 

This, however, is not being what the old New England housekeeper used to call

"forehanded." The real solution of the problem of what to do with an empty head

is never to let it become empty. In the artesian wells of Dakota the water

rushes to the surface and leaps a score of feet above the ground. The secret of

this exuberant flow is of course the great supply below, crowding to get out.

 

What is the use of stopping to prime a mental pump when you can fill your life

with the resources for an artesian well? It is not enough to have merely enough;

you must have more than enough. Then the pressure of your mass of thought and

feeling will maintain your flow of speech and give you the confidence and poise

that denote reserve power. To be away from home with only the exact return fare

leaves a great deal to circumstances!

 

Reserve power is magnetic. It does not consist in giving the idea that you are

holding something in reserve, but rather in the suggestion that the audience is

getting the cream of your observation, reading, experience, feeling, thought. To

have reserve power, therefore, you must have enough milk of material on hand to

supply sufficient cream.

 

But how shall we get the milk? There are two ways: the one is first-hand--from

the cow; the other is second-hand--from the milkman.

 

_The Seeing Eye_