harbinger of spring was love and that "In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly

turns to thoughts of love."

 

_2. Imaging in Speech-Delivery_

 

When once the passion of speech is on you and you are "warmed up"--perhaps by

striking _till_ the iron is hot so that you may not fail to strike _when_ it is

hot--your mood will be one of vision.

 

Then (a) _Re-image past emotion_--of which more elsewhere. The actor re-calls

the old feelings every time he renders his telling lines.

 

(b) _Reconstruct in image the scenes you are to describe._

 

(c) _Image the objects in nature whose tone you are delineating_, so that

bearing and voice and movement (gesture) will picture forth the whole

convincingly. Instead of merely stating the fact that whiskey ruins homes, the

temperance speaker paints a drunkard coming home to abuse his wife and strike

his children. It is much more effective than telling the truth in abstract

terms. To depict the cruelness of war, do not assert the fact abstractly--"War

is cruel." Show the soldier, an arm swept away by a bursting shell, lying on the

battlefield pleading for water; show the children with tear-stained faces

pressed against the window pane praying for their dead father to return. Avoid

general and prosaic terms. Paint pictures. Evolve images for the imagination of

your audience to construct into pictures of their own.