of the earth will constitute an international police
force to preserve the peace and the dove will take the eagle's
place.
Our differences will be settled by an international court with
the power to enforce its mandates. In times of peace prepare for
peace. The wages of war are the wages of sin, and the "wages of
sin is death."
--_Editorial by D.C., Leslie's Weekly; used by permission._
FORCE
However, 'tis expedient to be wary:
Indifference, certes, don't produce distress;
And rash enthusiasm in good society
Were nothing but a moral inebriety.
--BYRON, _Don Juan_.
You have attended plays that seemed fair, yet they did not move you,
grip you. In theatrical parlance, they failed to "get over," which means
that their message did not get over the foot-lights to the audience.
There was no punch, no jab to them--they had no force.
Of course, all this spells disaster, in big letters, not only in a stage
production but in any platform effort. Every such presentation exists
solely for the audience, and if it fails to hit them--and the expression
is a good one--it has no excuse for living; nor will it live long.
_What is Force?_
Some of our most obvious words open up secret meanings under scrutiny,
and this is one of them.
To begin with, we must recognize the distinction between inner and outer
force. The one is cause, the other effect. The one is spiritual, the
other physical. In this important particular, animate force differs from
inanimate force--the power of man, coming from within and expressing
itself outwardly, is of another sort from the force of Shimose powder,
which awaits some influence from without to explode it. However
susceptive to outside stimuli, the true source of power in man lies
within himself. This may seem like "mere psychology," but it has an
intensely practical bearing on public speaking, as will appear.
Not only must we discern the difference between human force and mere
physical force, but we must not confuse its real essence with some of
the things that may--and may not--accompany it. For example, loudness is
not force, though force at times may be attended by noise. Mere roaring
never made a good speech, yet there are moments--moments, mind you, not
minutes--when big voice power may be used with tremendous effect.
Nor is violent motion force--yet force may result in violent motion.
Hamlet counseled the players:
Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use
all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say)
whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a
temperance, that may give it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to
the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a
passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the
groundlings[2]; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing
but inexplicable dumb show, and noise. I would have such a
fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod.
Pray you avoid it.
Be not too tame, neither, but let your discretion be your tutor:
suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this
special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature;
for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose
end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as
'twere, the mirror up to Nature, to show Virtue her own feature,
Scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his
form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though
it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious
grieve; the censure of the which one must, in your allowance,
o'erweigh a whole theater of others. Oh, there be players that I
have seen play--and heard others praise, and that highly--not to
speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of
Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, or man, have so
strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's
journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated
humanity so abominably.[3]
Force is both a cause and an effect. Inner force, which must precede
outer force, is a combination of four elements, acting progressively.
First of all, _force arises from conviction_. You must be convinced of
the truth, or the importance, or the meaning, of what you are about to
say before you can give it forceful delivery. It must lay strong hold
upon your convictions before it can grip your audience. Conviction
convinces.
_The Saturday Evening Post_ in an article on "England's T.R."--Winston
Spencer Churchill--attributed much of Churchill's and Roosevelt's public
platform success to their forceful delivery. No matter what is in hand,
these men make themselves believe for the time being that that one thing
is the most important on earth. Hence they speak to their audiences in a
Do-this-or-you-_PERISH_ manner.
That kind of speaking wins, and it is that virile, strenuous, aggressive
attitude which both distinguishes and maintains the platform careers of
our greatest leaders.
But let us look a little closer at the origins of inner force. How does
conviction affect the man who feels it? We have answered the inquiry in
the very question itself--he _feels_ it: _Conviction produces emotional
tension_. Study the pictures of Theodore Roosevelt and of Billy Sunday
in action--_action_ is the word. Note the tension of their jaw muscles,
the taut lines of sinews in their entire bodies when reaching a climax
of force. Moral and physical force are alike in being both preceded and
accompanied