ll things are ready if the mind be so."
The eagle looks the cloudless sun in the face.

_Assume Mastery Over Your Audience_

In public speech, as in electricity, there is a positive and a negative
force. Either you or your audience are going to possess the positive
factor. If you assume it you can almost invariably make it yours. If you
assume the negative you are sure to be negative. Assuming a virtue or a
vice vitalizes it. Summon all your power of self-direction, and remember
that though your audience is infinitely more important than you, the
truth is more important than both of you, because it is eternal. If your
mind falters in its leadership the sword will drop from your hands. Your
assumption of being able to instruct or lead or inspire a multitude or
even a small group of people may appall you as being colossal
impudence--as indeed it may be; but having once essayed to speak, be
courageous. _BE_ courageous--it lies within you to be what you will.
_MAKE_ yourself be calm and confident.

Reflect that your audience will not hurt you. If Beecher in Liverpool
had spoken behind a wire screen he would have invited the audience to
throw the over-ripe missiles with which they were loaded; but he was a
man, confronted his hostile hearers fearlessly--and won them.

In facing your audience, pause a moment and look them over--a hundred
chances to one they want you to succeed, for what man is so foolish as
to spend his time, perhaps his money, in the hope that you will waste
his investment by talking dully?

_Concluding Hints_

Do not make haste to begin--haste shows lack of control.

Do not apologize. It ought not to be necessary; and if it is, it will
not help. Go straight ahead.

Take a deep breath, relax, and begin in a quiet conversational tone as
though you were speaking to one large friend. You will not find it half
so bad as you imagined; really, it is like taking a cold plunge: after
you are in, the water is fine. In fact, having spoken a few times you
will even anticipate the plunge with exhilaration. To stand before an
audience and make them think your thoughts after you is one of the
greatest pleasures you can ever know. Instead of fearing it, you ought
to be as anxious as the fox hounds straining at their leashes, or the
race horses tugging at their reins.

So cast out fear, for fear is cowardly--when it is not mastered. The
bravest know fear, but they do not yield to it. Face your audience
plucki