gs of this chapter.

11. Give a three-minute talk on "Stage-Fright," including a (kindly)
imitation of two or more victims.

CHAPTER II

THE SIN OF MONOTONY

One day Ennui was born from Uniformity.

--MOTTE.

Our English has changed with the years so that many words now connote
more than they did originally. This is true of the word _monotonous_.
From "having but one tone," it has come to mean more broadly, "lack of
variation."

The monotonous speaker not only drones along in the same volume and
pitch of tone but uses always the same emphasis, the same speed, the
same thoughts--or dispenses with thought altogether.

Monotony, the cardinal and most common sin of the public speaker, is not
a transgression--it is rather a sin of omission, for it consists in
living up to the confession of the Prayer Book: "We have left undone
those things we ought to have done."

Emerson says, "The virtue of art lies in detachment, in sequestering one
object from the embarrassing variety." That is just what the monotonous
speaker fails to do--he does _not_ detach one thought or phrase from
another, they are all expressed in the same manner.

To tell you that your speech is monotonous may mean very little to you,
so let us look at the nature--and the curse--of monotony in other
spheres of life, then we shall appreciate more fully how it will blight
an otherwise good speech.

If the Victrola in the adjoining apartment grinds out just three
selections over and over again, it is pretty safe to assume that your
neighbor has no other records. If a speaker uses only a few of his
powers, it points very plainly to the fact that the rest of his powers
are not developed. Monotony reveals our limitations.

In its effect on its victim, monotony is actually deadly--it will drive
the bloom from the cheek and the lustre from the eye as quickly as sin,
and often leads to viciousness. The worst punishment that human
ingenuity has ever been able to invent is extreme monotony--solitary
confinement. Lay a marble on the table and do nothing eighteen hours of
the day but change that marble from one point to another and back again,
and you will go insane if you continue long enough.

So this thing that shortens life, and is used as the most cruel of
punishments in our prisons, is the thing that will destroy all the life
and force of a speech. Avoid it as you would shun a deadly dull bore.
The "idle rich" can have half-a-dozen homes