ideal, for we
must strive after idealized nature, in fruit, tree, and speech.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES.

1. What are the causes of monotony?

2. Cite some instances in nature.

3. Cite instances in man's daily life.

4. Describe some of the effects of monotony in both cases.

5. Read aloud some speech without paying particular attention to its
meaning or force.

6. Now repeat it after you have thoroughly assimilated its matter and
spirit. What difference do you notice in its rendition?

7. Why is monotony one of the worst as well as one of the most common
faults of speakers?

CHAPTER III

EFFICIENCY THROUGH EMPHASIS AND SUBORDINATION

In a word, the principle of emphasis...is followed best, not
by remembering particular rules, but by being full of a
particular feeling.

--C.S. BALDWIN, _Writing and Speaking_.

The gun that scatters too much does not bag the birds. The same
principle applies to speech. The speaker that fires his force and
emphasis at random into a sentence will not get results. Not every word
is of special importance--therefore only certain words demand emphasis.

You say Massa_CHU_setts and Minne_AP_olis, you do not emphasize each
syllable alike, but hit the accented syllable with force and hurry over
the unimportant ones. Now why do you not apply this principle in
speaking a sentence? To some extent you do, in ordinary speech; but do
you in public discourse? It is there that monotony caused by lack of
emphasis is so painfully apparent.

So far as emphasis is concerned, you may consider the average sentence
as just one big word, with the important word as the accented syllable.
Note the following:

"Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice."

You might as well say _MASS-A-CHU-SETTS_, emphasizing every syllable
equally, as to lay equal stress on each word in the foregoing sentences.

Speak it aloud and see. Of course you will want to emphasize _destiny_,
for it is the principal idea in your declaration, and you will put some
emphasis on _not_, else your hearers may think you are affirming that
destiny _is_ a matter of chance. By all means you must emphasize
_chance_, for it is one of the two big ideas in the statement.

Another reason why _chance_ takes emphasis is that it is contrasted with
_choice_ in the next sentence. Obviously, the author has contrasted
these ideas purposely, so that they might be more emphatic, and here we
see th