I not only feel nervous before speaking, but
after I have finished I usually feel a sense of regret, because
it seems to me as if I had left out of my address the main thing
and the best thing that I had meant to say.
There is a great compensation, though, for this preliminary
nervous suffering, that comes to me after I have been speaking
for about ten minutes, and have come to feel that I have really
mastered my audience, and that we have gotten into full and
complete sympathy with each other. It seems to me that there is
rarely such a combination of mental and physical delight in any
effort as that which comes to a public speaker when he feels that
he has a great audience completely within his control. There is a
thread of sympathy and oneness that connects a public speaker
with his audience, that is just as strong as though it was
something tangible and visible. If in an audience of a thousand
people there is one person who is not in sympathy with my views,
or is inclined to be doubtful, cold, or critical, I can pick him
out. When I have found him I usually go straight at him, and it
is a great satisfaction to watch the process of his thawing out.
I find that the most effective medicine for such individuals is
administered at first in the form of a story, although I never
tell an anecdote simply for the sake of telling one.
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