THE STREAM OF THOUGHT IN WRITING, SPEAKING, AND ORAL READING
The highest joy is the freedom of the mind in the living play of all its powers.
The historian Niebuhr, speaking of the historian’s vocation, remarks that he who calls past ages into being enjoys a bliss analogous to that of creating. With still more truth may we say of that mind which is able, in the conscious awakening of all its powers, to give full and satisfactory utterance to its thick-coming thoughts, that it enjoys the joy of a creator. If there is one bright particular hour in the life of the educated man, in the career of the scholar, it is that hour for which all other hours of student-life were made,—that hour in which he gives original and full expression to what has been slowly gendering within him.
Unless a man can link his written thoughts with the everlasting wants of men so that they shall draw from them as from wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and feelings of the soul than to the muscles and bones.
THE STREAM OF THOUGHT IN WRITING, SPEAKING, AND ORAL READING
Eventful in his career is the day on which a young person speaks in public for the first time. His hands and arms are in his way; his lower limbs quake; his lips and throat feel dry and parched; the vocal organs refuse to obey his bidding; he experiences other discomforts which he cannot explain and which are due to embarrassment and nervousness. What is worst of all, he cannot tell what has gone wrong in his mind. If his speech was committed, the memory fails to recall some word or sentence that seems absolutely essential to the sequence of thought. If he speaks extemporaneously, the stream of thought stops flowing, or turns back in eddies, or perhaps spreads out over all the land instead of moving towards the proper goal. In fact, all these annoyances have their fontal source in the mind, in a play of emotions in which stage-fright is the principal element. To this young man some trusted friend should whisper, “Take courage;” for if ever in his life a young man needs encouragement it is when he makes his first speech or preaches his first sermon.
[Sidenote: Public speakers are made, not born.]
Public speakers are made, not born. Native talent is helpful, but not all sufficient. Most of the obstacles to success disappear as soon as one has learned to think on his feet; that is, to control the stream of thought when facing an audience.