Extempore Speech: How to Acquire and Practice It

by William Pittenger

To clearly arrange all thoughts that belong to the subject, lay them aside when the work is done until the moment of speech, and then enter confidently upon them with only such a momentary glance as will assure us that all is right—this is the method to make our strength fully available. This confidence while in waiting seems to the beginner very difficult, but experience rapidly renders it easy. M. Bautain declares that he has been repeatedly so confident in his preparation as to fall asleep while waiting to be summoned to the pulpit!

Those who misimprove the last moments by too much thought and solicitude are not the only class of offenders. Some persons, through mere indolence, suffer the fine lines of preparation which have been traced with so much care to fade into dimness. This error is not unfrequently committed by those who speak a second or third time on the same subject. Because they have once succeeded they imagine that the same success is always at command. No mistake could be greater. It is not enough to have speech-material in a position from which it can be collected by a conscious and prolonged effort, but it must be in the foreground of the mind. There is no time at the moment of delivery for reviving half obliterated lines of memory.

The writer once saw a notable case of failure from this cause. A preacher on a great occasion was much engrossed with other important duties until the hour appointed for his sermon had arrived. With perfect confidence he selected a sketch from which he had preached a short time before and with the general course of which he was no doubt familiar. But when he endeavored to produce his thoughts they were not ready. He became embarrassed, talked at random for a short time, and then had the candor to tell the audience that he could not finish, and to take his seat. Probably half an hour given to reviewing his plan would have made all his previous preparation fresh again, and have spared him the mortification of failure.

In this last interval it is also well to care for the strength and vigor of the body, as its condition greatly influences all mental operations. It is said that the pearl-diver, before venturing into the depths of the sea, always spends a few moments in deep breathing and other bodily preparations. In the excitement of speech, the whirl and hurricane of emotion, it is advisable to be well prepared for the high tension of nerve that is implied. Mental excitement exhausts and wears down the body faster than bodily labor. We must carefully husband our strength that we may be able to meet all demands upon it.

Holyoake makes the following pertinent observation in reference to this point:

“Perhaps the lowest quality of the art of oratory, but one on many occasions of the first importance, is a certain robust and radiant physical health; great volumes of animal heat. In the cold thinness of a morning audience mere energy and mellowness is inestimable; wisdom and learning would be harsh and unwelcome compared with a substantial man, who is quite a housewarming.”

Fatiguing and excessive exercise should be very carefully avoided. Holyoake illustrates this from his own experience. He says:

“One Saturday I walked from Sheffield to Huddersfield to deliver on Sunday two anniversary lectures. It was my first appearance there, and I was ambitious to acquit myself well. But in the morning I was utterly unable to do more than talk half inaudibly and quite incoherently. In the evening I was tolerable, but my voice was weak. My annoyance was excessive. I was a paradox to myself. My power seemed to come and go by some eccentric law of its own. I did not find out until years after that the utter exhaustion of my strength had exhausted the powers of speech and thought, and that entire repose, instead of entire fatigue, should have been the preparation for public speaking.”

The last statement is somewhat too strong, for absolute rest is not generally advisable. It would leave the speaker, when he began to speak, with languid mind and slowly beating pulse—a state which it would require some minutes for him to overcome. A short, but brisk walk, when the health is good, will invigorate and refresh all his faculties, and often prevent a listless introduction by giving him the vigor to grasp the subject at once and launch right into the heart of it. Should any person doubt the power of exercise to produce this effect, let him, when perplexed with difficult questions in his study, start out over fields and hills, and review the matter in the open air. It is a good thing to carry the breath of the fields into the opening of our addresses.

But when the speaker cannot take this form of exercise in the moments just preceding speech, he may easily find a substitute for it. If alone, he can pace back and forth and swing his arms until the circulation becomes brisk and pours a stream of arterial blood to the brain.