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Episode 26: Riding the Winged Horse - Art of Public Speaking - Dale Carnegie · The Art of Public Speaking

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Chapter twenty six, Riding the Winged Horse. To think and to feel constitute
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the two grand divisions of men of genius, the men of reasoning and the
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men of imagination Isaac Disraeli Literary Character of men of genius. And as imagination
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bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet's pen turns them to shapes,
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and gives to air in nothing, a local habitation and a name Shakespeare,
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Midsummer Night's Dream. It is common among those who deal chiefly with life's
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practicalities to think of imagination as having little value in comparison with direct thinking.
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They smile with tolerance when Emerson says that science does not know its debt to
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the imagination. For these the words of a speculative essayist, a philosopher,
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a poet. But when Napoleon the indomitable world empires declares that the human race
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is governed by its imagination, the authoritative word commands their respect. Be it
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remembered. The faculty of forming mental images is as efficient a cog as may
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be found in the whole mind machine. True, it must fit into the
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other vital cog, pure thought. But when it does so, it may
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be questioned which is the more productive of important results for the happiness and well
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being of man. There should become more apparent as we go on. One
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what is imagination? Let us not seek for a definition, for a score
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of varying ones may be found, But let us grasp this fact. By
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imagination we mean either the faculty or the process of forming mental images. The
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subject matter of imagination may be really existent in nature, or not at all
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real, or a combination of both. It may be physical or spiritual,
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or both. The mental image is at once the most lawless and the most
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law abiding child that has ever been born of the mind. First of all,
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as its name suggests, the process of imagination, for we are thinking
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of it now as a process rather than as a faculty, is memory at
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work. Therefore we must consider it primarily as one reproductive imagination. We see
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or hear, or feel or taste or smell something, and the sensation passes
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away. Yet we're conscious of a greater or lesser ability to reproduce such feelings
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at will. Two considerations, in general, will govern the vividness of the
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image thus evoked, the strength of the original impression and the reproductive power of
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one mind as compared with another. Yet every normal person will be able to
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evoke images with some degree of clearness. The fact that not all minds possessed
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this imaging faculty in anything like equal measure will have an important bearing on the
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public speaker's study of this question. No man who does not feel at least
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some poetic impulses is likely to aspire seriously to be a poet. Yet many
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whose imaging faculties are so dormant as to seem actually dead, do aspire to
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be public speakers. To all such, we say, most earnestly, awaken
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your image making gift, for even in the most coldly logical discourse, it
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is short approve of great service. It is important that you find out at
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once just how full and how trustworthy is your imagination, for it is capable
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of cultivation as well as of abuse. Francis Gorton footnote inquires into human faculty.
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Francis Gorton says the French appear to possess the visual faculty in a high
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degree. The peculiar ability they show in pre arranging ceremonials and fates of all
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kinds, and their undoubted genius for tactics and strategy show that they're able to
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foresee effects with unusual clearness. Their ingenuity in all technical contrivances is an additional
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testimony in the same direction, and so is their singular clearness of expression.
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Their phrase figure revous or picture to yourself seems to express their dominant mode of
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perception. Our equivalent of image is ambiguous. But individuals differ in this respect
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just as markedly as, for instance, the Dutch do from the French.
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And this is true not only of those who are classified by their friends as
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being respectively imaginative or unimaginative, but of those whose gifts or habits are not
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well known. Let us take for expe periments six are the best known types
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of imaging, and see in practice how they arise in our own minds.
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By all odds, the most common type is at the visual image. Children
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who more readily recall things seen than things heard are called by psychologists I minded,
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and most of us are bent in this direction. Close your eyes now
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and recall the word thus hyphenated as more suggestive the scene around this morning's breakfast
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table. Possibly there was nothing striking in the situation, and the images therefore
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not striking, then image any notable table scene in your experience, how vividly
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it stands forth, Because at the time you felt the impressions strongly just then,
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you may not have been conscious of how strongly the scene was laying hold
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upon you. For often we are so intent upon what we see that we
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give no particular thought to the fact that it is impressing us. It may
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surprise you to learn and how accurately you are able to image a scene when
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a long time has elapsed between the conscious focusing of your attention on the image
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and the time when you saw the original b The auditory image is probably the
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next most vivid of our recalled experiences. Here association is potent to suggest similarities.
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Close out all the world beside, and listen to the peculiar wood against
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wood, sound of the sharp thunder among rocky mountains. The crash of ball
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against tenpins may suggest it, or image. The word is imperfect, for
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it seems to suggest only the eye the sound of tearing ropes when some precious
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weight hangs in danger, or record the bay of a hound almost upon you
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in pursuit. Choose your own sound and see how pleasantly or terribly real it
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becomes when imaged in your brain. See. The motor image is a close
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competitive with the auditory for the second place. Have you ever awakened in the
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night, every muscle taut and striving to feel yourself straining against the opposing football
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line that held like a stone wall, or as firmly as the headboard of
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your bed, Or voluntarily recall the movement of the boat when you cried inwardly
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it's all up with me. The perilous lurch of a train, the sudden
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sinking of an elevator, or the unexpected toppling of a rocking chair may serve
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as further experiments d The gustatory image is common enough, as the idea of
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eating lemons will testify. Sometimes the pleasurable recollection of a delightful dinner will cause
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the mouth to water years afterward, while the image of particularly atrocious medicine will
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wrinkle the nose long after it has made one day in boyhood wretched d The
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olfactory image is even more delicate. Some there are who are affected to illness
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by the memory of certain odors, while others experience the most delectable sensations by
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the rise of pleasing olfactory images. F The tactile image to name no others
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is well nigh as potent. Do you shudder at the thought of velvet rubbed
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by short nailed finger tips? Or were you ever burned by touching an ice
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cold stove? Or happier memory, can you still feel the touch of a
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well loved absent hand. Be it remembered that few of these images are present
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in our minds, excepting combination. The sight and sound of the crashing avalanche
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are one. So are the flash and report of the huntman's gun that came
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so near doing for us. Thus, imaging, especially conscious reproductive imagination,
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will become a valuable part of our mental processes portion as we direct and control
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it. Two productive imagination all of the foregoing examples, and doubtless also many
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of the experiments you yourself may originate are merely reproductive. Pleasurable or horrific.
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As these may be, they're far less important than the images evoked by the
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productive imagination, though that does not infer a separate faculty. Recall again,
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for experiment, some scene whose beginning you once saw enacted on a street corner,
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but passed by before the day numon was ready to be disclosed. Recall
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it all that far the image is reproductive. But what followed, Let your
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fantasy roam at pleasure. The succeeding scenes are productive, for you have more
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or less consciously invented the unreal on the basis of the real. And just
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here the fictionist, the poem, and the public speaker will see the value
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of productive imagery. True, the feet of the idol you build on the
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ground, but its head pierces the clouds. It is a sun of both
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earth and heaven. One fact it is important to note here imagery is a
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valuable mental asset in proportion as it is controlled by the higher intellectual power of
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pure reason. The untutored child of nature thinks largely in images, and therefore
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attaches to them undue importance. He readily confuses the real with the unreal.
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To him, they are of like value. But the man of training readily
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distinguishes the one from the other and evaluates each with some if not with perfect
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justice. So we see, the unrestrained imaging may produce a rudderless steamer,
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while the trained faculty is the graceful sloop, skimming the seas at her skill,
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as will her course, steaded by the helm of reason and her lightsome
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wings catching every air of heaven, the game of chess, the warlord's tactical
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plan, the evolution of a geometrical theorem, the devising of a great business
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campaign, the elimination of waste in a factory, the day numa of a
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powerful drama, the overcoming of an economic obstacle, the scheme for a sublime
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poem, and the convincing siege of an audience. May, nay, indeed
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must each be conceived in an image and wrought to reality according to the plans
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and specifications laid upon the trestle board by some modern imaginative hireum. The farmer
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who would be content with the seed he possesses, would have no harvest.
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Do not rest satisfied with the ability to recall images, but cultivate your creative
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imagination by building what might be upon the foundation of what is. Two the
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uses of imaging in public speaking. By this time you will have already made
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some general application of these ideas to the art of the platform. But in
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several specific uses we must now refer. One Imaging in speech preparation. A
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set the image of your audience before you while you prepare, Disappointment may lurk
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here, and you cannot be forearmed for every emergency. But in the main,
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you must meet your audience before you actually do. Image its probable mood
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and attitude toward the occasion, the theme and the speaker b conceive your speech
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as a whole while you are preparing its parts. Else can you not see
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image how its parts shall be fitly framed together? See image. The language
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you will use, so far as written or extemporaneous speech, may dictate the
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habit of imaging, will give you choice of varied figures of speech. For
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remember that an address without fresh comparisons is like a garden without blooms. Do
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not be content with the first hackneyed figure that comes flowing to your pen point,
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but dream on until the striking, the unusual, yet the vividly real,
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comparison points your thought like steel does the arrow tip. Note the freshness
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and effectiveness of the following description from the opening of o'henles's story The Harbinger,
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Long before the springtide has felt in the dull bosom of the yokel does a
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city man know that the grass green goddess is upon her throne? He sits
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at his breakfast, eggs and toast, begirt by stone Walls opens his morning
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paper and sees journalism leave vernalism at the post. For whereas Spring's couriers were
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once the evidence of their finer senses, now the Associated Press does the trick.
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The warble of the first robin in Hackensack, the stirring of the maple
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sap in Bennington, the budding of the pussy willows along the main street in
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Syracuse, the first chirp of the blue bird, the swan song of the
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Blue Point, the annual tornado in Saint Louis, the plaint of the peach
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pessimists from Pompton, New Jersey. The regular visit of the tame wild goose
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with the broken leg to the pond near build Water Junction. The base attempt
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of the Drug Trust to boost the price of quinine foiled in the house by
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Congressman Jinks. The first tall poplar struck by lightning, and the usual stunned
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picnickers who had taken refuge. The first crack of the ice jam in the
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Allegheny River. The finding of a viole in its mossy bed by the correspondent
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at Round Corners. These are the advanced signs of the burgeoning season that are
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wired into the wise city, while the pharmacies nothing but winter upon his dreary
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fields. But these be mere externals. The true harbinger is the heart.
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When Streffen seeks his Chloe, and Mike is Maggie. Then, only as
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spring arrived and the newspaper report of the five foot rattler killed in Squire's Pettigrew's
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pasture confirmed, a hackneyed writer would probably have said that the newspaper told the
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city man about spring before the farmer could see any evidence of it, but
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that the real harbinger of spring was love, and that in the spring a
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young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Two. Imaging in speech
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delivery. When once the passion of speech is on you, and you are
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warmed up by striking till the iron is hot, so that you may not
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fail to strike when it is hot, your mood will be one of vision,
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then a reimage past emotion, of which more elsewhere, the actor recalls
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the old feelings every time he renders his telling lines. B reconstruct In image
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the scenes, you are to describe ce image the objects in nature whose tone
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you are delineating, so that bearing and voice and movement gesture will picture forth
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the whole convincingly. Instead of merely stating the fact that whiskey ruins homes.
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The temperance speaker paints a drunkard coming home to abuse his wife and strike his
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children. It is much more effective than telling the truth in abstract terms.
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To depict the cralness of war, do not assert the fact abstractly war is
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cruel. Show the soldier an arm swept away by a bursting shell, lying
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on the battlefield pleading for water. Show the children with tear stained faces pressed
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against the window pane, praying for their dead father to return. Avoid general
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and prosaic terms. Paint pictures. Evolve images for the imagination of your audience
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to construct into pictures of their own. Three. How to acquire the imaging
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habit. You remember the American statesman who asserted that the way to resume is
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to resume. The application is obvious. Beginning with the first simple analyzes of
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this chapter, test your own qualities of image making. One by one,
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practice to several kinds of images, then add even invent others in combination.
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For many images has come to us in complex form like the combined noise and
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shoving and hot odor of a cheering crowd. After practicing on reproductive imaging,
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turn to the productive, beginning with the reproductive and adding productive features for the
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sake of cultivating invention. Frequently allow your originating gifts full swing by weaving complete
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imaginary fabrics, sights, sounds, scenes, or the fine world of fantasy
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lies open to the journeyings of your winged steed. In like manner, train
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yourself in the use of figurative language. Learn first to distinguish and then to
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use its varied forms. When used with restraint, nothing can be more effective
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than the trope. But once let extravagance creep in by the window, and
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power will flee by the door. All in all, master your image,
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let not them master you. Questions and exercises. One, give original examples
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of each kind of reproductive imagination. Two Build two of these into imaginary incidents
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for platform use using your productive or creative imagination. Three Define a fantasy b
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vision see fantastic d phantasmagoria e transmogrify f recollection. Four What is a figure
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of speech? Five? Define and give two examples of each of the following
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figures of speech. Footnote consult any good rhetoric. An unabridged dictionary will also
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be of help. At least one of the examples under each type would better
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be original A simile, B, metaphor C metonymy D, sectarchie E apostrophe,
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F, vision, G personification, H, hyperbole, I irony.
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Six A what is an allegory? B Name one example? C How could
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a short allegory be used as part of a public address? Seven Write a
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short fable footnote For a full discussion of the form, see the Art of
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story Writing by j berg S and Wine and Mary D. Chambers. Seven
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Write a short fable for use in a speech, follow either the ancient form
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esop or the modern George Ade Josephine Dodge Dascombe. Eight What do you understand
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and by the historical present, illustrate how it may be used only occasionally in
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a public address. Nine. Recall some disturbance on the street. A.
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Describe it as you would on the platform. B. Imagine what preceded the
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disturbance. C Imagine what followed it. D. Connect the whole in a
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terse, dramatic narration for the platform, and deliver it with careful attention to
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all that you have learned of the public speaker's art. Ten. Do the
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same with other incidents you have seen or heard of or read of in the
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newspapers. Note it is hoped that this exercise will be varied and expanded until
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the student has gained considerable mastery of imaginative narration. See chapter on narration eleven.
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Experiments have proved that the majority of people think most vividly in terms of
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visual images. However, some think more readily in terms of auditory and motor
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images. It is a good plan to mix all kinds of images in the
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course of your address, for you will doubtless have all kinds of hearers.
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This plan will serve to give variety and strengthen your effects by appealing to the
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several senses of each hearer, as well as interesting many different auditors. For
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exercise A gives several original examples of compound images and b construct beef descriptions of
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the scenes imagined, for example, the falling of a bridge in process of
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building twelve. Read the following observantly. The Strikers suffered bitter poverty last winter
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in New York. Last winter, a woman visiting the East side of New
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York City saw another woman coming out of a tenement house wringing her hands.
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Upon inquiry, the visitor found that a child had fainted in one of the
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apartments. She entered and saw the child ill and in rags. While the
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father, a striker, was too poor to provide medical help, a physician
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was called and said the child had fainted from lack of food. The only
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food in the house was dried fish. The visitor provided grocers for the family
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and ordered the milkmen to leave milk for them daily. A month later she
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returned. The father of the family knelt down before her and, calling her
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an angel, said that she had saved their lives, for the milk she
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had provided was all the food they had had. In the too preceding paragraphs,
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we have substantially the same story told twice. In the first paragraph a
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fact dated in general terms. In the second, we have an outline picture
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of a specific happening. Now expand this outline into a dramatic recital, drawing
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freely upon your imagination. End of section twenty six