James M. Buckley
Published: 2015-06-12
Total Pages: 494
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Excerpt from Extemporaneous Oratory: For Professional and Amateur Speakers Before entering college I determined to study law, and accordingly took great interest in debate, in attending courts, and in reading accounts of cases. But young men frequently change, and a few years later I had become a minister, and was obliged to make choice among different methods of public speaking. After experiments with all 1 adopted the extemporaneous, and ever since have systematically practiced and studied this art. In searching for the excellencies of others I discovered many defects in myself, and while contemplating others' imperfections, saw that some methods might be improved which had been fancied perfect.1 discerned that many who thought themselves extemporizers were not so. Under erroneous instruction I fought against the deepest tendencies of my own nature, and wasted energy in the pursuit of fixed ideals. I found that ancient authors and some comparatively modern (especially Fenelon, in his Dialogues on Eloquence) had treated the subject more satisfactorily than recent writers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.