Poise: How to Attain It Part 12

If this att.i.tude is a difficult one for him when commencing, he can, at the start, a.s.sign a certain time for observing this position, and gradually increase its length, until he feels no further inconvenience.

The feeling of obvious awkwardness is a large factor in the lack of poise.

It is then a matter of great importance to modify one's outward carriage, while at the same time applying oneself to the conquest of one's soul, so as to achieve the object not only of actually becoming a man who must be reckoned with, but of impressing every one with what one is, and what one is worth.

FOURTH SERIES--SPEAKING EXERCISES

Is it really necessary to point out what a weight readiness of speech has in bringing about the success of any undertaking?

The man who can make a clever and forceful speech will always convince his hearers, whatever may be the cause he pleads.

Do we not see criminals acquitted every day solely because of the eloquence of their lawyers?

Have we not often been witnesses to the defeat of entirely honest people who, from lack of ability to put up a good argument, allow themselves to be convicted of negligence or of carelessness, if of nothing worse?

Eloquence, or at least a certain facility of speech, is one of the gifts of the man of poise.

One reason for this is that his mind is always fixt upon the object he wishes to attain by his arguments, which eliminates all wandering of the thoughts.

But there is another reason, a purely physical one. The emotions experienced by the timid are quite unknown to him and he is not the victim of any of the physical inhibitions which, in affecting the clearness of their powers of speech, tend to reduce them to confusion.

Stammering, stuttering, and all the other ordinary disabilities of the speaker, can almost without exception be attributed to timidity and to the nervousness of which it is the cause.

We shall see in the next chapter how these defects can be cured.

In this, which is devoted specially to physical exercises, we will give the mechanical means for overcoming these grave defects.

Just as soon as the difficulties of utterance have been overcome, and one is no longer in terror of falling into a laughable blunder, and thus has no further reason to fear, when undertaking to speak, that one will be made fun of because the object of disconcerting mockery, one's ideas will cease to be dammed up by this haunting dread and can take shape in one's brain just as fast as one expresses them.

Clearness of conception will be reflected in that of what we say, and poise will soon manifest itself in the manner of the man who no longer feels himself to be the object of ill-natured laughter.

One should set oneself then every morning to the performance of exercises consisting of opening the mouth as wide as one possibly can and then shutting it, to open it once more to its fullest extent, and so on until one becomes fatigued.

This exercise is designed to cover the well-known difficulty of those who speak infrequently and which is familiarly known as "heavy jaw."

One should next endeavor to p.r.o.nounce every consonant with the utmost distinctness.

If certain consonants, as _s_, for example, or _ch_, are not enunciated clearly, one should keep at it until one p.r.o.nounces them satisfactorily.

Now one should construct short sentences containing as many difficult consonants as possible.

Next we should apply ourselves to declaiming longer sentences.

It will be of help to have these sentences const.i.tute an affirmation of will-power and of poise.

For example: "I can express myself with the greatest possible facility, because timidity and embarra.s.sment are complete strangers to me."

Or again: "I am a master of the art of clothing my thoughts in elegant and illuminating phrases, because stammering, stuttering, and all the other misfortunes that oppress the timid, are to me unknown quant.i.ties."

We can not insist too strongly upon the c.u.mulative effect of words which are constantly repeated. It is a good thing to impress oneself with forceful ideas that make for courage and for achievement.

Distrust of self being the princ.i.p.al defect of the timid, the man who would acquire poise must bend every effort to banishing it from his thoughts.

The repet.i.tion of these sentences, by building up conviction, will undoubtedly end by creating a confidence in oneself that will at first be hesitating, but will gradually acquire force. This is a great step in advance on the road toward poise.

We are discussing, it should be understood, only such cases of difficulty in speaking as are directly traceable to an inherent timidity.

If the inability to speak clearly comes from a physical malformation it should at once be brought to the attention of a specialist.

It is well recognized that, in the majority of cases, those defects are the consequences of timidity, when they are not its direct cause.

In combating them, then, with every means at his disposal, the man who desires to acquire poise will prove the logicality of his mind. It is a well-known axiom that effects are produced by causes, and _vice versa_.

Thus, in the case we are considering, timidity either causes the difficulty in speaking or is caused by it. In the first condition as well as in the second, the disappearance of the one trouble depends upon the eradication of the other.

CHAPTER IV

PRACTICAL EXERCISES FOR OBTAINING POISE

COMPOSURE

One of the essential conditions of acquiring poise is to familiarize oneself with the habit of composure.

Timid people know nothing of its advantages. They are always ill at ease, fearful, devoured by dread of other people's censures, and completely upset by the idea of the least initiative.

Their mania leads them to exaggerate the smallest incident. A trifle puts them in a panic, and at the mere notion that strangers have perceived this they become quite out of countenance and are possest by but one idea, to avoid by flight the repet.i.tion of such unpleasant emotions.

A quite useless attempt, for in whatever retirement people who lack poise may live, they will find themselves certainly the victims of the small embarra.s.sments of every-day life, which, in their eyes, will soon take on the guise of disasters.

Composure should, then, be the first achievement in the way of self-conquest to be aimed at by the man who is desirous of attaining poise.

But, it will be objected, composure is a condition that is not familiar to everybody. It is a question of temperament and of disposition. Every one who wishes for it can not attain to it.

This is an error. In order to possess composure, that is to say the first step in the mastery of self which enables one to judge of the proportions of things, it must be achieved, or developed, if we happen to be naturally inclined thereto.

To accomplish this, deep-breathing exercises are often recommended by the philosophers of the new school.

They advise those who are desirous of cultivating it to make no resolution, to commit themselves to no impulsive action, without first withdrawing into themselves and taking five or six deep breaths in the manner we have described in the preceding chapter.

This has the physical effect of reducing the speed with which the heart beats and, as a result, of relaxing the mind and quieting one's nerves.

During the two or three minutes thus employed one's enthusiasm wanes and one's ideas take on a less confused form. In a word, unreasoning impulses no longer fill the brain to the extent of inhibiting the entrance of sober second thought.