HUMOROUS HITS
AND
How to Hold an Audience
HUMOROUS HITS
AND
How to Hold an Audience
A COLLECTION OF SHORT
SELECTIONS, STORIES AND
SKETCHES FOR ALL OCCASIONS
By
GRENVILLE KLEISER
_Author of "How to Speak in Public"_
_THIRTEENTH EDITION_
[Illustration]
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
COPYRIGHT 1908 BY
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
_Printed in the United States of America_
Published March, 1908
INTRODUCTORY
In preparing this volume the author has been guided by his own platform
experience extending over twelve years. During that time he has given
hundreds of public recitals before audiences of almost every
description, and in all parts of the country. It may not be considered
presumptuous, therefore, for him to offer some practical suggestions on
the art of entertaining and holding an audience, and to indicate certain
selections which he has found have in themselves the elements of
success.
The "encore fiend," as he is sometimes called, is so ubiquitous and
insistent that no speaker or reader can afford to ignore him, and,
indeed, must prepare for him in advance. To find material that will
satisfy him in one or in a dozen of the ordinary books of selections is
an almost impossible task. It is only too obvious that many compilations
of the kind are put together by persons who have had little or no
practical platform experience. In an attempt to remedy this defect this
volume has been prepared.
It is believed that the book will be valuable not only to the amateur
and the professional reader, speaker, elocutionist, and entertainer, but
also to the after-dinner and impromptu speaker, the politician who wants
to make a "hit," the business man who wishes to tell a good story and
tell it effectively, the school-teacher in arranging her "Friday
Afternoon" programs, as well as for reading aloud in the family circle,
and for many other occasions.
Providing, as this work does, helpful hints on how to hold an audience,
it is hoped that the additional suggestions offered regarding the use of
the voice and its modulation, the art of pausing, the development of
feeling and energy, the use of gesture and action, the cultivation of
the imagination, the committing of selections to memory, and the
standing before an audience, while not as elaborate and detailed as
found in a regular manual of elocution, will be of practical benefit to
those who can not conveniently command the services of a personal
instructor.
The author has been greatly assisted in this undertaking not only by the
kind permission of publishers and authors to use their copyrighted work,
but also by the hearty cooperation of many distinguished platform
speakers and readers who have generously contributed successful
selections not hitherto published.
The author gratefully acknowledges the special permission granted him by
the publishers to print the following copyright selections: "Keep
A-goin'!" the Bobbs-Merrill Company, "A Modern Romance," the Publishers
of _The Smart Set_; "The Fool's Prayer," Houghton, Mifflin & Company;
"Mammy's Li'l Boy," and "'Späcially Jim," the Century Company; "Counting
One Hundred," the Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company; "At Five O'clock Tea,"
the Publishers of _Lippincott's Magazine_.
GRENVILLE KLEISER.
_New York City,
February, 1908._
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY v
PART I--HOW TO HOLD AN AUDIENCE
THE VOICE 4
THE BREATH 6
MODULATION 8
PAUSING 10
FEELING AND ENERGY 11
GESTURE AND ACTION 12
IMPERSONATION 13
ARTICULATION AND PRONUNCIATION 13
IMAGINATION 14
HOW TO MEMORIZE A SELECTION 16
BEFORE THE AUDIENCE 18