Chapter 91 climax

Climax is a very common ending method.This is often difficult to control, and, for all speakers and all topics, it's not really the end.However, if done properly, this method is quite good.One of the best examples of this climactic ending can be found in the book's award-winning speech on Philadelphia. Lincoln used this method in a speech about Niagara Falls.Note that each of his similes is stronger than the last, and that he compares his age with the age of Columbus, Christ, Moses, Adam, etc., respectively, and thus achieves a cumulative effect: "It brings us back to the past. When Columbus first discovered the continent - when Christ suffered on the cross - when Moses led the Israelites through the Red Sea - no, even when Adam was first born from his creator; As now, Niagara Falls roared here. Extinct, but the giants whose bones were stuffed with Indian mounds once gazed at Niagara Falls with their eyes, just as we do today. Niagara Falls and the distant ancestors of human beings Contemporaneous, but older than the first human. Today it is as imposing and fresh as it was 10,000 years ago. Prehistoric giant elephants and mastodons that are long dead, and only from bone fragments can prove that they ever lived in this world, I have also seen Niagara Falls-during this extremely long time, the waterfall has never stood still for a minute, never dried up, never frozen, never closed its eyes, and never rested.

Wendell Phillips used the same method in her speech about Tosan Robecho, the founding father of the Haitian Republic.His speech is often excerpted in speech textbooks.I now quote the end of it below: "I would like to call him Napoleon, but Napoleon built his empire by breaking his vows and killing countless people. This man never broke his promises. 'No revenge' was his great motto and the law of his life. The last words he said to his son in France were: 'Son, you're going to go back to Santo Domingo one day and forget that France murdered your father.' I'd like to call him Cromwell, but Cromwell Renwell was only a soldier, and the country he founded collapsed with his death. I would like to call him Washington, but Washington, a great man in Virginia, also kept slaves. This man would rather risk his country than lose his country. The sale and purchase of slaves was not allowed in the remotest villages of his kingdom.

"You probably think I'm a madman tonight, because, you read history not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But after 50 years, when the truth is revealed, the goddess of history will attribute Phocion to Greece, Brutus to Rome, Hamptons to England, Lafayette to France, chose Washington as a bright and supreme flower of our early civilization, John Brown as the ripe fruit of our age. Then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, she wrote over all of them in bright blue the name of the soldier, statesman, and martyr—Toshan Robert Qiu." Find, research, experiment until you get a good ending and a good opening.Then, bring them together.

Speakers who do not cut their talk to fit the atmosphere of this fast age will not be popular.Moreover, it is sometimes rejected by the audience. Even a saint—Saul of Tarsus (a disciple of the apostle Paul)—made this mistake.He preached so much, until at last one of the lads in the audience—a young man named Jew Juss—fell asleep and fell out of a window and broke his neck.Even then, Saul probably didn't stop preaching.Does anyone know?I remember a speaker, a doctor, speaking one night at a college club in Brooklyn.That rally dragged on for a long time, and many people had already spoken on stage.It was 1 o'clock in the morning when it was his turn to speak.If he had been a little more witty and tactful, or a little more understanding, he should have gone on stage, said a dozen words, and let us go home.But did he do it like this?No, he didn't.Instead, he launched a 45-minute speech in which he vehemently opposed vivisection.He's not even halfway through the story, and the audience is starting to wish that he, like Jew Juss, fell out of the window and broke some part, any part, as long as it shuts him down.

When Lorimer was editor of The Saturday Evening Post, he told me that he always stopped a series of articles when they reached the peak of popularity.Readers clamored for more.So why stop them?Why stop at that time? "Because," said Mr. Lorimer, "the reader's satisfaction comes soon after the peak of popularity." The same wise choice can be applied to speaking, and more should be done.When the audience is desperate for you to continue, stop quickly. The average audience, though more polite and more restrained, has the same distaste for long speeches.Therefore, pay attention to the audience's reaction.I know you won't turn a blind eye.

Learn to approach the speech from their standpoint.