There is a strange sensation often experienced in the presence
of an audience. It may proceed from the gaze of the many eyes
that turn upon the speaker, especially if he permits himself to
steadily return that gaze. Most speakers have been conscious of
this in a nameless thrill, a real something, pervading the
atmosphere, tangible, evanescent, indescribable. All writers
have borne testimony to the power of a speaker's eye in
impressing an audience. This influence which we are now
considering is the reverse of that picture--the power _their_
eyes may exert upon him, especially before he begins to speak:
after the inward fires of oratory are fanned into flame the eyes
of the audience lose all terror.

--WILLIAM PITTENGER, _Extempore Speech_.

Students of public speaking continually ask, "How can I overcome
self-consciousness and the fear that paralyzes me before an audience?"

Did you ever notice in looking from a train window that some horses feed
near the track and never even pause to look up at the thundering cars,
while just ahead at the next railroad crossing a farmer's wife will be
nervously trying to quiet her scared horse as the train goes by?

How would you cure a horse that is afraid of cars--graze him in a
back-woods lot where he would never see steam-engines or automobiles, or
drive or pasture him where he would frequently see the machines?

Apply horse-sense to ridding yourself of self-consciousness and fear: