themselves. They have tasted and tested life, they have learned
proportion and perspective, they have appraised things at their real
value, and now they carry themselves in poise and power and confidence.
They have found themselves in a high and true sense, and they have come
to be known as men of simplicity.

Simplicity is not to be confounded with weakness or ignorance. It comes
through long education. It does not mean the trite, or the commonplace,
or the obvious. It is a strong and sturdy quality, is this simplicity of
which I am speaking, and nothing else will atone for lack of it in the
public speaker.

Longfellow calls it the supreme excellence, since it is the quality
which above all others brings serenity to the soul and makes life
really worth living. Every man should earnestly seek to cultivate this
great quality as essential to noble character.

This speech is conspicuous for another indispensable quality for
effective public speaking,--the quality of sincerity. It grows largely
out of simplicity and is the product of integrity of mind and heart. Men
recognize it quickly, though they cannot easily tell whence it comes. We
find it highly developed in great leaders in business and professional
life. There has never been a really great public speaker who was not
preeminently a sincere man.

Beecher said, "Let no man who is a sneak try to be an orator." Such a
man can not be. He will shortly be found out. The world's ultimate
estimate of a man is not far wrong.

A politician of much promise was addressing a distinguished audience in