Washington. The Opera House was crowded to the doors to hear him and
apparently he was making a good impression upon all his hearers. But
suddenly, at the very climax of his speech, while upwards of two
thousand eyes were rivetted upon him, he was seen to wink at a personal
friend of his sitting in a nearby box, and at that instant his future
political prospects were shattered as a vase struck by lightning. In
that single instant of insincerity he was appraised by that
discriminating audience and his doom was sealed.

Still another great quality in the Gettysburg speech is its directness.
The speaker had a clearly-defined purpose in view. He knew what he
wanted to say, and he proceeded to say it--no more, and no less.

There was no straying away into by-paths, no padding of words to make up
for shortage of ideas, no superfluous and big-sounding phrases, no empty
rhetoric or glittering generalities.

How many speakers there are who aim at nothing and hit it. How many
speakers there are who are on their way but do not know whither.

If this directness of quality were applied to talking in business, in
committee meetings, in telephone conversations, in public speaking, it
would save annually in this country millions of words and incalculable
time and energy.

You will note that this speech has the rare quality of conciseness. We
have an illustration here of how much a man can say in about 265 words
and in the short space of two minutes, if he knows precisely what he
wants to say.