This question I never
can rid myself of. Time and time again, as I have stood in the street
in front of a building and have seen men and women passing in large
numbers into the audience room where I was to speak, I have felt
ashamed that I should be the cause of people -- as it seemed to me --
wasting a valuable hour of their time. Some years ago I was to
deliver an address before a literary society in Madison, Wis. An hour
before the time set for me to speak, a fierce snow-storm began, and
continued for several hours. I made up my mind that there would be no
audience, and that I should not have to speak, but, as a matter of
duty, I went to the church, and found it packed with people. The
surprise gave me a shock that I did not recover from during the whole
evening.
People often ask me if I feel nervous before speaking, or else
they suggest that, since I speak often, they suppose that I get used
to it. In answer to this question I have to say that I always suffer
intensely from nervousness before speaking. More than once, just
before I was to make an important address, this nervous strain has
been so great that I have resolved never again to speak in public. I
not only feel nervous before speaking, but after I have finished I
usually feel a sense of regret, because it seems to me as if I had
left out of my address the main thing and the best thing that I had
meant to say.
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