Chapter 18

The Voice in Relation to Measure.

_Of Slowness and Rapidity in Oratorical Delivery._

The third and last relation in which we shall study voice, is its breadth, that is, the measure or rhythm of its tones.

The object of measure in oratorical diction is to regulate the interval of sounds. But the length of the interval between one sound and another is subject to the laws of slowness and rapidity, respiration, silence and inflection.

Let us first consider slowness and rapidity, and the rules which govern them.

1. A hasty delivery is by no means a proof of animation, warmth, fire, passion or emotion in the orator; hence in delivery, as in tone, haste is in an inverse ratio to emotion. We do not glide lightly over a beloved subject; a prolongation of tones is the complaisance of love. Precipitation awakens suspicions of heartlessness; it also injures the effect of the discourse. A teacher with too much facility or volubility puts his pupils to sleep, because he leaves them nothing to do, and they do not understand his meaning. But let the teacher choose his words carefully, and every pupil will want to suggest some idea; all will work. In applauding an orator we usually applaud ourselves. He says what we were just ready to say; we seem to have suggested the idea. It is superfluous to remark that slowness without gesture, and especially without facial expression, would be intolerable. A tone must always be reproduced with an expression of the face.

2. The voice must not be jerky. Here we must keep jealous watch over ourselves. The entire interest of diction arises from a fusion of tones. The tones of the voice are sentient beings, who love, hold converse, follow each other and blend in a harmonious union.

3. It is never necessary to dwell upon the sound we have just left; this would be to fall into that jerky tone we wish to avoid.

_Of Respiration and Silence._

We place respiration and silence under the same head because of their affinity, for respiration may often be accounted silence.

_Of silence._--Silence is the father of speech, and must justify it. Every word which does not proceed from silence and find its vindication in silence, is a spurious word without claim or title to our regard. Origin is the stamp, in virtue of which we recognize the intrinsic value of things. Let us, then, seek in silence the sufficient reason of speech, and remember that the more enlightened the mind is, the more concise is the speech that proceeds from it. Let us assume, then, that this conciseness keeps pace with the elevation of the mind, and that when the mind arrives at the perception of the true light, finding no words that can portray the glories open to its view, it keeps silent and admires. It is through silence that the mind rises to perfection, for _silence is the speech of God_.

Apart from this consideration, silence recommends itself as a powerful agent in oratorical effects. By silence the orator arouses the attention of his audience, and often deeply moves their hearts. When Peter Chrysologue, in his famous homily upon the gospel miracle of the healing of the issue of blood, overcome by emotion, paused suddenly and remained silent, all present immediately burst into sobs.

Furthermore, silence gives the orator time and liberty to judge of his position. An orator should never speak without having thought, reflected and arranged his ideas. Before speaking he should decide upon his stand-point, and see clearly what he proposes to do. Even a fable may be related from many points of view; from that of expression as well as gesture, from that of inflection as well as articulate speech. All must be brought back to a scene in real life, to one stand-point, and the orator must create for himself, in some sort, the rôle of spectator.

Silence gives gesture time to concentrate, and do good execution.

One single rule applies to silence: Wherever there is ellipsis, there is silence. Hence the interjection and conjunction, which are essentially elliptic, must always be followed by a silence.

_Respiration._--For the act of respiration, three movements are necessary: inspiration, suspension and expiration.

_Its importance._--Respiration is a faithful rendering of emotion. For example: _He who reigns in the skies_. Here is a proposition which the composed orator will state in a breath. But should he wish to prove his emotion, he inspires after every word. _He--who--reigns--in--the--skies_. Multiplied inspirations can be tolerated on the strength of emotion, but they should be made as effective as possible.

Inspiration is allowable:--

1. After all words preceded or followed by an ellipse; 2. After words used in apostrophe, as Monsieur, Madame; 3. After conjunctions and interjections when there is silence; 4. After all transpositions; for example: _To live, one must work_. Here the preposition _to_ takes the value of its natural antecedent, _work_; that is to say, six degrees, since by inversion it precedes it, and the gesture of the sentence bears wholly on the preposition; 5. Before and after incidental phrases; 6. Wherever we wish to indicate an emotion.

To facilitate respiration, stand on tip-toe and expand the chest.

Inspiration is a sign of grief; expiration is a sign of tenderness. Sorrow is inspiratory; happiness, expiratory.

The inspiratory act expresses sorrow, dissimulation.

The expiratory act expresses love, expansion, sympathy.

The suspensory act expresses reticence and disquietude. A child who has just been corrected deservedly, and who recognizes his fault, expires. Another corrected unjustly, and who feels more grief than love, inspires.

Inspiration is usually regulated by the signs of punctuation, which have been invented solely to give more exactness to the variety of sounds.

_Inflections._

_Their importance._--Sound, we have said, is the language of man in the sensitive state. We call inflections the modifications which affect the voice in rendering the emotions of the senses. The tones of the voice must vary with the sensations, each of which should have its note. Of what use to man would be a phonetic apparatus always rendering the same sound? Delivery is a sort of music whose excellence consists in a variety of tones which rise or fall according to the things they have to express. Beautiful but uniform voices resemble fine bells whose tone is sweet and clear, full and agreeable, but which are, after all, bells, signifying nothing, devoid of harmony and consequently without variety. To employ always the same action and the same tone of voice, is like giving the same remedy for all diseases. "_Ennui_ was born one day from monotony," says the fable.

Man has received from God the privilege of revealing the inmost affections of his being through the thousand inflections of his voice. Man's least impressions are conveyed by signs which reveal harmony, and which are not the products of chance. A sovereign wisdom governs these signs.

With the infant in its cradle the signs of sensibility are broken cries. Their acuteness, their ascending form, indicate the weakness, and physical sorrow of man. When the child recognizes the tender cares of its mother, its voice becomes less shrill and broken; its tones have a less acute range, and are more poised and even. The larynx, which is very impressionable and the thermometer of the sensitive life, becomes modified, and produces sounds and inflections in perfect unison with the sentiments they convey.

All this, which man expresses in an imitative fashion, is numbered, weighed and measured, and forms an admirable harmony. This language through the larynx is universal, and common to all sensitive beings. It is universal with animals as with man. Animals give the identical sounds in similar positions.

The infant, delighted at being mounted on a table, and calling his mother to admire him, rises to the fourth note of the scale. If his delight becomes more lively, to the sixth; if the mother is less pleased than he would have her, he ascends to the third minor to express his displeasure. Quietude is expressed by the fourth note.

Every situation has its interval, its corresponding inflection, its corresponding note: this is a mathematical language.

Why this magnificent concert God has arranged in our midst if it has no auditors? If God had made us only intelligent beings, he would have given us speech alone and without inflections. Let us further illustrate the rôle of inflection.

A father receives a picture from his daughter. He expresses his gratitude by a falling inflection: "Ah well! the dear child." The picture comes from a stranger whom he does not know as a painter; he will say, "Well now! why does he send me this?" raising his voice.

If he does not know from whom the picture comes, his voice will neither rise nor fall; he will say, "Well! well! well!"

Let us suppose that his daughter is the painter. She has executed a masterpiece. Astonished at the charm of this work and at the same time grateful, his voice will have both inflections.

If surprise predominates over love the rising inflection will predominate. If love and surprise are equal, he will simply say, "Well now!"

_Kan_ in Chinese signifies at the same time the roof of a house, a cellar, well, chamber, bed--the inflection alone determines the meaning. Roof is expressed by the falling, cellar by the rising inflection. The Chinese note accurately the depth and acuteness of sound, its intervals and its intensity.

We can say: "It is pretty, this little dog!" in 675 different ways. Some one would do it harm. We say: "This little dog is pretty, do not harm it!" "It is pretty because it is so little." If it is a mischievous or vicious dog, we use _pretty_ in an ironical sense. "This dog has bitten my hand. It is a pretty dog indeed!" etc.

_Rules of Inflection._

1. Inflections are formed by an upward or downward slide of the voice, or the voice remains in monotone. Inflections are, then, eccentric, concentric and normal.

2. The voice rises in exaltation, astonishment, and conflict.

3. The voice falls in affirmation, affection and dejection.

4. It neither rises nor falls in hesitation.

5. Interrogation is expressed by the rising inflection when we do not know what we ask; by the falling, when we do not quite know what we ask. For instance, a person asks tidings of his friend's health, aware or unaware that he is no better.

6. Musical tones should be given to things that are pleasing. Courtiers give musical inflections to the words they address to royalty.

7. Every manifestation of life is a song; every sound is a song. But inflections must not be multiplied, lest delivery degenerate into a perpetual sing-song. The effect lies entirely in reproducing the same inflection. A drop of water falling constantly, hollows a rock. A mediocre man will employ twenty or thirty tones. Mediocrity is not the too little, but the too much. The art of making a profound impression is to condense; the highest art would be to condense a whole scene into one inflection. Mediocre speakers are always seeking to enrich their inflections; they touch at every range, and lose themselves in a multitude of intangible effects.

8. In real art it is not always necessary to fall back upon logic. The reason needs illumination from nature, as the eye, in order to see, needs light. Reason may be in contradiction to nature. For instance, a half-famished hunter, in sight of a good dinner, would say: "I am _hungry_" emphasizing _hungry_, while reason would say that _am_ must be emphasized. A hungry pauper would say: "I _am_ hungry," dwelling upon _am_ and gliding over _hungry_. If he were not hungry, or wished to deceive, he would dwell upon _hungry_.

_Special Inflections._

Among the special inflections we may reckon:--

1. _Exclamations._--Abrupt, loud, impassioned sounds, and improvisations.

2. _Cries._--These are prolonged exclamations called forth by a lively sentiment of some duration, as acute suffering, joy or terror. They are formed by the sound _a_. In violent pain arising from a physical cause, the cries assume three different tones: one grave, another acute, the last being the lowest, and we pass from one to the other in a chromatic order.

There are appealing cries which ask aid in peril. These cries are formed by the sounds e and o. They are slower than the preceding, but more acute and of greater intensity.

3. _Groans._--Here the voice is plaintive, pitiful, and formed by two successive tones, the one sharp, the final one deep. Its monotony, the constant recurrence of the same inflection, give it a remarkable expression.

4. _Lamentation_ is produced by a voice loud, plaintive, despairing and obstinate, indicating a heart which can neither contain nor restrain itself.

5. _The sob_ is an uninterrupted succession of sounds produced by slight, continuous inspirations, in some sort convulsive, and ending in a long, violent inspiration.

6. _The sigh_ is a weak low tone produced by a quick expiration followed by a slow and deep inspiration.

7. _The laugh_ is composed of a succession of loud, quick, monotonous sounds formed by an uninterrupted series of slight expirations, rapid and somewhat convulsive, of a tone more or less acute and prolonged, and produced by a deep inspiration.

8. _Singing_ is the voice modulated or composed of a series of appreciable tones.

Part Second.

Gesture.