Read some story or poem, and observe that all these modulations are continually present. If one of them is absent some weakness will result.

Observe that voice modulations are not symbols, like words, each standing for a specific idea, but natural signs, which indicate your degree of earnestness, your method of thinking, your enjoyment, your attitude toward others.

As we have seen, many natural signs blend together seemingly into one sign, or at least, into one complex expression. Hence it is very difficult at times to realize the value of some one specific sign or modulation. If we will observe, however, the actions of our mind and contrast right with wrong methods of expression, we can detect each modulation and its meaning.

This should not be forced, however. There should not be too much analysis. It must be borne in mind always that the right modulation and the right combination of modulations can result only from genuine thinking, genuine trust of instinct, from the union of co-ordination of thinking, imagination and feeling. In proportion to the genuineness of our realization and the directness and adequacy of our expression these modulations will multiply and combine in an infinite number of ways.

From this we can see the impossibility of imitation. We can see also the impossibility of laying down specific rules. We must understand the elemental or fundamental language of each sign and employ sufficient analysis to awaken

our sense of the value of all of them; but, as a final resort, we must trust our instinct. The benefit of the analysis can be tested when we find that at once they seem to respond to our thinking and feeling.

Reading is like a smile which must be natural and spontaneous and which may be hindered by constrictions in the face. We can make ourselves natural and simple. We can make the voice very natural and spontaneous but we must allow our thinking and feeling in a great measure to do their own work.

THE BOY AND THE ANGEL

Morning, evening, noon and night,
"Praise God!" sang Theocrite.
Then to his poor trade he turned,
Whereby the daily meal was earned,
Hard he laboured, long and well,
O'er his work the boy's curls fell.
But ever, at each period,

He stopped and sang, "Praise God!"
Then back again his curls he threw,
And cheerful turned to work anew.

Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done;
I doubt not thou art heard, my son:

As well as if thy voice to-day

Were praising God, the Pope's great way.
This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome

Praises God from Peter's dome."

Said Theocrite, "Would God that I

Might praise Him that great way, and die!"

Night passed, day shone,

And Theocrite was gone.

With God a day endures alway,

A thousand years are but a day,

God said in heaven, "Nor day nor night
Now brings the voice of my delight."
Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth,
Spread his wings and sank to earth;
Entered, in flesh, the empty cell,

Lived there, and played the craftsman well;
And morning, evening, noon and night,
Praised God in place of Theocrite.

And from a boy, to youth he grew:

The man put off the stripling's hue:

The man matured and fell away
Into the season of decay:

And ever o'er the trade he bent,
And ever lived on earth content.
(He did God's will; to him, all one
If on the earth or in the sun.)
God said, "A praise is in mine ear;
There is no doubt in it, no fear:
So sing old worlds, and so

New worlds that from my footstool go.
Clearer loves sound other ways:

I miss my little human praise."

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell
The flesh disguise, remained the cell.
'T was Easter Day: he flew to Rome,
And paused above Saint Peter's dome.
In the tiring-room close by
The great outer gallery,

With his holy vestments dight,
Stood the new Pope, Theocrite:
And all his past career
Came back upon him clear,

Since when, a boy, he plied his trade,
Till on his life the sickness weighed;
And in his cell, when death drew near,
An angel in a dream brought cheer:
And, rising from the sickness drear,
He grew a priest, and now stood here.
To the East with praise he turned,
And on his sight the angel burned.

"I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell,
And set thee here; I did not well.

Vainly I left my angel-sphere,

Vain was thy dream of many a year.

Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it dropped
Creation's chorus stopped!

Go back and praise again

The early way, while I remain.

With that weak voice of our disdain,

Take up creation's pausing strain.

Back to the cell and poor employ:
Resume the craftsman and the boy!"
Theocrite grew old at home;

A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome.
One vanished as the other died:

They sought God side by side.

From "Dramatic Romances,"

Smith, Elder & Co., London.

Robert Browning

VII

THE POETIC INSTINCTS

XXXIX. THE FIRST POETIC AWAKENINGS

How am I to sing your praise,
Happy chimney-corner days,
Sitting safe in nursery nooks,
Reading picture-story books?

Robert Louis Stevenson

To understand and love good literature and poetry, is to commune with the great minds of all ages. This should be the aim of every man.

We find, however, that literature may be studied in a cold, mechanical way. Words may be only so many facts to us and our feelings and sympathies remain unstirred.

We also find that words are not the whole of human language. There are some things words cannot say. A painting, a statue, a piece of music, a song, gives a meaning that cannot be expressed in written symbols. Every art is a language, and each one expresses something that no other art can express.

In literature and poetry especially, we have various forms, each of which carries a message of its own. A lyric poem tells something quite distinct from what is told in a story.

Hence, we must study all the arts and all phases of literature, so that we may be completely awakened and so that the race-sympathy, which is in each of us, may lead us to appreciate the ideals and aspirations of the best of the

race.

When we come to examine speech, we find that there are certain objective elements which can be symbolized and printed, but that the real word is spoken, not written. Only a portion of the meaning can be printed. In fact, those elements that cannot be printed are deeper than those that can be printed.

What are these unprintable elements? They are the expressive modulations of the voice. Words may tell what we think, but the tones of the voice express our feelings,

our degrees of conviction, bring words into right relation to one another, and manifest their meaning. All words imply the living voice. The sublimer the poetry, the greater the need of vocal interpretation.

From this we can see that however important written English may be, it is only one part of our study of our mother tongue. Moreover, we speak before we write.

Since the highest literature embodies life in words, to study literature we must find life. Our imagination must be awakened. We must live in imagination that about which we read. To do this it is necessary to restore to literature the living voice. To interpret it, to find its deeper realization in ourselves, we first give it, speak it, naturally and simply.

In the previous lessons we have been studying our thinking, and learning how this thinking modulates the voice. Now it is necessary to study the vital connection between modulations of voice and those forms of literature and poetry which embody in words the thoughts, imaginations, feelings, ideals, and experiences of men.

It can easily be seen from a few attempts to render some of the simpler forms of literature, that literature is vitally related to the voice. There is, in fact, a correspondence between the elements of vocal expression and the forms of literature which makes a study of the voice modulations not only a help in the comprehension, but a necessity for the realization of literature. On the other hand, a right study of literature reveals the expressive modulations of the voice.

Is it not wonderful that we can all enjoy the fables, stories and poems of people of distant lands and far-off ages? "Poetry," said Aristotle," expresses the universal element in human nature." We all have the same nature and see the same world, and therefore however far apart men may be, when they truly and directly express their experience, they come into unity.

If we observe carefully what is around us, the birds, the skies, the brooks, the trees, we are awakened and share the experiences of those who have been awakened in other