THE SINGER

O Lark! sweet lark!

Where learn you all your minstrelsy?

What realms are those to which you fly?
While robins feed their young from dawn till dark,
You soar on high

Forever in the sky.

O child! dear child!

Above the clouds I lift my wing

To hear the bells of Heaven ring;

Some of their music, though my flights be wild,

To earth I bring;

Then let me soar and sing!

Edmund Clarence Stedman

In "The Singer " your mind rises to the sky and thinks of the lark soaring and singing away up almost out of sight, and then seeming to speak to you. Your thought of the distance of the bird will affect your voice.

In the second poem you are talking about the grass, and the tiny leaves and violets very near you. There is tenderness in both stanzas, but if you allow your voice freedom to do so, it can show the great difference, can suggest even distance.

SPRING

Green the grass is springing,

Tiny leaves appear,
Cowslips dot the meadows,

Violets are here;

All the birds are coming,

See them on the wing;

You can hear them singing:
"Come and greet the Spring."

From "The Kindergarten Review." (One line changed.)

Blanche Weymouth

Another way is to give something as commonplace, and then in contrast with it something very beautiful, till we see in this way that the voice expresses our degree of admiration.

Another means of developing this sympathetic responsiveness of the voice, which is here called elasticity, is to endeavor to read naturally something full of deep feeling.

Observe and intensify the deep, full breathing, the struggle to control feeling and breath together.

It is not worth while to multiply such exercises. You can find them easily yourself, and many of the steps already taken have aimed to develop the elasticity of your voice. By mastering one exercise you will find you are mastering other problems also.

XXXVIII. UNITY OF MENTAL ACTIONS AND VOICE MODULATIONS

THE BLUEBIRD

Listen a moment, I pray you; what was that sound that I heard?
Wind in the budding branches, the ripple of brooks, or a bird?
Hear it again, above us! and see! a flutter of wings!

The bluebird knows it is April, and soars toward the sun and sings.

Winged lute that we call a bluebird, you blend in a silver strain
The sound of the laughing waters, the patter of spring's sweet rain,
The voice of the winds, the sunshine, and fragrance of blossoming
things.

Ah! you are an April poem, that God has dowered with wings!

Eugene Rexford

When reading naturally something interesting you find thinking, imagination and feeling, attention and discrimination, and other mental actions acting simultaneously. Thinking does not hinder imagination, and true feeling does not prevent but intensifies thinking. All mental actions help one another.

Observe also that all voice modulations or natural signs of thinking imply each other and go together. The same is true of the mental and emotional action which causes these modulations or signs.

In proportion as you read something with increasing earnestness, you lengthen pauses, give greater decision to the phrase accents, widen the changes of pitch, give longer and straighter inflexions, with the result that the quality and texture of your voice receives deeper modulations by your feelings. You give degrees of intensity through the control of your breath, and more differences of movement on account of your realization of successive ideas or your degrees of excitement, control and sense of weight.

How many of these modulations can you locate in some short passage? Although this is not necessary, it is nevertheless helpful. It gives you confidence and this enables you to recognize that you express yourself not only by words, but by all these natural modulations or signs acting simultaneously and in perfect unity. Their vocabulary is as important as that of words.

Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

MINE HOST OF "THE GOLDEN APPLE"
A goodly host one day was mine,

A Golden Apple his only sign,

That hung from a long branch, ripe and fine.

My host was the bountiful apple-tree;
He gave me shelter and nourished me
With the best of fare, all fresh and free.
And light-winged guests came not a few,
To his leafy inn, and sipped the dew,
And sang their best songs ere they flew.

I slept at night on a downy bed

Of moss, and my host benignly spread
His own cool shadow over my head.

When I asked what reckoning there might be,
He shook his broad boughs cheerily:
A blessing be thine, green Apple-tree!

St. Paul

Thomas Westwood

You find also, as has been said, that one modulation alone is not half so strong as two together; that two are not a tenth as strong as three; and that when we truly live what we speak, all of the modulations of the voice are present.

For the sake of emphasis, however, we often accentuate one of these. For example, we sometimes prolong a pause or put it in an unusual place, or we make a change of pitch very wide, or an inflexion very long; but the emphatic use of one modulation never excludes the others, rather, it makes their presence more necessary. To use these

modulations for force and emphasis, one must come to understand something of their meaning.

Read a passage and introduce a great many pauses, introducing them sometimes in unusual places; and justify their use by more vigorous phrase accents or touches, by wider changes of pitch, and also by longer inflexions, and greater intensity, and by that tone color which will exactly express the feeling.

Read a passage in many ways, now increasing the length of inflexion and the range of voice; now making extreme changes in pitch, and so on. Then observe how necessary are the other modulations in order to make these changes in pitch and inflexion unite naturally and effectively. Your instinct will guide you, and you will thus have a sense of the need of these modulations which will help you in natural and effective reading and speaking.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Matthew

James Russell Lowell

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for

they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew V, 3-10

Observe that it is the union of all these modulations that makes a passage not only natural but weighty and dignified. When you exaggerate or increase the length of the pauses, you have to use the other modulations in a way to justify the pause and make the passage interesting.

Next exaggerate the changes of pitch in some sentence or poem, but prolong also the pauses and lengthen the inflexions, using all the modulations in perfect harmony. Such accentuation of a modulation more definitely locates or concentrates attention, changes the point of view or the peculiar experience or relation of a phrase; and not only preserves but increases the naturalness and dignity.

"What gulfs," says Fear, "are in that West
Far in the night?

What Isle of Demons lifts its crest?
What kraken heaves the ocean's breast?
What spectre shapes affright! "

"There may be spectres on this sea,

Afar and near;

But waves of God encompass me,

And on the deeps of Deity

There is no place for fear."

"But lo! the seas of God are wide
And deep," says Fear.

"Hear ye the tumult of the tide?

God's wrath is strong; where shall we hide? ”

"On! on! Right onward steer."

"From stranger seas new stars arise

With baleful rays;