THE night has a thousand eyes, and the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies with the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done.

Francis William Bourdillon.

XXI. VOCAL MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: PAUSE.

ANOTHER most dignified and important means of expression is pause. It shows the action of the mind as receiving an idea. It is the mind taking time to weigh and deeply realize the truth which it is to express. The absence of pauses denotes superficiality and lack of feeling. In proportion to the dignity and weight of the reading, the intensity and depth in the action of all the faculties of thought and feeling will be greater in number and length. Pause is one of the most dignified modes of expression.

Hence, as the imagination gives an exalted action of the mind, and is always associated with noble feeling and a living energy of all the faculties, there is a greater tendency to use pauses when there is action of the imagination than in the expression of ordinary thinking. The pauses are needed to give the mind time for depth of insight, and also to give both speaker and hearer time to create, appreciate, and feel the complex ideas and situations.

Moreover, imagination is contemplative; and contemplation requires time. Again, the imagination is reposeful; it does not didactically dominate, but sympathetically awakens attention. For these and many other reasons, actions of the imagination are especially associated with periods of silence.

I Go to prove my soul !

I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive! What time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God send His hail

Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow,

In some time, His good time, I shall arrive:

He guides me and the bird. In His good time.

Browning.

Thus, pause is a special means of manifesting the imaginative action. As silence is the most dignified form of revealing mental

activity, and as the imagination is associated with every struggle to express the ideal or deep realization in thought, so, as the most ideal action of the mind, it requires the most ideal and simple as well as subtle methods of emphasis, and the most exalted and noble modes of expression.

I HAVE heard the long roar and surge of History, wave after wave, the never-ending surf along the immense coast-line of West Africa.

as of

I heard the world-old cry of the down-trodden and outcast: I saw them advancing always to victory.

I saw the red light from the guns of established order and precedent, the lines of defence and the bodies of the besiegers rolling in dust and blood, yet more and ever more behind.

And high over the inmost citadel I saw magnificent, and beckoning ever to the besiegers, and the defenders ever inspiring, the cause of all that neverending war,

The form of Freedom stand.

The Age-long War.

Carpenter.

WORLD-STRANGENESS.

STRANGE the world about me lies, never yet familiar grown,

Still disturbs me with surprise, haunts me like a face half known.
In this house with starry dome, floored with gem-like plains and seas,
Shall I never feel at home, never wholly be at ease?

On from room to room I stray, yet my Host can ne'er espy;

And I know not to this day whether guest or captive I.

So between the starry dome and the floor of plains and seas
I have never felt at home, never wholly been at ease.

William Watson.

Then

In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry before him came into his ears. the earth shook and trembled, the foundations also of the mountains moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down ; and thick darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub and did fly: yea, he flew swiftly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his hiding-place, his pavilion round about him; darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies. At the brightness before him his thick clouds passed, hailstones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered his voice; hailstones and coals of fire. And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; yea, lightnings manifold, and discomfited them. Then the channels of waters

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appeared, and the foundations of the earth were laid bare, at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils. He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them that hated me; for they were too mighty for me. They came upon me in the day of my calamity: but the Lord was my stay.

From Psalm xviii.

XXII. VOCAL MANIFESTATION OF IMAGINATION: TONE-COLOR. ONE of the chief means by which imagination manifests its activity through the voice is in the modulation of the texture and resonance of tone. The delicate modulation of pure tone by imagination and feeling may be named tone-color.

The color of the voice is wholly distinct from inflection. Inflection and changes of pitch are elements of form; but tone-color has respect to the modulation of the quality and resonance. Inflectional modulation for the most part, as has been shown, manifests the logical relation of ideas. Inflection shows the rational action of the mind; but tone-color manifests imaginative and emotional relations.

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There is an important difference between quality and color of the voice. There are legitimate qualities, such as purity, mellowness, resonance, and openness, which are always present in good tone; and, on the other hand, there are illegitimate qualities of voice, such as nasality, throatiness, or flatness. These are faults, and should never be used in noble expression. Tone-color is the emotional modulation of good tone. Nasality is a quality but not a color of the voice. A nasal or throaty voice can hardly be colored by emotion. In fact, the voice must be made pure, free, open, resonant, and elastic by training before there can be any mastery or practice of tone-color in vocal expression.

This principle, which is a fundamental one in all vocal expression, has been violated by many "systems." The complete failure to recognize tone-color, and the perversion of inflection, the use of abnormal qualities and stresses to express emotion, have been the chief factors in degrading elocution, and in making it the slave of the lowest forms of literature. Until this fact is recog

nized, discussion of the nature and action of the imagination in relation to vocal expression is useless.

According to the mechanical system, only a few emotions can be expressed by pure tone; while according to the singer's, pure tone must be used in the expression of all noble emotion. There can be no doubt in the mind of any one that in all fine oratory and acting, the principles held by the leading teachers of song have been consciously or unconsciously obeyed. All noble emotions in any true vocal art manifest themselves through modulations of normal tone. It is only in the expression of secrecy of an abnormal type, and of the very lowest forms of anger, that an aspirate or throaty or nasal tone is used; and even in these cases it must only be suggested.

Every emotion has a distinct modulation of voice peculiar to itself. Joy has one color, love another, and patriotism still another. The elimination of abnormal qualities of voice as elements in vocal expression makes possible a greater, more delicate, and. more natural variation of the voice, as well as truer expression.

In

Emotion modulates the color and texture of the voice, because it modifies or modulates the texture of the muscles of the body. It is the vibration of the muscles of the body which is chiefly concerned in producing the resonance of the voice. Any modulation of this muscular texture will therefore modulate the tone. one emotion the muscular texture is firm; in another, soft and plastic. We see this in the face and in the hand. Instruments have been invented to measure the effect of the diffusion of emotion through the body. In this nervous diffusion and emotional vibration will be found the scientific explanation of the complex and beautiful modulations of tone in those whose imaginations and voices have been cultivated.

In a well-trained voice all parts of the body are brought into sympathy and co-ordination. The emotional activity centres in the diaphragm and the muscles controlling breath. Thus in a good voice the whole body is attuned like a vocal instrument, and emotion causes a sympathetic vibratory response.

Sound is vibration, and anything that interferes or changes the vibration modifies the sound. The kind of timber used in a piano

or violin affects its tone. A tuner, after tuning a piano, may find one key where there is something wrong. He will examine the piano, and find that the cause is in some loose panel or screw, or in the presence of some foreign substance. If a mechanical instrument like a piano is so sensitive, how much more responsive must be an organic, living body, every part of which is in sympathetic relationship, and in fact a vital portion of a muscular and nervous system !

Tone-color is the pleasing and ideal element in vocal expression. It is the most poetic and imaginative. It reveals the highest and most delicate feeling. It discloses the mystic depth of the soul.

Resonance is often confounded with pitch. People desire low voices. Really, the desire is not for pitch, but for resonance. The sense of resonance and tone-color is rare, and must be developed.

The development of tone-color belongs rather to vocal training; but it is so important and so much neglected that it must receive some attention in this connection.

The most simple course is to read imaginative and emotional lyrics as simply as possible, beginning with joy and love, admiration of Nature, or some noble emotion. Noble emotion develops the nobler qualities of the voice. Husky tones and other imperfections may in a great measure be corrected by the right practice of joyous lyrics, such as Wordsworth's "Cuckoo."

Another method is to practise reading such short extracts as are found at the close of this lesson, in contrast with each other. Give joy in contrast with sorrow, and make the difference as delicate and as true as possible. The student must be able to define clearly twenty or thirty emotions without changing from the noble and normal qualities of his voice. At first, he will think it impossible to show so many differences; but after practice and right control over his voice, he will discover that he can discriminate a larger number, and that the human voice is capable of indicating every shade of feeling.

In such practice it is essential that constrictions, such as nasality and hardness, be removed from the voice. The tone must be round and smooth. The voice must be "placed."