54. IN BLOSSOM TIME,

It's O my heart, my heart, to be out in the sun and sing,

To sing and shout in the fields about, in the balm and blossoming.
Sing loud, O bird in the tree; O bird sing loud in the sky!

And honey-bees, blacken the clover seas; there are none of you glad as I
The leaves laugh low in the wind, laugh low with the wind at play,
And the odorous call of the flowers all entices my soul away!

For O but the world is fair, and O but the world is sweet!

I will out of the gold of the blossoming mold, and sit at the Master's feet.
And the love my heart would speak, I will fold in the lily's rim,
That the lips of the blossom, more pure and meek, may offer it up to him.
Then sing in the hedgerow green, O thrush, O skylark, sing in the blue;
Sing loud, sing clear, that the King may hear, and my soul shall sing
with you.

Ina Donna Coolbreth.

55 I HIDE in the solar glory, I am dumb in the pealing song, I rest on the pitch of the torrent, in slumber I am strong. No numbers have counted my tallies, no tribes my house can fill, I sit by the shining Fount of Life, and pour the deluge still. . . . Let war and trade and creeds and song blend, ripen race on race, the sunburnt world a man shall breed of all the zones and countless days. No ray is dimmed, no atom worn, my oldest force is good as new, and the fresh rose on yonder thorn gives back the bending heavens in dew.

THE development of expression requires objective as well as subjective study. Every art must have a technique: to improve any form of art we must not only stimulate the cause, but also secure better control of those actions by means of which the idea is expressed. Execution in Vocal Expression must be founded upon the study of conversation. Every art must be

based on the study of nature, and the natural form, upon which Vocal Expression rests, is the unfettered utterance of men in every-day intercourse.

If we observe one talking, what are the most salient characteristics? Let us compare him with some person reading, and note the difference. One of the first things we discover in conversation is variety: the voice leaps upward and downward with perfect freedom, there are no two words upon the same pitch; while with the reader words tend to follow each other on one pitch; all is monotonous. The causes of these changes of pitch are about the same as those which make the branch of a tree, or a leaf upon that branch, grow in a given direction: wherever there is life, it will seek outflow in the most unhindered direction. Life, like water, will flow into the most open channel. Monotony is death.

Expression is simply a change,—a change of voice and body, caused by some change of thought or feeling. If you are watching a rider dashing along at full speed, and suddenly you see him fall, will you spring forward or recoil? This will depend entirely on your state of mind, and the attitude of your body in observing him. If you have been leaning forward, earnestly watching him, you will be sure to recoil; and there is no better reason than simply the fact that you were forward, and the change in the mind calls for a change in the body. A reversal of feeling causes a reversal of attitude. On the contrary, if you were standing calmly on the back foot, looking at him, confidently or reposefully, such an accident would cause you to move forward. In the same way, if one idea happens to be expressed on one pitch, another idea, antithetic to the preceding, is instinctively contrasted to it in pitch. The focussing of the mind upon successive ideas, or the quick leap of the mind in thinking, spontaneously causes a leap of the voice. This instinct is universal. The only exception is an apparent one in the case of deaf mutes; but the reason why they do not vary the pitch is

the fact that they have been taught to speak objectively, and the mind is in a mechanical attitude. The making of tone with them is not the spontaneous expression of the action of their minds. Where this is not the case, the same results follow as in other people. The length and direction, therefore, of the change of pitch are due to the degree of animation, the imaginative conditions, and the discriminations and associations of ideas. No rule can be made to govern them. The voice is the most direct and flexible agent of the mind: a word must be deliberatively chosen, but a change of pitch is spontaneous. Verbal Expression is symbolic, but the modulation of tone is significant; it is not a symbol, but a sign.

Of all rules, the worst are those for the regulation of changes of pitch. Here are two of them: "Joy, high pitch; sorrow, low pitch." These are absolutely false. The human being gives joy in all pitches, and sorrow is expressed in the higher parts, as well as the lower parts of the voice. To follow such mechanical rules as these causes the man to be mechanical, and introduces the worst of faults, monotony. These are rules based on the most superficial observation. A better explanation is this,uncontrolled emotion tends to high pitch, intense, controlled emotion of any kind tends to a low pitch; but even this only applies occasionally, and cannot be given as a rule. The great point in practice is not so much the direction or the length of the change of pitch, as the fact that there, shall be some change of pitch. This is one of the places where so long as the mind holds firmly to an idea, a mistake is impossible.

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In developing expression, there must be no aim at variety for the sake of variety; it must be for the sake of unity. Still, in change of pitch, the greater the variety — so long as the mind is kept focussed—the greater the unity. "Extension in opposition strengthens possession," and any extension of range, or modulation of the voice, reveals more clearly the continuity of thought. A monotonous stream of words gives us no impression of thought,

we only think of the words as in proof-reading; but when the mind really thinks in a sequence, the successive ideas are revealed by the modulation of the voice. We find, in fact, in all art, that there is a vital relation between unity and variety.

Legitimate variety is necessary to the perception of unity. Variety for the sake of change is chaos, and mere sameness is not unity, but monotony. True unity, therefore, implies variety. Unity is the relation of all parts to one centre, and this subordination of parts brings them into opposition, which brings the greatest possible variation. The two hands, for example, are the most unlike of any two things to be found in nature, and yet they are also most like. To their great dissimilarity and similarity is due the possibility of their unity and co-operation. Hand can fold upon hand, thumb can touch thumb, and finger, finger, because the two hands are directly opposite.

There are two great faults in Vocal Expression,- monotony and chaos. Strange to say, they go together. When a monotonous speaker becomes earnest, his voice changes pitch in the most surprising and unnatural places. This is a characteristic fault of ranters and demagogues, and often results where the energy and earnestness is put on from without, and is not inherent in the thinking. One of the most curious facts is that while intervals are so natural, they are the first element which is lost in expression. Monotony is not only the first of all faults, but it is an element of all other faults. Whenever a speaker or a reader feels confused, or when the mind grasps a stream of ideas, and endeavors to give them to men, the result is monotony. This is probably due to the fact that the man does not reproduce naturally the sequence of ideas; he does not have progressive transition in his thinking from idea to idea; he tries to wholesale his ideas, or his consciousness is too much upon the words,— the rhythmic action of his mind is interfered with in some way. The monotony is a natural result.

Hence, attention and abandon, when properly practised, show

at once an effect upon the flexibility and range of the voice in speaking. So long as we positively think progressively, giving ourselves to each successive idea, allowing our words and tones to be the direct outcome of the action of the mind, we can hardly go wrong in change of pitch. The number of intervals will multiply in proportion to the genuineness of the thinking. Therefore, without regard to the more complex principles of inflection, which will be explained later, let us take one of the simplest extracts, full of joy and animation; let us note in what an infinite variety of ways we can read it correctly:

56 OLARKS, sing out to the thrushes,
And thrushes, sing to the sky!

Sing from your nests in the bushes,
And sing wherever you fly.

Of these four lines, we can give the first two words very low, and the next five high; or the first two high, and the next low; and so on through the whole. There are a dozen ways in which the extract can be read effectively. The law of association of ideas, the difference of personalities, the occasion, and many other causes will produce such differences; but we can see that some such variation is necessary. The thought and the feeling must directly dominate the voice. This animated change of pitch is natural, and is always present in spontaneous conversation.

In practising for change of pitch, the student will at first feel great rebellion; hence it is important for him to take such simple extracts as are here laid down, and read them in many ways. Let him be careful only of one thing,- that the voice leaps with the mind. Let him endeavor to paint a picture in his mind in one place, and the next picture in another; and at the same time allow his voice to vary spontaneously with his mind. Where bad habits have been formed in reading, he may at first deliberately make himself read one phrase low, another high, another in the middle of his voice, and so on at random.