Part 1 (1/2)

The Voice and Spiritual Education

by Hiram Corson

_PREFATORY NOTE_

_While it is the purpose of this little book to emphasize the ieneral culture, it is not its purpose, except incidentally, to impart elocutionary instruction Attention is called to a few features of the subject, which, if realized in any voice, would contribute _

_Special stress is laid upon the importance of spiritual education as the end tohich all education should be directed, and as an indispensable condition of interpretative reading Such education is de life of any product of literary genius; without it,By the spiritual I ; and I include in the term the emotional, the susceptible or impressible, the sympathetic, the instinctive, the intuitive,--in short, the whole domain of the non-intellectual, the non-discursive_

_With the kind permission of the editor, I have embodied in the part of the book devoted to the voice, my article on Vocal Culture, published 'The Atlantic Monthly' for June, 1895_

_H C_ _Cascadilla Cottage, Ithaca, N Y, 30 Jan, 1896_

THE VOICE AND SPIRITUAL EDUCATION

Can reading be taught? is a question often asked, and partly for the reason, it h courses of vocal training in schools of elocution, or under private teachers, so frequently offend people of taste and culture by an extravagance of expression, by esture, and by offensive mannerisms of various kinds But a reasonable inference cannot be drawn fro ood

Yes, ht, it may be; the desideratum is the education, intellectual and spiritual, especially the latter, without which theare vain and ient training into a cos; and without this obedience of his vocal organs, a reader, whatever be his other qualifications, cannot do his best He is in the position of a musical performer who has sy, but whose instrument is badly out of tune A reader may have the fullest possible appreciation of the subject matter, intellectual and spiritual, of a poem, and a susceptibility to all the subtlest elements of effect involved in its form; but if he have not full control of his vocal faculties, he can but ih his voice, his appreciation and susceptibility This control can be secured only by long and intelligent training The voices, generally, of even the one ht back from the error of their ways, before they can serve effectively to interpret a literary product

Many great poets have written subtly organic verse, who could not vocally realize its potentialities, they not having their organs of speech sufficiently under control Sae's acco, in his 'Literary Ree's lectures on Poetry and the Fine Arts, at the Royal Institution, 'good reading was not one; he had neither voice, nor inatively have heard the wonderful verse of Christabel and Kubla Khan, as an organic, inseparable part of the poetical expression Mere literary skill could not have produced such verse It was a texture woven by the spirit, which he could not adequately exhibit to the physical ear, as he was not

To read naturally is a coue phrase The question is, what _is_ nature? It is the object of the science and art of reading, to realize as fully as possible the imperfectly realized instincts of the voice 'There is a power in science which searches, discovers, ath of spontaneous effort can never reach'

When people speak of the natural in expression, they generally mean nature on the plane on which they are best acquainted with it--the plane of coedy, or even of ie, for the expression of which a corresponding idealization of voice is deht, at the beginning of the third book of Paradise Lost, after the manner of common speech, would be somewhat absurd The idealization of voice dee, is not, however, a departure froher plane

'Enter into the _spirit_ of what you read, read _naturally_, and you will read well,' is about the sum and substance of what Archbishop Whateley teaches on the subject, in his 'Eleht with equal propriety be given to a clu: 'Enter into the spirit of the dance, dance naturally, and you will dance well' The ht enter into the spirit of the dance, the ht emphasize his stiff-jointedness and his clodhopperishness

Of this distinguished advocate of 'natural' reading and speaking, Mr

Grant, writing in 1835, says: 'Oratory is not his forte,he goes through his addresses in so clumsy and inanimate a way that noble lords at once co so befits him as unbroken silence He speaks in so low a tone as to be inaudible to those who are any distance from him And not only is his voice low in its tones, but it is unpleasant from its monotony In his manner there is not a particle of life or spirit You would fancy his grace to be half asleep while speaking You see so little appearance of consciousness about his will support him until he has finished his address'

The writer of this justly says of the Archbishop's writings: 'They abound with evidences of profound thought, varied knowledge, great ' But his 'natural'

theory in regard to speaking, did not, it appears, avail with him, even when backed by such abilities

'Nature,' says the Archbishop, 'or custoests spontaneously the different s, and designs, which are present to thein earnest his own sentiments Then, if this be the case, why not leave nature to do her oork? Impress but the mind fully with the sentiments, etc, to be uttered; withdraw the attention from the sound, and fix it on the sense; and nature, or habit, will spontaneously suggest the proper delivery'

Such instruction as this is not unlike that which Ha upon a pipe, and would be, in the majority of cases, hardly ers and thuive it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most excellent music Look you, these are the stops' Guildenstern replies: 'But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; _I have not the skill_' The last sentence tells the whole story The Archbishop, with all his great abilities, had not the requisite _skill_ in oratorical delivery

So this may be said to be the conclusion of the wholereading, and in training the voice, is technique and elocutionary _skill_ of various kinds--a skill which the student can bring into his service, when voicing his intellectual appreciation and spiritual assiht; the illumination of the subject-_ of the reader He can't give to his hearers what he doesn't possess The saying of Madane, '_Il faut etre, si l'on veut paraitre_,' is applicable to the reader An attee of his spiritual life and experience, at once betrays his deficiency

And no a will compensate for this deficiency