Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/117

Rh force. Mr. Bright's use of his voice always gave one the impression of a large reserve of power. There seemed to be no effort in his delivery, even when speaking to a mighty concourse of people, and yet his voice was

 To the last verge of the vast audience sent, And played with each wild passion as it went."

One element of success in this matter is no doubt the art of compelling an audience to listen. As Montaigne, in his quaint old French, says: "La parole est moitié à celuy qui parle, moitié à celuy qui l'escoute; celuy cy se doibt préparer à la recevoir, selon le bransle qu'elle prend: comme entre ceulx qui jouent à la paulme, celuy qui soubstient se desmarche et s'appreste, selon qu'il veoid remuer celuy qui luy jecte le coup et selon la forme du coup." Every speaker should know the exact limits of his own vocal powers, and he must be careful never to go beyond them, for the sake of his hearers no less than his own. He must learn to judge instinctively of distance, so as to throw his voice to the farthest part of his audience. A speaker, and, I may say, a singer also, should not hear his own voice too loudly. Artistes and orators are often very much disappointed, and think their voice is not traveling well when they themselves do not hear it very distinctly. The fact is that when the speaker does not hear his voice this proves that it reaches to a distant part of the room, and that there is very little rebound. Here I may remark that we never hear our voices as other people hear them. Our own voices are conveyed to the auditory nerve, not only through the outside air, but more directly from the inside, through the Eustachian tube, as well as through the muscles and bones of the mouth and head; the singer not only hears his own voice from a different quarter, as we may say, but he hears besides the contraction of his own muscles. The fact is well illustrated by the phonograph: a listener can recognize other people's voices, but if he speaks into the phonograph, and afterward reproduces his own voice, it does not sound at all like itself to him, because he does not hear it in the manner he is accustomed to, and because he hears it stripped of the various accompanying sounds which are usually associated with it to his ear.

The acoustic peculiarities of the place in which he has to speak must, if possible, be carefully studied beforehand by the orator. Public buildings, however, vary so greatly in their size and construction that it is impossible to lay down any general rules for the guidance of speakers in this matter. Each hall, church, court, and theatre has its own acoustic character, which can be learned