Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/265

Rh things is really beneficial, not from any occult virtue that there is in them, but because the solids give strength, while the liquids moisten and lubricate the throat. That is the whole secret of the cordials and elixirs in which many vocalists place their trust.

A useful example of the proper care of the voice is to be found in a very unexpected quarter. The Emperor Nero, as is well known, believed himself to be a great artist, a notion of which those about were not likely to disabuse him. His dying words, "Qualis artifex pereo!" show that he had at least one feature of the artistic temperament. He sought fame by many paths—in poetry, fiddling, driving, and other branches of the fine arts—to say nothing of his scientific experiments on the bodies of his nearest relations. The imperial virtuoso was particularly vain of his voice, which I can well imagine to have been soft and sweet, qualities which often enough accompany a cruel nature. He was proportionately careful of so precious a possession. His system is worth quoting. In addition to such general measures as attending to his liver, and abstaining from such fruits and other food as he fancied to be injurious to his voice, we are told that at night he used to lie on his back with a small plate of lead on his stomach. This was probably for the purpose of checking the tendency to abdominal breathing, which has already been referred to as the less perfect way in respiration for singers. In order to spare his voice all unnecessary fatigue, he gave up haranguing his troops and ceased even to address the Senate. As in later times there were keepers of the king's conscience, Nero gave his voice into the keeping of a phonascus. He spoke only in the presence of this vocal director, whose duty it was to warn him when his tones became too loud, or when he seemed to be in danger of straining his voice. To the same functionary was intrusted the formidable duty of checking the emperor 's eloquence when it became too impetuous; this he did by covering the imperial orator's mouth with a napkin. It must have needed no small measure of courage to apply this effectual method of "closure" to the arch-tyrant of history when intoxicated with the exuberance of his own vocalization.

While laying stress on the necessity of proper cultivation in order to make the singer capable of giving the greatest pleasure to his hearers with the least amount of fatigue to himself, I venture to add that many singers who are admirably trained have rather a tendency to "o'erstep the modesty of nature" in their delivery. It was said of Flaubert's Salammbô, that it might be Carthaginian, but it was not human; in the same way I am disposed to say of certain highly "artistic" vocal displays which one is sometimes condemned to hear, that it may be song but it assuredly is not music. When listening to such tremendous