Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 73.djvu/286

282 thoughts, our instincts, our very natures find expression in the tones of the voice; we are familiar with the effeminate voice, the manly voice, the sympathetic voice, the mean voice. Our hands also tell similar stories, hut we have never learned to recognize them because we have not thought the matter worth considering. No facts whatever are yet settled concerning the relation between character and writing, yet that need not trouble us. It is a well-established law that our mind seeks expression by movements and that the practise of the movements tends to confirm the condition of mind that produces them. Certain attitudes are connected by repetition with devotional impulses; the mere assumption of such an attitude will arouse the same impulses. The careful putting of our best instincts into our writing on every occasion can not but have some of the moral effect attributed to such a practise by the Japanese, and the constant effort at clearness, correctness and gracefulness in expression must inevitably have some influence on our inner selves.