racteristic of emotional speech which we have to notice
is that of _variability of pitch_. It is scarcely possible here to
convey adequate ideas of this more complex manifestation. We must be
content with simply indicating some occasions on which it may be
observed. On a meeting of friends, for instance--as when there arrives a
party of much-wished-for-visitors--the voices of all will be heard to
undergo changes of pitch not only greater but much more numerous than
usual. If a speaker at a public meeting is interrupted by some squabble
among those he is addressing, his comparatively level tones will be in
marked contrast with the rapidly changing one of the disputants. And
among children, whose feelings are less under control than those of
adults, this peculiarity is still more decided. During a scene of
complaint and recrimination between two excitable little girls, the
voices may be heard to run up and down the gamut several times in each
sentence. In such cases we once more recognise the same law: for
muscular excitement is shown not only in strength of contraction but
also in the rapidity with which different muscular adjustments succeed
each other.

Thus we find all the leading vocal phenomena to have a physiological
basis. They are so many manifestations of the general law that feeling
is a stimulus to muscular action--a law conformed to throughout the
whole economy, not of man only, but of every sensitive creature--a law,
therefore, which lies deep in the nature of animal organisation. The
expressiveness of these various modifications of voice is therefore
innate. Each of us, from babyhood upwards, has been spontaneously making
them, when under the various sensations and emotions by which they are
produced. Having been conscious of each feeling at the same time that we
heard ourselves make the consequent sound, we have acquired an
established association of ideas between such sound and the feeling
which caused it. When the like sound is made by another, we ascribe the
like feeling to him; and by a further consequence we not only ascribe to
him that feeling, but have a certain degree of it aroused in ourselves:
for to become conscious of the feeling which another is experiencing, is
to have that feeling awakened in our own consciousness, which is the
same thing as experiencing the feeling. Thus these various modifications
of voice become not only a language through which we understand the
emotions of others, but a