of a blind doctor who habitually told character by the tone of
the voice, and men and women often went to him to have their characters
described as one would go to a palmist.

Once a woman spoke to him earnestly for that purpose and he replied,
"Madam, your voice has been so much cultivated that there is nothing of
you in it--I cannot tell your real character at all." The only way to
cultivate a voice is to open it to its best possibilities--not to teach
its owner to pose or to imitate a beautiful tone until it has acquired
the beautiful tone habit. Such tones are always artificial and the
unreality in them can be easily detected by a quick ear.

Most great singers are arrant hypocrites. There is nothing of
themselves in their tone. The trouble is to have a really beautiful
voice one must have a really beautiful soul behind it.

If you drop the tension of your voice in an argument for the sake of
getting a clearer mind and meeting your opponent without resistance,
your voice helps your mind and your mind helps your voice.

They act and react upon one another with mutual benefit. If you lower
your voice in general for the sake of being more quiet, and so more
agreeable and useful to those about you, then again the mental or moral
effort and the physical effort help one another.

It adds greatly to a woman's attraction and to her use to have a low,
quiet voice--and if any reader is persisting in the effort to get five
minutes absolute quiet in every day let her finish the exercise by
saying something in a quiet, restful tone of voice.

It will make her more sensitive to her unrestful tones outside, and so
help her to improve them.

CHAPTER XX

_About Frights_

HERE are two true stories and a remarkable contrast. A nerve specialist
was called to see a young girl who had had nervous prostration for two
years. The physician was told before seeing the patient that the
illness had started through fright occasioned by the patient's waking
and discovering a burglar in her room.

Almost the moment the doctor entered the sick room, he was accosted
with: "Doctor, do you know what made me ill? It was frightful." Then
followed a minute description of her sudden awakening and seeing the
man at her bureau drawers.

This story had been lived over and over by the young girl and her
friends for two years, until the strain in her brain caused by the
repetition of the impression of fright was so intense that no skill no