denced music of a voice
guiltless of intention. No! After the body has been made a free and
responsive agent, a mastery of certain fundamental laws, a mastery of
certain principles of gesture in accordance with the dictates of thought
and emotion, is necessary to its further perfecting as a vivid,
powerful, and true agent of personality. The action must be suited to
the word, the word to the action, through a study of the laws governing
expression in action.

So with the voice: to become not only a free instrument, but a
beautiful and powerful means of expression and communication it must
learn to recognize and obey certain fundamental laws governing its
modulations. A master of verbal expression is distinguished by his vast
vocabulary of words, and his skill and discrimination in its use. A
master of vocal expression must acquire what we may call a _vocal
vocabulary_, consisting of changes of pitch, varieties of inflection and
variations in tone color, and must know how to use these elements with
skill and discrimination. Our need for such a vocabulary was discovered
to us at every step of the work in interpretation. The suggestions and
exercises of the following studies aim to supplement the work in
interpretation by meeting that need. Before making a detailed study of
each element of this vocal vocabulary let us make a quick study with the
four elements in mind. Remember, in the last preliminary exercise, as in
the final complete interpretative endeavor, the material we employ is to
be chosen from real literature. It is to be worth interpreting whether
it be a single line or phrase or a complete poetical drama. We have
agreed to consider literature as real literature, and so worth our
interpretative efforts, when it possesses one or combines all of the
three qualities,--_beauty_, _truth_, and _power_.

This passage from Emerson's _Friendship_ surely meets that requirement.
It is truth beautifully and powerfully expressed. It will serve.

Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions because we have
made them a texture of wine and dreams instead of the tough fiber
of the human heart.

Having read this passage cursorily (as is the custom in reading to one's
self to-day), will you now study it for a moment very closely. Now, once
more, please, read it silently, noting the action of your mind as you
read. ("Watch its pulsations," Dr. Curry would say.) And now, aloud,
although without an auditor,