d of this river of thought, following the
main channel, and then its branches. You will find the main channel cut
by the first and last lines:

Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,

* * * * *

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine--

All between, beginning with the second line, "Bidding my organ obey,"
and including the last words of the eighth line, "the princess he
loved," is a branch channel, leading away from and coming back to the
main river's bed. But this branch channel is interrupted in turn by its
own branch leading away from it and returning with it to join the main
bed with the last line we quote. This second branch begins in the middle
of the third line with the words, "As when Solomon willed," wanders in
this course for five lines, and, rejoining the first offshoot, returns
to the main channel with the last line. Now turn on the stream, the
_Voice_, and watch it flow into the course as traced. Analyze the
reading as to the use of pause and change of pitch.

II

STUDY IN INFLECTION

To me, the most notable among the many notable elements in Madame Alla
Nazimova's acting is her illumination of the text of her impersonations
through _inflection_. To an ear unaccustomed to the "broken music" of
her speech, a word may now and then be lost because of her still faulty
English, but of her attitude toward the thought she is uttering, or the
person she is addressing, or the situation she is meeting, there can
never be a moment's doubt--so illuminating is the inflectional play of
her voice. The tone she uses is not to me pleasing in quality. It does
not fall in liquid alluring cadences upon the ear as does Miss
Marlowe's, for instance. It is always keyed high, whether the child-wife
Nora, or Hedda, omnivorous of experience, is speaking. But this
high-pitched tone is endlessly volatile. It is restless. It never lets
your attention wander. It is never monotonous. It is a master of
_inflection_. Madame Nazimova's emotion is always primarily
intellectual. It always proceeds from a mind keenly alive to the
instant's incident. This intensely intellectual temperament reveals
itself through her voice in a rare degree of inflectional agility.
Recall the revelation of Nora's soul in her cry: "It is not possible! It
is not possible!" Madame Nazimova's conception of the mistress of _The
Doll's House_ is concentrated in these four w