ords--in her inflection of
the last word, I may almost say. When I close my eyes and think of
Madame Nazimova's voice I see a grove of soft maples in early October
with the sun playing upon them, while Miss Marlowe's tone carries me at
once into the pine woods, where a white birch now and then shimmers its
yellow leaves. Again, the voice of the Russian actress suggests a
handful of diamonds, and the American instrument a set of turquoise in
the matrix. The difference in these two agents of two compelling
personalities is, of course, the result of a difference in the two
temperaments; but undoubtedly it also arises from a difference in
methods of training. Whatever the temperament, light and shade can be
developed in the voice through practice of inflection; and whatever the
temperament, a pure tone can be secured through a mastery of support of
breath and freedom of vocal conditions. The voices of these two
actresses vividly illustrate these two points. We shall study how to
secure Miss Marlowe's tone. We are now to work for Madame Nazimova's
light and shade, so far as a mastery of inflection will secure it. How
shall we proceed?

"All my life," writes Ellen Terry, in her entrancing memoirs, "the thing
which has struck me as wanting on the stage is variety. Some people are
tone-deaf, and they find it physically impossible to observe the law of
contrasts. But even a physical deficiency can be overcome by that
faculty of taking infinite pains." That is the secret of successful
acquisition in any direction, is it not--the _faculty of taking infinite
pains_? With Ellen Terry it resulted in a voice which in its prime
estate suggested, it is said, all the riotous colors of all the autumns,
or Henry Ward Beecher's most varied collection of precious stones. We
can secure an approximate result by employing the same method. Let us
proceed with infinite pains to practise, practise, practise inflection.

Let us first examine this _change of pitch within a word_ which we call
inflection. How does the pitch change, and why, and what does the change
indicate? We have discovered that a change of thought results in a
broad change of pitch from word to word, phrase to phrase, sentence to
sentence, and we shall discover that a change in emotion results in a
change in the color of the tone we are using; but this element of our
vocal vocabulary, inflection, is subtler than either of the other two.
While change of pitch is an intellectual m