The law is necessarily complex:  let us bring together, that we may seize them as a whole, both the contrary expressions and the circumstances which produce them.

Vulgar and uncultured people, as well as children, seem to act in regard to an ascensional vocal progression in an inverse sense to well-educated, or, at any rate, affectionate persons, such as mothers, fond nurses, etc.

No example has, to my knowledge, contradicted this remark.

But why this difference?  What are its motive causes?

“Ha!” I cried, as if struck by lightning, “I’ve found the law!  As with the movements of the head, sensuality and tenderness, these shades of the voice may be traced back to two distinct sources:  sentiment and passion.  It is sentiment which I have seen revealed in mothers; it is passion which we find in uncultured persons.”

Sentiment and passion, then, proceed in an inverse way.  Passion strengthens the voice in proportion as it rises, and sentiment, on the contrary, softens it in due ratio to its intensity.  It was the confusion of these different sources which caused a momentary obscurity in my understanding.

Let us now formulate boldly the law of vocal proportions.

Given a rising form, such as the ascending scale, there will be intensitive progression when this form should express passion (whether impulse, excitement or vehemence).

There will be, on the other hand, a diminution of intensity where this same form should express sentiment.

This law even seems regulated by a quantitative expression, the form of which appeared to me like a flash of light.  This is the formula: 

Under the influence of sentiment the smallest and most insignificant things that we may wish to represent proportion themselves to the degree of acuteness of the sounds, which become softened in proportion as they rise.

Under the influence of passion, on the contrary, the voice rises, with a corresponding brilliancy, in proportion to the magnitude of the thing it would express, and becomes lowered to express smallness or meanness.  Thus an ascending scale being given, it must be considered as a double scale of proportion, agreeing alternately with an increasing or decreasing intensitive progression, increasing under the influence of passion and decreasing under the influence of sentiment.

Thus we would not use the same tones for the words:  “Oh, what a pretty little girl!” “What a lovely little flower!” and:  “See that nice, fat peasant woman!” “What a comfortable great house!”

By such formulae as these I was able to sum up, in clear and didactic form, the multifarious examples suggested by my memory, startled at first by their contradiction and then delighted at the light thrown upon them by these very formulae, due, not to my own merit, but to the favor of Him who holds in His hand the source of all truth.