The training the voice to a subdued state “like music in its softest key,” or to rich, deep tones, though it be done artificially, has an extraordinary effect on the character and on others.  It is associated with a well-trained mind and one gifted with self-control.  One of the richest voices to which I ever listened was that of the poet TENNYSON.  I can remember another man of marvelous mind, vast learning, and aesthetic-poetic power who also had one of those voices which exercised great influence on all who heard it.

There is an amusing parallel as regards nasal-screaming voices in the fact that a donkey cannot bray unless he at the same time lifts his tail—­but if the tail be tied down, the beast must be silent.  So the man or woman, whose voice like that of the erl-king’s is “ghostly shrill as the wind in the porch of a ruined church,” always raise their tones with their temper, but if we keep the former down by training, the latter cannot rise.

I once asked a very talented lady teacher of Elocution in Philadelphia if she regarded shrill voices as incurable.  She replied that they invariably yielded to instruction and training.  Children under no domestic restraint who were allowed to scream out and dispute on all occasions and were never corrected in intonation, generally had vulgar voices.

A good voice acts very evidently on the latent powers of the mind, and impresses the aesthetic sense, even when it is unheeded by the conscious judgment.  Many a clergyman makes a deep impression by his voice alone.  And why?  Certainly not by appealing to the reason.  Therefore it is well to be able to fascinate with the voice.  Now, nota bene—­as almost every human being can speak in a soft or well-toned voice, “at least, subdued unto a temperate tone” just as long as he or she chooses to do it, it follows that with foresight, aided by suggestion, or continued will, we can all acquire this enviable accomplishment.

To end this chapter with a curious bit of appropriate folk-lore, I would record that while Saxo Grammaticus, Olaus Magnus, and a host of other Norsemen have left legends to prove that there were sorcerers who by magic of the soft and wondrous voice could charm and capture men of the sword, so the Jesuit ATHANASIUS KIRCHER, declares that on the seventeenth day of May, 1638, he, going from Messina in a boat, witnessed with his own eyes the capture not of swordsmen but of sundry xiphioe, or sword-fish, by means of a melodiously chanted charm, the words whereof he noted down as follows: 

    “Mammassudi di pajanu,
    Palletu di pajanu,
    Majassu stigneta. 
    Pallettu di pajanu,
    Pale la stagneta. 
    Mancata stigneta. 
    Pro nastu varitu pressu du
    Visu, e da terra!”

Of which words Kircher declares that they are probably of mingled corrupt Greek and ancient Sicilian, but that whatever they are, they certainly are admirable for the catching of fish.