And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour,
And of how, after all, old things were best,
That I smelt the smell of that jasmin-flower
Which she used to wear in her breast.
An orator, by his tones as well as by his words, causes definite mental activities to take possession of his audience, thus influencing them with the action of their own minds. The language of tone is the language of the spheres, it is the language of the invisible world, it is the language of the angels.
The soul knows what tones to employ for the purpose of communicating its own activities to other souls. The impulse of the soul constructs the form of the tone which communicates its thought to the audience. There is no such thing as true voice which soul has not formed. The proper study of the voice is a study of the manifestations of the soul. Life is rich and valuable if we live from the interior. Life is disappointing, life is the blasting of all highest hopes, life is the shatterer and annihilator of all ideals, if we live not from the soul.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” Think what an estimate the Bible puts upon the “Word!” The Word, which is the fruition of the soul in manifestation, is used as a symbol of the relation of Jesus Christ to the Father. The Word is represented as being the Truth, the Life, the Creative Energy, and the Being of God Himself. Man’s word, when he lives truly, is but an expression, a moving out upon the world, and upon the hearts of others, of the love, the truth, the worship of his soul.
True words, then, are not sounds separate from the spirit; they are the incarnated soul. I would never teach voice, I would never teach oratory, if words were not, in their true nature, Divine things, if they were not forms of the spirit and of the soul!