For the purpose of making satisfactory experiments in this respect, as, in fact, in every other respect in connection with these investigations, it is necessary that inspiration or expiration, as the case may be, should be continuous, that is, that either the one or the other should be persisted in until a result is obtained; namely, until an apparent increase or decrease in the size of the part of the body under consideration, or an inflation or depletion of the same, will be perceptible. Though it may be difficult at first, a person will soon learn to distinguish between an increase or a swelling of a part, which means inspiration into the same, and a decrease or a shrinking or diminution thereof, which means expiration from the same.
[PHYSIOLOGY OF THE VOICE IN RELATION TO WORDS]
In the further pursuance of the questions heretofore under consideration, I shall now enter upon a theme of a still more subtle nature. The question of metre, rhythm, accent, etc., is one which is involved in much mystery; nor can I find that many persons entertain precisely the same ideas as being expressed by these terms.
Accepting as a fundamental principle the fact that our various spiritual conditions are based upon our ability to extract the necessary inspiration therefor from the air, which bears the same relation to our spiritual existence that the earth does to that of our body (in furnishing it with such elements as it requires for its maintenance), I contend that we breathe for speech in as many different modes as there are parts or elements in its composition. This proposition does not necessarily conflict with the fact that we also draw elements from the air, as analytical chemistry has proven, which serve for the construction of matter; such elements, however, instead of being strictly material, as they have every appearance of being, are, in reality, the spiritual complements of the matter they help to form; matter and spirit going hand in hand in our entire composition.
In reading poetry, or giving expression to the same in song (I repeat), we do so in a fourfold manner:
First: as to metre or time (the "measure" of time).
Second: as to the rhythm or the music pervading the voice, produced by its rise and fall, also called cadence, or the idiomatic expression of a language.
Third: as to accent.