It is in this want of inflective grace that English, and more especially French, speakers lose so much of their force. Both read admirably and articulate with precision, but the unvaried straight line tone, so suited to reading, will not serve the purpose when we not only wish to make people understand, but also endeavour to move their passions.
The secret power of a good story-teller
Recall a good story-teller or speaker of whom you never wearied; go back in memory and see how much he owed to the power contained in the inflected voice—the varied tones that sank or swelled as suited the mood or passion.
As you sat by the winter's fire your flesh was made to creep and your hair stood on end in terror while you furtively stole a glance around looking for the apparition described in the weird ghost story. The secret power that somewhere lay enthralled you. Was it not in the husky whisper or the hush of restraint? Let that speaker tell the same story in the middle pitched narrative tone, and lo! the spell is vanished. If the thunder thrills that rocked and vibrated through his voice were taken from Demosthenes, would he have ever driven Eschines into exile?
Two advantages of inflection
The practice of varied cadences in speech has two genuine advantages—it saves the speaker from fatigue and the hearers from weariness.
When a man varies his tone of voice he breaks up the arrangement in the group of muscles that till then bore the stress of effort: a new combination is formed, and the work transferred to fresh muscles. This brings instant relief. A similar sense of refreshment comes to his hearers.
In speaking, as in singing, we must have melody, but there is no melody without variety. People would rush even from a Melba if she sang every note in the same key. Inflection not only constitutes the melody of speech, but imparts to it rhetorical significance and logical force.
The want of success in many a speaker who has both a good voice and good matter may be found in the fact that his voice, instead of being as flexible as a piece of whalebone, is as unbending as a bar of iron; or, worse still, perhaps he adopts the dreary monotony of the sing-song tone: the two unvarying notes so suggestive of the up and down movements of a pump-handle. This "cuckoo" tone would blight the best written sermon.
Two impediments to good preaching