1872.] Music of Speech. 289 
is expressed of plaintiveness or melancholy. ‘‘ Pity the 
sorrows of a poor old man” is a sentence that to be read 
with effect should be read entirely in semitones. 
We must now pass to the consideration of the complex 
or compound inflections correlated to complex states of mind. 
Perhaps there is no better proof of the truth to nature of 
the system of musical inflection (if we can call that a 
system which is really natural) than is afforded by an 
analysis of these complex intervals. They will be found to 
consist of united simple inflections, being thus antithetic in 
their nature. A complex interval is employed only in 
reference to some matter previously understood. For 
formulated expressions conveying an idea of the movements 
of the voice the student of speech is indebted to Professor 
Bell, whose endeavours to render speech graphically were 
long ago recognised by the Society of Arts. He exemplifies 
the compound tones as follows :— 
Rising: ’ 
3rd. 5th, or Octave. 
(Remonstrance) (Threatening) 
Not— Certainly not— 
Falling: 
3rd. 5th, or Octave. 
(Scorn) (Sarcasm) 
But— Or rather— 
the dash being supplied by the accented word. Let the 
reader make a few trials with the word ‘‘so” or ‘ thus;” 
his ear will soon be enabled to measure the intervals. 
This measurement of the intervals is the great difficulty 
of the system; a certain but essentially slight musical 
training is necessary to enable the student to cultivate his 
own voice or judge of the intonation of others; yet the 
difficulty is so small, and the consequent rewards so great, 
that one would not imagine it to impede the progress of 
the analytic study of the voice. This would, however, 
appear to be the case, since teachers of elocution delight 
more in the enunciation of arbitrary rules than in the 
enquiry how Nature provides for the utterance of the 
thoughts of man. 
Science has advanced so far that it may be stated almost 
generally that that which is evident to one sense may be 
also made evident to another. In Leon Scott’s phonautograph, 
and in Konig’s manometric flames we have two beautiful 
illustrations, where speech, as sound evident to the ear 
VOL. II. (N.S.) Zee 
