VOICE AND DELIVERY. 37 



not know him very intimately indeed would have 

 imagined for a moment that such was the case. So, 

 too, in his lecturing, with regard to which he made 

 a similar complaint. But I do" not think that his 

 nervousness ever lasted very long. His first few sen- 

 tences were generally a little stiff and formal, and had 

 obviously been carefully thought out and formed before 

 the sermon began. But then, as he warmed to his 

 subject, these traces of formality would altogether 

 disappear ; and I do not think that he was ever 

 nervous after that. 



His delivery was never very good. His voice was 

 naturally rather throaty and husky, and at no time was 

 it ever really strong. And yet he had the great faculty 

 of making himself plainly heard, even in the most dis- 

 tant recesses of the largest building. Even when stand- 

 ing on the steps leading from the nave into the choir of 

 Canterbury Cathedral, as he had to do when conducting 

 the rehearsals of the great choral festivals, and issuing 

 his orders to the choristers, who were but just entering 

 from the cloisters, those orders were distinctly heard. 

 Probably this was owing to the fact that he took such 

 remarkable pains with the due enunciation of his words. 



He had at one time stammered terribly, and although 

 he had undergone a course of treatment, and had^ been 

 almost completely cured, there were certain words which 

 he could never utter without great and obvious diffi- 

 culty ; and he was even at times compelled to exchange 

 these for others, from pure inability to pronounce them. 

 Therefore, I think, he was the more careful with all his 



