PERMANENT CHARACTER OF SPEECH. 213 



different quarters of the globe, has deprived this 

 class of local wonders of their influence, and the 

 Indian and the Scandinavian can visit each other's 

 lands without any violent excitement of surprise. 

 Still, however, there are phenomena of rare 

 occurrence, of which no description can convey 

 the idea, and which continue to be as deeply 

 marked with the marvellous as if they had been 

 previously unknown. Among these we may rank 

 the remarkable modifications which sound under- 

 goes in particular situations and under particular 

 circumstances. 



In the ordinary intercourse of life, we recog- 

 nize individuals as much by their voice as by the 

 features of their face and the form of their body. 

 A friend who has been long absent will often 

 stand before us as a stranger, till his voice sup- 

 plies us with the full power of recognition. The 

 brand imprinted by time on his outer form may 

 have effaced the youthful image which the 

 memory had cherished, but the original character 

 of his voice and its yet remembered tones will 

 remain unimpaired. 



An old friend with a new face is not more 

 common in its moral than in its physical accepta- 

 tion; and though the sagacity of proverbial 

 wisdom has not supplied us with the counterpart 

 in relation to the human voice, yet the influence 

 of its immutability over the mind has been 

 recorded by the poet in some of his most power- 

 ful conceptions. When Manfred was unable to 

 recognize in the hectic phantom of Astarte the 

 endeared lineaments of the being whom he loved, 

 the mere utterance of his name recalled " the 



