Part 26

"Als haetten sie verschluckt den Stock, Womit man sie einst gepruegelt."

("As if the stick they'd swallowed With which they once were walloped.")

The fact that inspiration always consists in an inspiration, an expiration, and an inspiration, while expiration consists in an expiration, an inspiration, and an expiration, is one of the most interesting observations I have made in connection with these studies.

These facts may be generalized in saying: There is no action connected with life which consists of a single movement in any one single direction; every action, of whatsoever nature, if it is outgoing, consisting of an outgoing, ingoing, and outgoing movement; if it is ingoing, of an ingoing, outgoing, and ingoing movement; every superior movement consisting of a superior, an inferior, and a superior; every inferior, of an inferior, a superior, and an inferior one; every left movement, of one to the left, to the right, and to the left; every right movement, of one to the right, to the left, and to the right; the last movement only being visible and accompanying action.

While our experiment is representative of the general principles underlying our mode of breathing, the act of breathing, proper, is subject to many variations. During their waking moments, or for conversation, with Anglo-Saxons respiration takes place by thorax and abdomen changing off, alternately, while with Germans they succeed one another in the same manner as they did in our experiment, commencing, however, with the thorax instead of with the abdomen, and with expiration instead of with inspiration, as follows:

ANGLO-SAXON 1. Insp. Thorax--post., ant., post. 2. " Abd.--ant., post., ant. 3. Exp. Abd.--post., ant., post. 4. " Thorax--ant., post., ant.

GERMAN. 1. Exp. Thorax--post., ant., post. 2. Insp. " --ant., post., ant. 3. Exp. Abd.--ant., post., ant. 4. Insp. " --post., ant., post.

This shows an indirect movement for Anglo-Saxon, a direct movement for German respiration. Hence, English enunciation is necessarily slow, German relatively quick. It also shows that the reserve force with Anglo-Saxons is held before it is expended; with Germans it is expended almost as fast as it is engendered.

As there is an apparent discrepancy between the last schedule and the previous one showing Anglo-Saxon mode of inspiration, I want to remind the reader that our "experiment" was made mainly to set forth the fact that we breathe through the œsophagus conjointly with breathing through the trachea; but it was not intended to show our regular mode of breathing.

Though Germans and Anglo-Saxons breathe in opposite directions, still there is an affinity between them in so far as they breathe along the same plane. Peoples who speak any of the Latin tongues, on the other hand, breathe along a different plane, and so do Slavonic, Mongolian, and other races. Anglo-Saxons and Germans, therefore, though opposed to one another in one sense, are affiliated in another; and both may be, therefore, as they often are, said to belong to the Teutonic race, together with other peoples along the borders of the North and Baltic Seas. In a similar manner, no doubt, other races possess their similitudes and dissimilarities.

It should scarcely require any further proof on my part after this and all I have previously said to show that, if any of the peoples now speaking Latin tongues were in place thereof to speak English or German, they would, in the course of time, cease to be Frenchmen, Spaniards, or Italians, as the case might be, and would become Anglo-Saxons or Germans; or that, if any of the Slavonic races or peoples would do the same, the same result would eventually ensue; and also that, if Anglo-Saxon or German peoples were to speak Latin or Slavonic tongues in place of their own, they would eventually cease to be Anglo-Saxons or Germans, and would become the people whose tongue they were speaking; always provided, of course, that such tongues were to be spoken idiomatically correctly. Should any one still doubt that language is the mainspring formulating peoples and nations in all that essentially belongs to them and distinguishes them as such, I confidently believe that that which I shall still further have to say on this subject will eventually convince even the most obdurate of the correctness of these assertions.

The preceding schedules both for English-and German-speaking peoples show their mode of breathing during their waking moments and for the purpose of conversation. During sleep and for the demands of the singing voice, however, thorax and abdomen interchange with one another in so harmonious a manner that their inspirations and expirations appear as one respective inspiration and expiration.

The following schedules will show the relation of metre and rhythm to breathing.

Inspiration being of longer duration than expiration, I have in the following signified the former by the sign for long (¯), the latter by that for short (˘); while for the rise of the voice I have used the sign for acute (´), and for its fall that for grave (`); for comparison, see schedule on page 202.

ANGLO-SAXON Abdomen Thorax 1. Inspiration, `´` 3. Inspiration, `´` ¯˘¯ ¯˘¯ 2. Expiration, ´`´ 4. Expiration, ´`´ ˘¯˘ ˘¯˘

An experiment may be made by an Anglo-Saxon adopting the German mode of breathing and then attempting to speak English, or by a German adopting the Anglo-Saxon mode of breathing and then attempting to speak German, which neither will succeed in doing.

In making the experiments just now under consideration, it will not be necessary, after closing the muscles of the trachea or the œsophagus for the first six movements, to continue doing so, as the next six movements will ensue involuntarily. There may be several repetitions of these twelve movements involuntarily or automatically following after that; any special mode of breathing once assumed being apt to continue indefinitely until another mode is inaugurated.

The same experiments may also be made by making abdomen and thorax alternately rigid, or producing a state of rigidity through mechanical pressure, in place of producing it with the muscles of the œsophagus and the trachea. As this may appear simpler and "less dangerous," there should be nothing to hinder any one from making these experiments. The movements will not be as pronounced, however, in the latter instance as they are in producing a direct closure of the trachea and the œsophagus.

There is a fourth mode of producing the same results, namely, through the simple act of continuously "thinking" of any particular part. We may thus bring about a closure of the muscles of the trachea or œsophagus, of thorax or abdomen, etc.; thought, which precedes motion for vocal utterance, always, as cause to effect, being the final arbiter in all matters of respiration, unless the latter is of an involuntary and simply functional character. While the act of breathing for life pursues its even tenor, breathing for vocal utterance, though of the same order, is subject to innumerable changes in conformity with the sound, syllable, or word intended to be produced.

I am aware that there may be apparent incongruities in some of the preceding, and I presume there always will be. We can see things only from our limited standpoint. I have undertaken to solve matters supposed to be superhuman, or "of God," and hence perfect in their way, in a human, and therefore imperfect, manner. Our limitations naturally extending to our power of observation, the duality of our nature in matters of this kind does not permit us--I might say, forbids us--arriving at final conclusions. We can go as far as our understanding permits us to go--beyond that, we may at most indulge in speculation. I have limited myself to my limits, to what I could prove, and have but rarely indulged in what I could not--in speculation.

NOTE.--Since the above was written Dr. G. E. Brewer, who in conjunction with Dr. F. C. Ard, last month (March, 1899), in New York, successfully performed the very rare operation of laryngectomy, has told me that his patient had already (after a month) commenced to speak again, though as yet only in a monotonous whispering voice. She is doing so in spite of the fact that every vestige of her larynx, which had been in a diseased state, and which the doctor showed me, had been removed. When I told the doctor this mysterious "new" voice was that of the œsophagus and had always existed with his patient, as it exists with every one else, and had always been heard in conjunction with that of the trachea, he was greatly astonished, though naturally incredulous, but said he would investigate.

SONG, SINGERS, AND PHYSIOLOGY

We are incomprehensible and mysterious beings. We do not know whence we come nor whither we go; we do not know what agencies guide and sustain us--our end is a tragic one. While the soles of our feet closely adhere to the ground, our heads are in touch with the most distant stars. We exercise faculties to perfection whose origin and mode of operation are unalterably hidden from our knowledge. We possess gifts and talents which raise us above the plane of our ordinary existence and inspire us with the belief that we are related to the divinity, are part of the divinity. It has ever been man's aim to penetrate this darkness, to learn to comprehend himself. The vocation of the singer is one to which this knowledge is indispensable. In the fulness of his organization endowed by nature with a divine gift, the singer's aim and desire is to retain and perfect this gift.

The birds sing their same individual song throughout their career. Man, however, sings the song of his soul; a song as endless and as varied as his thoughts. Song with him is not a gift alone, but its exercise is a study, an art. He must sing knowingly; he must ascertain the source of his song and the reason why certain causes produce certain results. Hence the necessity for a science of the voice.

The knowledge of the exercise of our faculties is dependent on the knowledge of life and on that of the spirit, without whose aid no transaction of life of any kind ever takes place. Despairing of his ability to penetrate into the realms of the spirit, aspiring man has ever resorted to that which was next at his command--matter. Hence the effort throughout all of man's history to reach the soul by way of the body. But body and mind, in alliance, have ever succeeded in frustrating these efforts; in keeping the secret of their duality and mutuality intact from the gaze of man. Yet singers are determined to find out something in relation to the voice at least. Finding that we cannot penetrate into the relation existing between mind and matter, the effort is renewed in the most persistent manner to explain the life and the spirit, whose essence and outcome is the voice, by examining into the relation of matter to matter.

Our professor, having discarded the assistance of life and the spirit, dabbles in matter pure and undefiled. This process our young students are invited to attend. They carry their youth and their talent, their high hopes and aspirations, into the dissecting-room, where the spirit of the voice is supposed to reveal itself among the ghastliest spectacles. If a person of ordinary good sense, but not acquainted with these subjects, were to attend a lecture on the physiology of the voice and then attend a singing-lesson based upon the knowledge thus attained, he would be apt to remark: "Can this performance possibly be meant to be in good faith? Is not this man taking advantage of the credulity of this woman, who is giving him her hard-earned money, but to find before long that she has been beggared, not only in purse, but in voice and spirit as well; that she has not been benefited in any sense, but sadly robbed and betrayed?"

The persistency with which the modern scientist attempts to hammer a voice out of the larynx and surrounding material tissues and other physical agencies is a cardinal sin against the holy "spirit." When he uses this supposed knowledge for coining it into money at the expense of trusting and aspiring singers, he commits a malpractice, for which some day he will have to go to the penitentiary of his own conscience; that is, if he is in possession of any. "Vocal bands, mucous membranes, tissues, ligaments, muscles, hollow spaces, air-pressure,"--these are the factors productive of the voice divine; matter, nought but matter; not a spark of the divine afflatus, not a spark even of life.

Journals devoted to the voice are full of these things. I will quote but a single instance. At the Music Teachers' National Convention, held in New York, in June, 1898, a sensation was created by Dr. Frank E. Miller (see Werner's Magazine for August, 1898, page 490) saying: