Stating it briefly and pointedly I should suggest that the human voice
is a cultivation or form'd growth on a fair native foundation. This
foundation probably exists in nine cases out of ten. Sometimes nature
affords the vocal organ in perfection, or rather I would say near enough
to whet one's appreciation and appetite for a voice that might be truly
call'd perfection. To me the grand voice is mainly physiological--(by
which I by no means ignore the mental help, but wish to keep
the emphasis where it belongs.) Emerson says _manners_ form the
representative apex and final charm and captivation of humanity: but he
might as well have changed the typicality to voice.
Of course there is much taught and written about elocution, the best
reading, speaking, &c., but it finally settles down to _best_ human
vocalization. Beyond all other power and beauty, there is something in
the quality and power of the right voice (_timbre_ the schools call
it) that touches the soul, the abysms. It was not for nothing that
the Greeks depended, at their highest, on poetry's and wisdom's vocal
utterance by _tete-a-tete_ lectures--(indeed all the ancients did.)
Of celebrated people possessing this wonderful vocal power, patent to
me, in former days, I should specify the contralto Alboni, Elias Hicks,
Father Taylor, the tenor Bettini, Fanny Kemble, and the old actor Booth,
and in private life many cases, often women. I sometimes wonder whether
the best philosophy and poetry, or something like the best, after all
these centuries, perhaps waits to be rous'd out yet, or suggested, by
the perfect physiological human voice.