The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-04-24
UNIQUE WAYS OF LIVING
Law STUDENT HAD AN ASSoRT-
MENT OF VOICES.
Club Woman's Lisp Made Her I'm
happy-Man Who Wanted His
Voice Changed-Bringing Back a
Paralyzed Voice - Treatment of
Children-Details of Profession.
New York SUM


doctor, as he huddled together the let
ters he had been CHANGING over and re-
turned them to his desk. Every one
of those letters is from man or wo-
man set square with the world through
following my instructions; and all
these pictures and plants, sofa pillows
and woman's work knick-knacks have
been sent to me by grateful patients
Working with the voice is a science
that develops new phases and prob
lens all the time to keep ones interest
alert. oh, of course. there are people
teaching -elocution and oratory, voice
CulturistS developing what exists al
ready, but L go back of all that and
handle fundamental troubles. impede
ments, uncertainties and difficulties Of
pitch and tone.
DO many persons suffer in this way !?
Why, if my treatment didn't have to
be individual | could keep six assist
ants constantly employed in attending
patients. Nobody can realize except
the man who Stammers or whose voice
is a CONSERVATION to himself, let alone
his friends, just what a clog and set
back the intirmity is. A great many
bear the load submissively, believing
il to be inevitable, and putting up with
all it involves for an entire lifetime.
Others try one eXpedient after the 9TH
er and my province is TO help them
vanquish infirmity and get control of
their normal powers. l won't under
take any case unless the person will
do just as l say and come regularly
for lessons, and l always warn them
from the start that the cure in three
weeks or "a month or minute prophets
and prescriptions are rank humbug
and that in time, patience and determ-
ination are their only hope. Some
times they get discouraged before do.
That young man who went out just
now is d law student, q years old. as
you see. fine looking and far better
equipped mentally than the average
college man of his age, but, oh, that
voice. It's a trick voice. He can't
depend on it a minute, and all of dig
nifty vanishes when he utters a sem
tence.
:. am actually afraid to speak to
my friends when l pass them in the
street he told me yesterday, because
l don't know whether my voice Mil be
falsetto or bass or the thinnest sort
of "a squeak in the upper register. At
a dance the other night l asked girl
to waltz with me in a tone that would
have done well for the commander of
a cavalry charge, and when | mean to
speak firmly and convincingly l am
just as likely to go off in a WaVering
treble, most undecided and womanish.
Nov ] am going to master that fell
lows voice and make it normal and
steady. But we'll have a time of it,
because not only the pitch, but the in
Election also is out Of plumb. When
the man wishes to make an assertion
he ends off in the manner of a question,
and there seems to be absolutely no
helmsman at his tongues end. No
client with any sense of humor could
listen to him seriously-no matter
what was at stake. / have told him
he had to change that voice. if it took
a years work to do it. and / shall use
breathing exercises as the groundwork
for beginning practice. Half an hour
a day regularly We'll work, legal holi-
days, Sundays, week days, ana when
he graduates he'll be able to ask girl
to marr-- him or put a case to a jury
in the proper tone of voice.
THAT photograph on the mantel of
the young woman in evening dress
shows one of my stammering patients.
Twenty years old, pretty as peach,
bright and well Informed and abso-
lutely incapable of saying the simplest
sentence correctly. She had stammer-
ed from the time she began to talk.
took great interest in her. insisted on
her coming here every day for a lesson.
no matter what happened, and now she
talks straight out. neither too fast nor
too slow She's to be married next
month to a young Englishman who
didn't know her when she stammered.
Curing a Club Woman's Lisp.
"One of my interesting pupils is d
club woman, 80 years old, whom l am
curing of d lisp. She has studied law
and astronomy. dipped into medicine
and ethical subjects, and is really Il
creditable student. but hear her make
a speech with that lisp and you
II. l. H.
gol along with ii fairly well in domes-
tic life. and ii made me fascinating
as a girl in society, she told me. but
now that / want to undertake and talk
about serious things it makes me seem
a fool. I'm willing to take any amount
Of trouble 10 get rid OF it.
Another club woman sought me out
TO strengthen her voice for her. She's
a leader. and has lately been elected
president of her society. but she says
that the members can't hear her fur
Their than a few yards away. l con-
scented TO treat her on condition that
she stopped wearing her corsets tight
Certain of my patients are clergy
men who have either lost their voices
outright from overstrain or come to be
relieved OF the harsh. rasping, nasal
tones that interfere with their advance
7nent It nave had success in making
many such voices mellow and pleasant
to the educated ear. l notice that, of
late years particularly, considerable at
tention is being paid to the speaking
voice of children, and children and
Young people are brought TO me daily
to be delivered from drawbacks in this
regard.
" She's a lovely girl; so refined look
ing but what voice, If you only heard
and didn't see her, you'd think ii was
kitchen maid or a street crier talking.
will be said of some daughter of we'll
to-do. ambitious parents As general
1hing. this sort of patient wants. first
of All, lessons in breathing, and then to
he made to understand the difference
between a sweet and a harsh tone, of
which she has no conception. Broad,
all-round culture generally speaks ont
in the individual voice and takes that
means of Interpretation, but often
happy and highly cultivated
person will be burdened with a heavy
voice Just from physical reasons.
4.No voice specialist can be successful
who is not thoroughly acquainted with
the principles of health and the varied
order of bodily ills that influence the
muscles and nerves Of speech. Care
lessness has much to do with people
speaking indistinctly, and also the lack
Of seif-confidence or self-assertion. And
there is another phase of voice infirm-
itv. that of speaking with too much
Iapidity and having the words come.
out too headlong, with no meditation
on. emphasis like a great torrent of
water. overwhelming all in its track
and leaving no ineligible impression
on the listener. I cured a physician of
this habit last year. / have had pupils
with the roof of the mouth so abnor-
raally high that it interfered with COR
rect utterance, and others who, while
properly approaching the expression
that should be given to sentences, had