San Antonio Daily Light

THE AMERICAN VOICE.

It Should Be Musical, But It Is Usually Shrill, Strident and Noisy.

Why is not as much attention paid to the pleasure to be derived by way of the ear as the eye? In this country we treat the ear barbarously. The ear gets the minimum of pleasure, and it retorts by aggravating the nerves. And so it happens that much of the discomforts of our life come through the ear. What the foreigner most notices in this country, until he becomes, as we are, more or less callous to it, is "noise." We are not simply pitched on a high key nationally, but on a discordant key. It is not a gayer or more animated country than some others, but it is noisier. Certainly we do not cultivate harmony or moderation. To begin with, the "American voice" has an unenviable reputation. It is apt to be shrill, strident, high-pitched, unmodulated. This quality adds an unnecessary aggravation to social life. It disorganizes the nerves, and increases the tendency to nervous prostration—this and other unchecked noises. The human voice ought to be a delight; it was meant to give musical pleasure. There is no good reason why the American voice should not give pleasure. The voices of uncultivated races are often delightful. The negroes set us a good example in agreeable tones. That there is no radical incurable defect in the American voice we know, because we have had orators whose tones were as musical as the organ and the flute; there are communities where we hear, for the most part, modulated low and pleasing speech; and it is getting to be admitted that an American singer is the peer of any in the world. But in general no care is taken about the voice in speech. Girls as well as boys are permitted to make home discordant and school a babel of mere noise by the most vulgar and rasping use of the vocal organs. Mrs. Browning might have written, with us in view, a more pathetic poem on the "Cry of the Children." If children ought ever to be whipped, or, to put a case more in consonance with the tendency of the age, if children ought ever to whip their parents, the castigation should be given for the harsh, piercing and discordant voice. It is idle to say that this sort of voice is natural to them. Any voice can be cultivated to a degree that it shall not be unpleasant and this education should go on from infancy in every home and every school. It is a matter of public interest for the public pleasure. Think what a tea party might be!

The voice is, however, only set to the pitch of the other noises. In all thickly settled communities the ears are split and outraged by the steam whistle of the factories and the locomotives. In the depths of the night the startled sleeper has the veil of seclusion torn away from him by the scream of the whistles, the invalid's excited nerves are worn to rags by the barbarous pipe of the locomotive. We cringe and suffer with only faint protest. It is only a part of the universal noise and hubbub. Most of this screaming of the steam-demon is absolutely unnecessary in this day of clocks and watches and guarded railway crossings. But if we must have the whistle, why not invent one that is moderately musical instead of being a torture? This is a suggestion of quiet-loving people, who find the noise of our American life every day more intolerable. Perhaps any abatement of it would not suit the majority, who like to go tearing and whooping through the world. It is fortunate, considering our voices, that we are not Moslems, for then we should substitute for the muzzin's melodious call to prayer a harsh summons that would frighten every sinner back into his bed, and compel him to stop his ears against the rasping invitation to devotion. But is it altogether fortunate? For have we not the church and other jangling bells? These give out noise and nerve-shaking clamor instead of melodious notes. There are very few bells in the United States that are agreeable to the ear. The foundries seem to go on the idea that anything in the shape of a bell will answer the purpose, with little or no regard to its tone, and we are called to church with the same metallic anger that invites us to a fire. The manufacturers are probably indifferent because the public are indifferent. Their products are mechanical, and only by chance musical. There is the need of art in the making and ringing of a bell, as in the making and playing of a piano. We appear to be content with any mass of metal cast in the bell shape, and to let a ringer with the instinct of a blacksmith evoke its dissonance with a sledge-hammer.—Charles Dudley Warner, in Harper's Magazine.