odulation, and variation in
tone-color is an emotional modulation, _inflection_, in a degree,
combines both. It is a change in both color and key within the word. It
is primarily of intellectual significance, but it also reveals certain
temperamental characteristics which cannot be disassociated with
emotion. For instance, the staccato utterance of Mrs. Fiske is
technically the result of her use of straight, swift-falling
inflections, but it is temperamentally the result of thinking and
feeling in terms of Becky Sharp.

Let us see how inflections vary. They rise and fall swiftly or slowly.
They move in a straight line from point to point, or make a curve. (The
latter we call circumflex inflection.) They make various angles with
the original level of pitch, rising or falling abruptly or gradually.
These are some of the variations, each indicating an attitude of the
mind and heart of the speaker toward the thought, or toward the one
spoken to, or toward the circumstances out of which the speech arises.
All must be mastered for use at will if light and shade are to be
developed in the voice.

Now let us take a phrase or sentence, and voice it under a certain
condition, noting the inflection of the word or words which hold the
thought of the phrase or sentence in solution. Then let us change the
condition and again voice the thought, noting the change in inflection.
Let me propound a profound question,--"Do you like growing old?" The
answers will all be "yes" or "no." But what of the inflection of those
monosyllabic words? _Sweet Sixteen_ will employ a straight,
swift-falling inflection on the affirmative (unless some untoward
influence, such as "_Love_ the _Destroyer_," has embittered her life,
when she may give us one of _May Iverson's_ adorable replies, masked in
indifference and circumlocution). _Twenty_ will employ the
straight-falling inflection without the swiftness of Sweet Sixteen's
slide. With _twenty-five_ we detect a faint sign of a curve in the more
gradual fall. _Twenty-eight_ to _thirty-five_ employs various degrees of
circumflex, according to the desire--or possibility--of concealing the
real facts. _Forty_ to _forty-five_, if in defiant mood, employs the
abrupt-falling inflection, or, if quite honest, changes to the negative
with as swift and straight a fall. This lasts through sixty-five, and at
_seventy_ we hear a new and gentle circumflex of the "no," until the
pride of extreme old age sets in at _eigh