A Portrait-study (13)

To begin then. Of her clear, liquid voice Homer might have said, with far more truth than of aged Nestor’s, that

The pitch, exquisitely soft, as far removed from masculine bass as from ultra-feminine treble, is that of a boy before his voice breaks; sweet, seductive, suavely penetrating; it ceases, and still vibrating murmurs play, echo-like, about the listener’s ears, and Persuasion leaves her honeyed track upon his mind. But oh! the joy, to hear her sing, and sing to the lyre’s accompaniment. Let swans and halcyons and cicalas then be mute. There is no music like hers; Philomela’s self, ‘full-throated songstress ’ though she be, is all unskilled beside her.