Voices heard

Powell quotes from Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan where King Charles (of France, I suppose) said about "voices", that if there were such things, they would come to the king.  Shaw has Joan saying: “They do come to you; but you do not hear them.  You have not sat in the field in the evening listening for them.  When the angelus rings you cross yourself and have done with it; but if you prayed from your heart, and listened to the thrilling of the bells in the air after they stop ringing, you would hear the voices as well as I do” (p. 58).

Now I want to know if they are Joan’s words or Shaw’s.  I will look into it right now...No.  I couldn’t confirm it either way, except that the words are in the play.  It is beautiful thought, isn’t it?

Another comment I have is about the textbooks Mary Baker had in primary school.  How well she knew them - Lindley Murray’s Introduction to the English Reader and the English Reader!  They remind me of the English Readers we had in primary school and which gave me a solid basis for good literature.  For me, this was in the 1930’s and 1940’s, and I have the feeling that, at that date, not much had changed in education during the 100 years following Mary Baker’s school days.  Until recently I had a copy of one of my Readers.  I presented it to the Bribie Island Historical Society. (I received most of my primary education on Bribie Island.) 

Now, regarding a reference (pp.63, 64) to the voice and manner of speaking that we know Mrs. Eddy always considered to be very important –

“The voice and manner of speaking, too, are not to be neglected.  Some people almost shut their mouths when they speak, and mutter so, that they are not to be understood; others speak so fast, and sputter, that they are equally unintelligible. Some always speak as loud as if they were talking to deaf people; and others so low that one cannot hear them.  All these, and many other habits, are awkward and disagreeable, and are to be avoided by attention….” (Lindley Murray's Introduction to the English Reader, p. 102).

Nothing has changed, has it?

It is written somewhere that Mrs. Eddy admonished folk to speak distinctly.  She said that if they spoke so that they could not be heard, they were saying that they had nothing good to impart.  Now I shall have to find that quote!....Would you believe it?  I found the quote in the very first book I looked into.  The Second Series of the We Knew Mary Baker Eddy original books.

The incident occurred in Mrs. Eddy’s last class, and is recorded by Sue Harper Mims.  “She told us one thing that we should all remember.  She said, as I recall, ‘Now I want you to speak distinctly.  When you speak distinctly it shows your mental quality. Speak as if you had something that you wanted the world to hear.  Speak loud and strong and distinctly.’  Her own voice is very clear” (pp. 55, 56).

 

Joyce Voysey