How often has a pretty song, tastefully sung, been spoiled by a wriggling of the shoulders, or a rocking of the body from side to side most irritating to behold! How often has a song “breathing of scent and flowers,” of love and spring-time, been warbled with a forbidding scowl and wrinkled forehead—the expression of the whole face suggesting some hidden agony rather than interpreting the spirit of the composition! All these things are most distracting to a listener and detract considerably from the effect of the performance; and a little trouble and study, combined with the assistance of your good and true friend the looking-glass, will do much to improve matters. Let us take the three points I have mentioned in their order. First the hands. Clasp them loosely in front of you and then forget all about them! Make a point of practising it whenever you are fortunate enough to obtain an accompanist to play for you, or when you are having your singing lessons. Commit your song to memory so as to dispense with the music, stand away from the pianoforte, avoid propping yourself against the wall or leaning upon the furniture, stand easily, and let your hands clasp naturally and comfortably. Now for the wriggling. Any of you who have had your photograph taken must remember the unpleasant little arrangement which the photographer sticks behind your head to keep it still; and some of you may have protested against the discomfort and unnaturalness of it and have appealed to be allowed to pose without it, only to get the answer that it is indispensable, as the head moves constantly, though not enough to be noticed, yet sufficiently to spoil any exposure longer than an instantaneous one. And yet the person being photographed is apparently motionless! Now watch someone who is telling some exciting news or some funny story, and you will see that the head moves with every word spoken—the more emphasis, the more movement! I remind you of these things in order to show you how very necessary movement is to us and how, naturally, the head moves in speech rather than the body. If you carefully watch a confirmed wriggler, you will notice that, though the body sways or the shoulders move, the head is very rigid and is usually held very high, and altogether the position looks constrained and awkward, and it has a disastrous effect upon the voice, for all these little awkwardnesses and uglinesses mean that there is a corresponding unnaturalness of production, and the memorable maxim in the Koran, that “there are many roads to Heaven, but only one gate,” applies forcibly to singing, in the respect that the only true singer is he who produces his voice with the most ease and simplicity (though that may have only been acquired by the hardest study) quite irrespective of the particular method by which he has been taught.