The spoken word does not afford the extension and 
amplification of the visual power needed for habits of 
individualism and privacy.

     It helps to appreciate the nature of the spoken word to 
contrast it with the written form. Although phonetic writing 
separates and extends the visual power of words, it is 
comparatively crude and slow. There are not many ways of 
writing “tonight,” but Stanislavsky used to ask his young 
actors to pronounce and stress it fifty different ways while the 
audience wrote down the different shades of feeling and 
meaning expressed. Many a page of prose and many a narrative 
has been devoted to expressing what was, in effect, a sob, a 
moan, a laugh, or a piercing scream. The written word spells 
out in sequence what is quick and implicit in the spoken word.