The preceding lines refer to vocalization; but Delsarte applied the same process to pronunciation.  He directed that the initial consonant should be prepared in the same way as the attack on the tone; it was thus produced distinctly and powerfully, that is, in less appreciable extent of time.  Such is the concentration of the archer preparing to launch an arrow; of the runner about to leap a ditch.  The master, in no case permitted that annoying compass of the voice before a consonant, so frequently employed by ordinary singers.  The Italians justly translate this disagreeable performance by the word strascinato (dragged out or prolonged).

Exercises.

Delsarte has been severely blamed for the way in which he trained the voice.  I have nothing to say in regard to those who imputed to him physical and barbarous methods of developing it; but it may be true that he endangered it by certain exercises or by failure to cultivate the mechanism.  I do not feel myself competent to pronounce upon this technical point, but I can give an exact account of what was done in his school.

Delsarte directed that the tones should be swelled on a single note, E flat (of the medium); he claimed that by strengthening this intermediary note the ascending and descending scales were sympathetically strengthened.  He thus avoided, as he said, breaking the high treble notes by exercises which would render the cords too severely tense, convinced morever, that at a given moment a burst of enthusiasm and will-power would take the place of assiduous practice.

He also taught that this special exercise of the medium would prevent the separation of the registers, that phylloxera of the vocal organ, which wrecks so many singers, and causes them so many sorrows.  This was the way to gain that mixed voice, the ideal held up to the scholars as being the most impressive and the most exquisite; that which at the same time ravished the ear and charmed the heart.

This master considered the chest-voice as more particularly physical; and the head-voice, it must be confessed, is too much like the voice of a bird, to awaken sentiment and sympathy.

Delsarte himself possessed this mixed voice; in him, it seemed to start from the heart, and brought tears to eyes which had never known them.  The power of that tone—­allied to the perfection of shading, diction and lyric declamation—­caused every listening soul to vibrate with latent emotion which might never have been waked to life save by that appeal.

I return to the practice of swelled tones upon the note E flat.  This note certainly acquired broad and powerful tones about which there was nothing forced, and which were most agreeable.  This development was communicated to the neighboring notes.  But did not these advantages take from the compass of the scale?  If so, were they a counterbalance to the injury?  I repeat that I dare not affirm anything in this respect.