THE LARK

        Bird of the wilderness,
        Blithesome and cumberless,
    Sweet be thy matin o’er moorland and lea! 
        Emblem of happiness,
        Blest is thy dwelling-place: 
    Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!

        Wild is thy lay, and loud,
        Far in the downy cloud,—­
    Love gives it energy; love gave it birth. 
        Where, on thy dewy wing
        Where art thou journeying? 
    Thy lay is in heaven; thy love is on earth.

        O’er fell and fountain sheen,
        O’er moor and mountain green,
    O’er the red streamer that heralds the day;
        Over the cloudlet dim,
        Over the rainbow’s rim,
    Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!

        Then, when the gloaming comes,
        Low in the heather blooms,
    Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be! 
        Emblem of happiness,
        Blest is thy dwelling-place. 
    Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!

—­JAMES HOGG.

In joyous conversation there is an elastic touch, a delicate stroke, upon the central ideas, generally following a pause.  This elastic touch adds vivacity to the voice.  If you try repeatedly, it can be sensed by feeling the tongue strike the teeth.  The entire absence of elastic touch in the voice can be observed in the thick tongue of the intoxicated man.  Try to talk with the tongue lying still in the bottom of the mouth, and you will obtain largely the same effect.  Vivacity of utterance is gained by using the tongue to strike off the emphatic idea with a decisive, elastic touch.

Deliver the following with decisive strokes on the emphatic ideas.  Deliver it in a vivacious manner, noting the elastic touch-action of the tongue.  A flexible, responsive tongue is absolutely essential to good voice work.

FROM NAPOLEON’S ADDRESS TO THE DIRECTORY ON HIS RETURN FROM EGYPT

What have you done with that brilliant France which I left you?  I left you at peace, and I find you at war.  I left you victorious and I find you defeated.  I left you the millions of Italy, and I find only spoliation and poverty.  What have you done with the hundred thousand Frenchmen, my companions in glory?  They are dead!...  This state of affairs cannot last long; in less than three years it would plunge us into despotism.

Practise the following selection, for the development of elastic touch; say it in a joyous spirit, using the exercise to develop voice charm in all the ways suggested in this chapter.

THE BROOK

    I come from haunts of coot and hern,
        I make a sudden sally,
    And sparkle out among the fern,
        To bicker down a valley.

    By thirty hills I hurry down,
        Or slip between the ridges;
    By twenty thorps, a little town,
        And half a hundred bridges.