Consonant._

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
emot