Martellato._

In every school of singing the roulade is effected by means of the
_staccato_ and _legato_. Delsarte had a marked prejudice in favor of the
martellato, which partakes of both. He compared it, in his picturesque
way of expressing his ideas, to pearls united by an invisible thread.

_Pronunciation._

The master's pronunciation was irreproachable; not the slightest trace
of a provincial accent; never the least error of intonation, the
smallest mistake in regard to a long or short syllable. What is perhaps
rarer than may be thought, he possessed, in its absolute purity, the
prosody of his native language, alike in lyric declamation and in the
_cantabile_. His penetrating tones added another charm to the many
merits which he had acquired by study.

Pronunciation, therefore, was skilfully and carefully taught in
Delsarte's school. The professor's first care was to correct any
tendency to lisp, which he did by temporarily substituting the syllables
_te, de_, over and over again, for the faulty R. This substitution
brought the organ back to the requisite position for the vibration of
the R.

This process is now in common use; but I cannot say whether it was
employed before Delsarte's day. He obtained very happy results from it.

_E mute before a Consonant._

Delsarte did not allow that absolute suppression of the E mute before a
consonant, which seems to prevail at present, and which produces so bad
an effect in delivery. As the evil, at the time of which I speak, was
yet comparatively unknown, he did not make it a case of conscience; but
if he never lent himself to this ellipsis, he, "the lyric Talma," "the
exquisite singer," as he has frequently been called, should we not
regard his abstinence as a condemnation from which there is no appeal? I
do not believe, moreover, that either Nourrit or Dupre authorized by
their example a habit so contrary to the rules of French versification,
so disagreeable to the well-trained ear and so opposed to good taste.
Such young singers as have yielded to it, have only to listen to
themselves for one moment to abandon it forever.

It is certain that E mute can in no instance be assimilated to the
accented E; but to suppress it entirely, is to break the symmetry of the
verse, to put the measure out of time. It is unmistakable that the
weakness of the vowel, or mute syllable, concerns the sound, not the
duration. Let it die away gently; but for Heaven's sake