and there reverberating; however this may be, the student of elocution requires some practice on the elements, words, and sentences in this quality to enable him to give effect to the child's voice, the old man or woman's, and also to produce a weird effect in the voice, by adding some hollow depth to it, in opening the organs wide, and yet directing the stream of air to the head. The entire compass of the voice should be under the student's control. The falsetto is, however, much overdone in many cases, and requires judgment and taste to regulate it.

CHAPTER XV.

Practice on the Concrete as affected by the Various Forms of Stress and the Tremor.

139. Ir was stated in Chapter IV that under certain modifications of emotion, or intensity in the state of mind, the syllabic concrete and wave lose their plain, equable form, and become affected by a particular concentration of force upon their different parts, or throughout their whole extent.

The next step in the practice of the elementary exercise of the voice should be to obtain a facility in the execution of the concrete under the modification of the various stresses. These have been classified as: Radical, Final, Median, Thorough, Compound, and the Tremor or Intermittent Stress.

In no respect has Dr. Rush's system been so much misunderstood as in relation to radical stress, this having often been interpreted and taught as a function exclusively of violent force.

Forcible explosion is appropriate only to emotional or impassioned speech; the lightest form of radical stress. serves simply to give a clear and penetrating character to the syllables of discourse. It would have been easier to have impressed this difference upon the mind, could a term have been invented by which this delicate radical (or root of vocality) could have stood apart from stress. Abruptness was the generic term given it among the different modes of the voice, because its characteristic explosion is peculiar, and quite distinct from force, with

which, from its admitting degrees of intensity, it might seem to be identical."

The constant use of the forcible radical renders speech sharp, and will cause the voice to become hard and metallic. The short, sharp radical is heard only in the burst of anger, the yell of rage, and such emotions as express themselves in abrupt, imperative commands. Although heard in authority, that is more dignified and more deliberate, it is combined with greater volume of sound, which mellows and softens it. Joy, hope, and exultation are rapid in movement, and naturally require this form of

stress.

The lighter degrees of radical stress being, then, most called into play, they should be the most exercised, with organs freely opened, and held flexibly. Radical stress is one of the constituent elements that imparts brilliancy to animated and gay styles of composition.

The student has already had elemental studies in radical stress; he should next practice it in the form of the concrete intervals (Chapter VII) on the following tables of mutable, immutable, and indefinite syllables.

Radical stress is best exhibited in the short vowels, when it displays emphatic impressiveness on short quantity; but it is also employed in the mutable and indefinite syllables, yet it always contracts them into shorter quantity.

Radical stress will be exemplified in the sound of the element a, in all, in the imperative command, Attend, all! repeated six times with increasing force and the different intervals.

EXAMPLES IN UNIMPASSIONED RADICAL.

"Within its shade of elm and oak

The church of Berkley Manor stood;
There Sunday found the rural folk,
And some esteemed of gentle blood."

-BUCHANAN Read.

"It was the time when lilies blow,
And clouds are highest up in air;
Lord Ronald brought a lily white doe,
To give his cousin Lady Clare.”

-TENNYSON.

"She knows but very little, and in little are we one;
The beauty rare, that more than hid that great defect is gone.
My parvenu relations now deride my homely wife,
And pity me that I am tied to such a clod, for life."

-D. R. Locke.

"The angel with great joy received his guests,
And gave them presents of embroidered vests,
And velvet mantles with rich ermine lined,
And rings and jewels of the rarest kind.
Then he departed with them o'er the sea
Into the lovely land of Italy,

Whose loveliness was more resplendent made

By the mere passing of that cavalcade,

With plumes and cloaks, and housings, and the stir
Of jeweled bridle and of golden spur."

-LONGFELLOW.

The clear radical movement not only imparts clearness and brilliancy to language that is animated in its character, but it gives a penetrating power to the voice that carries it through space, and enables the speaker to put every