such as: _late_,
_lade_, _lane_, _lame_; _last_, _lack_, _lank_, _lapse_, _laugh_;
_lean_, _least_, _leak_, _leap_, _lead_, etc.

Remember, we are considering primarily speech-_tone_ and not speech
form, and that our aim in the exercise of the tongue is to keep it from
interrupting the tone.

And now a word must be said as to the part the lips take in speech. It
must be only a word, because here more than at any other point the work
needs the careful supervision of a trained ear and trained eyes. Madame
Ricardo yields to the lips control of the tongue, as she gives to the
diaphragm control of the breath. I think she would make _easily on the
lips_ rather than "trippingly on the tongue" the controlling principle
in tone and speech. I shall give you but one exercise:

Combine the speech process _m_ with the vowel _[=e]_ and let the tone
explode easily on the lips in the repeated syllable, _m[=e]_, _m[=e]_,
_m[=e]_.

LEARNING TO REINFORCE THE TONE

And now we turn from the second step in the training to the third and
last step--the _reinforcing_ of the supported and freed tone. It is
again a freeing process. This time we are to free the cavities now
closed against the tone; we are to use the walls of these cavities as
sounding-boards for tone, as they were designed to be, so reinforcing
the tone and letting it issue a resonant, bell-like note with the
carrying power resonance alone can give, instead of the thin, dull,
colorless sound which conveys no life to the word into which it is
moulded by the organs of speech. How shall we free these cavities? I
find myself now impatient of the medium of communication we are using. I
want to make the tone for you. I want, for instance, to shut off the
nasal cavity and let you hear the resultant nasal note, thin, high,
unresonant, which hardly reaches the first member of my audience; then I
want you to hear the tone flood into the nasal cavity, and, reinforced
there by the vibration from the walls of the cavity, grow a resonant,
ringing, bell-like note, which will carry to the farthest corner of the
room without the least increase in loudness. But we must be content with
the conditions imposed by print.

First, you must realize that so-called "talking through the nose" is not
talking _through_ the nose at all, but rather failure to do so--that is,
instead of letting the tone flood into the nasal cavity, to be
reinforced there by striking against the walls of the cavity, whic