Chapter 39

Course of Applied Æsthetics.

_Meeting of the Circle of Learned Societies_.

Independently of its method, which was especially applicable to dramatic and lyric arts, Delsarte's doctrine, as we have seen, drew from the primordial sources, which are the law of things, the principles of all poetry, all art and all science. The intense light which he brought thence was too dazzling for young scholars, whose minds were rarely prepared by previous education. It, nevertheless, overflowed into the daily lessons, and gave them that peculiar and somewhat singular aspect, which acted even upon those whose intelligence could not cope with it. Such is the mysterious magic of things which penetrate before they convince.

But these lofty problems demanded an audience in harmony with their elevation. Delsarte soon attracted such. Under the title "Course of Applied Æsthetics," he collected in various places, notably at the "Circle of Learned Societies," profane and sacred orators, and learned men of all sorts. There he could develop points of view as new as they seemed to be strikingly true. It was on leaving one of these meetings, that a distinguished painter thus expressed his enthusiasm: "I have learned so much to-day, and it is all so simple and so true, that I am amazed that I never thought of it before."

The Course of Applied Æsthetics was addressed to painters, sculptors, orators, as well as to musicians, both performers and composers; and was finally extended to literary men. This audience of scholars was no less astonished and enchanted than others had been.

_Theory of the Degrees_.

The theory of degrees was largely developed at these meetings, and I have purposely delayed it till this chapter. To understand this theory--one of the most striking points in Delsarte's method, and original with him,--one should have some idea of the grammar which he composed for the use of his pupils.

I will not say that this treatise was complete in the sense usually attached to the word grammar. There is no mention of orthography or of lexicology; but all that is the very essence of language, that from which no language, no idiom can escape--the constituent parts of speech--are examined and investigated from a philosophic and psychologic point of view. Just as the author examined the constituent modalities of our being in the light of æsthetics, he seized the affinities between the laws of speech, as far as regards the voice--_logos_--and the moral manifestations of art.

This production of Delsarte has undergone the fate of almost all his works--it has not been printed. Indeed, I greatly fear that, all his notes on the subject can never be collected; nevertheless that which has been gathered together presents a certain development. I will not enter into the purely metaphysical part, limiting myself, as I have done from the beginning of this study, to making known the conceptions of Delsarte only in so far as they refer to the special field of æsthetics.

In this category, we find the following definitions which serve to classify the quantitative values or degrees: that is the extent assigned to each articulation or vocal emission to enable it to express the thoughts, sentiments and sensations of our being in their truth and proportionate intensity:

1. _Substantive_ is the name given to a group of appearances, to a totality of attributes.

2. _Adjective_ expresses ideas, simple, abstract, general and medicative; it is an abstraction in the substantive.

3. _Verb_ is the word that affirms the existence and the co-existence between the being existing and its manner of existing: that is to say it connects the subject with the attribute. The verb is not a sign of action, but of affirmation, and existence.

4. The _participle_ alone is a sign of action.

5, 6, 7. The _article, pronoun and preposition_ fit into the common definitions.

8. The _adverb_ is the adjective of the adjective and of the participle (in so far as it is an attribute of the verb); it modifies them both, and is not modifiable by either of them; it is a sign of proportion, an intellectual compass.

9. The _conjunction_ has the same function as the preposition: it unites one object to another object; but it differs from it, inasmuch as the preposition has but a single word for its antecedent, and a single word for its objective case, while the conjunction has an entire phrase for antecedent, and the same for complement. It characterizes the point of view under the sway of which the relations should be regarded: restrictive, as _but_; hypothetical or conditional, as _if?_ conclusive, as _then_, etc., etc. The conjunction presents a general view to our thought, it is the reunion of scattered facts; it is essentially elliptical.

10. The _interjection_ responds to those circumstances where the soul, moved and shaken by a crowd of emotions at once, feels that by uttering a phrase it would be far from expressing what it experiences. It then exhales a sound, and confides to gesture the transmission of its emotion.

The interjection is essentially elliptical, because, expressing nothing in itself, it expresses at the time all that the gesture desires it to express, for ellipsis is a hidden sense, the revelation of which belongs exclusively to gesture.

It must first be noted that these degrees are numbered from one to nine, and that, of all the grammatical values defined, the conjunction, interjection and adverb are classed highest.

Delsarte made the following experiment one day in the "Circle of Learned Societies," during a lecture:

"Which word," he asked his audience, "requires most emphasis in the lines--

"The wave draws near, it breaks, and vomits up before our eyes, Amid the surging foam, a monster huge of size?"

The absence of any rule applicable to the subject caused the most complete anarchy among the listeners. One thought that the word to be emphasized must be _monster_--as indicating an object of terror; another gave the preference to the adjective _huge_. Still another thought that _vomits_ demanded the most expressive accent, from the ugliness of that which it expresses.

Delsarte repeated the lines:

"The wave draws near, it breaks, and ... vomits up before our eyes."

It was on the word _and_ that he concentrated all the force of his accent; but giving it, by gesture, voice and facial expression, all the significance lacking to that particle, colorless in itself, as he pronounced the word, the fixity of his gaze, his trembling hands, his body shrinking back into itself, while his feet seemed riveted to the earth, all presaged something terrible and frightful. He saw what he was about to relate, he made you see it; the conjunction, aided by the actor's pantomime, opened infinite perspectives to the imagination; his words had only to specify the fact, and to justify the emotion which had accumulated in the interval.

But this particle, which here allows of eight degrees, is much diminished when it fills the office of a simple copulative. The extent of the word or the syllable is always subordinate to the sense of the phrase; in the latter case it does not require more than the figure 2.