Chapter 54

Delsarte's Last Years.

Before concluding these essays, my homage to the innovating spirit, the matchless art, the sympathetic and generous nature of François Delsarte, I make a final appeal to my memory, and, first, I invoke afresh the testimony of others.

_La Patrie_, June 18, 1857, says in an enthusiastic and lengthy article:

"His deep knowledge, his incessant labors, his long and fatiguing studies, have not allowed his life to pass unnoted; but although great renown, attached in a short space to his name, has sufficed for the legitimate demands of his pride, it has done nothing, it must be owned, to provide for the wants which the negligences of genius do not always foresee."

Then, apropos of Gluck and other unappreciated composers of genius, the author of the article, Franck Marie, goes on:

"With the confidence to which I recently referred, Delsarte has undertaken the reform. Sure of the success which shall crown his bold undertaking, he began almost unaided, a movement which was no less than a revolution. Between two snatches from Romagnesi or Blangini, the majestic pages of Gluck appeared to the surprise of the auditor. The heroes of the great master took the place of Thyrcis and Colin, the songs of Pergolese and Handel, coming from the inspired mouth of the virtuoso, at once aroused unknown sensations. Lully and Rameau, rejuvenated in their turn, surprised by beauties hitherto unsuspected."

Earlier still (in the _Presse_ for December 6, 1840) in an article signed Viscount Charles Delaunay are these lines:

"We are, to-night, to hear an admirable singer (Delsarte). He is said to be the Talma of music; he makes the most of Gluck's songs, as Talma made the most of Racine's verses. We must hasten, for his enthusiastic admirers would never pardon us if we arrived in the middle of the air from 'Alcestis;' and if all we hear be true, we could never be consoled ourselves, for having missed half of it."

March 14, 1860, we read in the _L'Independance Beige:_

"Among the many concerts announced there is one which is privileged to attract the notice of the _dilettanti_. We refer to that announced, almost naively, by the two lines: Concert by François Delsarte, Tuesday, April 4.--Nothing more! These two lines tell everything! Why give a program? Who is there in the enlightened world who would not be anxious to be present at a concert given by Delsarte? For, at _his_ concert, he will sing--he who never sings anywhere, at any price. Observe what I say: _never anywhere, at any price_, and I do not exaggerate."

This assertion, which shows the indifference of Delsarte to the speculative side of art, is not without a certain analogy to the fact which follows. At one of his concerts he was to be aided by one of the great celebrities of the time; Rachel was to recite a scene from some play.

The actress failed to appear. Some few outcries were heard. Delsarte considered this a protest: "I beg those who are only here to hear Mademoiselle Rachel," said he, "to step to the box-office. The price of their tickets will be returned." Applause followed these words, and the artist sang in a way to leave no room for regret.

I quote the following lines from an article published by the "_Journal des Villes et des Campagnes_" in reference to a lecture given in the great amphitheatre of the Medical School, March 11, 1867:

"Should I say lecture? It was rather a chat--simple, and wholly free from academic forms. In somewhat odd, perhaps, but picturesque and original form, M. Delsarte told us healthy and strengthening truths:--'The misery of luxury devours us, but the truth makes no display; it is modestly bare.'.... 'Art may convince by deceit; then it blinds. When it carries conviction by contemplating truth, it enlightens. Art may persuade by evil; then it hardens. When it persuades by goodness, it perfects.' These are noble words. Orator, poet, metaphysician, artist, M. Delsarte offers new horizons to the soul."

The sources whence I draw are not exhausted, but I must pause.

Thus all have hailed him with applause! Save for some few interested critics, without distinction of opinions, political, religious or philosophical, all differences were silenced by this admirable harmony of the highest æsthetic faculties: the spirit of justice conquered party spirit.

But whatever may have been said--and whatever may still be said,--those who never heard Delsarte can never be made to comprehend him: in him, feeling, intellect, physical beauty and beauty of expression formed a magnificent assemblage of natural gifts and of acquired faculties. In this distinguished personality nature became art, to prove to us that outside her limits, as outside the limits of science, arbitrary agreement and the caprices of imagination can create nothing noble and great, persuasive and touching.

With this artist there was never anything to betray the _artificiality_ of a situation; interpreted by him, the creation, the invention, became real. 'From his lips a cry never seemed a studied effect. It was the rending of a bosom. A tear seemed to come straight from the heart; his gesture was conscious of what it had to teach us; in all these applications "of the sign to the thing," there was never an error, never a mistake. It was _truth_ adorned by _beauty_. In his singing, roulades became true bursts of laughter or true sobs.

Yes, all these things surpass description.

But what any and every mind may appreciate, is the lovable, loving and generous nature which invested these transcendant qualities with simplicity, with charm and with life. Delsarte had a wealth of sentiment which overflowed upon the humble and the outcast, as well as upon those favored by nature and by fortune. Without the riches which he knew not how to gain, disdainful as he was of petty and sinuous ways, he was benevolent in spite of his moderate means.

He gave, perhaps, oftener than he accepted payment for them, his time, his knowledge and his advice to all who needed them. He admitted to his classes pupils whose beautiful voices were their only wealth, and who could pay him only in hope.

We may say of François Delsarte, that so sympathetic a nature is rarely seen in this world of ours, where still prevail--tyrants to be destroyed--so much antagonism, jealousy and rivalry. If some few of the weaknesses natural to poor humanity may be laid to his charge, no one had a greater right to redemption than he.

He once distressed a fashionable woman by speaking severely to her of one of her friends. She was much troubled, but out of respect, dared not complain. Delsarte saw tears in her eyes. He instantly confessed his fault, and acknowledged, with the utmost frankness, that he spoke from hearsay, and very lightly. He added that this mistake should be a lesson to him, and that he would think twice before becoming the echo of evil report.

If, touching his science and his art, this master often made assertions which might seem conceited, aside from those convictions which, to his mind, had the character of orthodoxy, he used forms of speech of which judges without authority would never have dreamed. I have heard him say:

"I cannot be much of a connoisseur in regard to pianists, for I only like to hear Chopin."

He was always ready to praise the amateurs who came to him for a hearing, even if they were the pupils of other masters, finding out among all their faults, the little acquirements or talent which he could from their performance; sure, it is true, to correct them if he afterward became their instructor.

Honors and fortune seemed within his grasp when he neared his end. America offered him immense advantages, with a yearly salary of $20,000, to found a conservatory in one of her cities. A street in Solesmes was named for him. The King of Hanover sent him, as an artist, the Guelph Cross, and, as a friend, a photograph of himself and family; it was to this prince, the patron of art, that Delsarte wrote regarding his "Episodes of a Revelator:"

"I am at this moment meditating a book singular for more than one reason, which will be no less novel in form than in idea.... I know not what fate is in store for this work, or if I shall succeed in seeing it in print during my lifetime."

He did not realize this dream.

It was at about this same time that Jenny Lind took a long journey to hear him and to consult him about her art.

At the period of the war of 1870-1871, Delsarte took refuge at Solesmes, his native place. He left Paris, with his family, Sept. 10, 1870. Already ill, he lived there sad, and crushed by the misfortunes of his country. Nevertheless, during this stay, he developed various points in his method, and there his two daughters wrote at his dictation the manuscript, "Episodes of a Revelator;" his intellect had lost none of its vigor, but his nature was shadowed.

François Delsarte returned to Paris March 10, 1871, after his voluntary exile. He soon yielded to a painful disease, doubtless regretting that he had not finished his work, but courageous and submissive.

As far as it lay in my power, my task is done. I have furnished documents for the history of the arts; I have aroused and tried to fix attention upon that luminous point which was threatened with oblivion.

Now I call for the aid of all, that the work of memory may be accomplished.

There are still among us many admirers of François Delsarte, many hearts that loved him; a sort of silent freemasonry has been established between them; when they meet in society, at the theatre, at concerts, they recognize each other by mutual signs of regret or disappointment. His name is pronounced, a few words are interchanged.

"Oh! those were happy days. Will his like ever be seen again?"

To these I say: Let us unite to assure him his place in the annals which assert the glories of the artist and the man of science! Why should we not combine soon to raise a statue on the modest grave where he lies? Why should we not do for the innovator in the arts what the country daily does for mechanical inventors and soldiers?

Part Fifth.

The Literary Remains of François Delsarte.

Translated by Abby L. Alger.

Publisher's Note.

_Part Fifth contains François Delsarte's own words._

_The manuscripts were purchased of Mme. Delsarte with the understanding that they were all she had of the literary remains of her illustrious husband. They are published by her authorisation._

_The reader will probably notice that at times Delsarte talks as if addressing an audience. This he really did, and some of the manuscripts are headings or draughts of his lectures before learned societies or of talks at his own private sessions._

_These writings are given to the public in the same fragmentary condition that Delsarte left them in. They were written upon sheets of paper, scraps of paper, doors, chairs, window casements and other objects. A literal translation has been made, without a word of comment, and without any attempt at editing them. The aim has been to let Delsarte speak for himself, believing that the reader would rather have Delsarte's own words even in this disjointed, incomplete form--mere rough notes--than to have them supplemented, annotated, interpreted and very likely perverted by another person._

_Edgar S. Werner._

Extract from the Last Letter to the King of Hanover

I am at this moment meditating a book, singular for more than one reason, whose form will be no less novel than its contents. Your majesty will read it, I hope, with interest.

The title of this book is to be: "My Revelatory Episodes, or the History of an Idea Pursued for Forty Years."

It will be my task to connect and condense into a single narrative all the circumstances of my life which had as logical consequences the numerous discoveries which it has been granted me to follow up, discoveries which my daily occupations left me neither time nor ability to set forth as a whole.

I know not what fate is reserved for this book. I know not whether I shall succeed in seeing it in print during my lifetime. The minds of men are, in these evil days, so little disposed to serious ideas, that it seems to me difficult to find a publisher disposed to publish things so far removed from the productions of the century.

But, however it may be, if I succeed in getting at least some part of my work printed, I crave, sire, your majesty's permission to offer the dedication to you. This favor I entreat not only as an honor, but also as an opportunity to pay public homage to all the kindnesses which your majesty has never ceased to lavish upon me.

François Delsarte.

Episode I.

The subject in question was a scene in the play of the _Maris-Garçons_. The young officer, whose part I was studying, met his former landlord after an absence of several years, and as he owed him some money, he desired to show himself cordial.

"Ah! how are you, papa Dugrand?" he says, on encountering him. This apostrophe is, therefore, a mixture of surprise, soldierly bluntness and joviality.

At the first words I was stopped short by an almost insurmountable difficulty. This difficulty was all in my gesture. Do what I would, my manner of accosting papa Dugrand was grotesque; and all the lessons that were given me on that scene, all the pains I took to profit by those lessons, effected no change. I paced to and fro, saying and resaying the words: "How are you, papa Dugrand?" Another scholar in my place would have gone on; but the greater the difficulty seemed to me, the higher my ardor rose. However, I had my labor for my pains.

"That's not it," said my instructors. Good heavens! I knew that as well as they did; but what I did not know was _why_ that was not it. It seems that my professors were equally ignorant, since they could not tell me exactly in what my way differed from theirs.

The specification of that difference would have enlightened me, but all remained, with them as with me, subject to the uncertain views of a vague instinct.

"Do as I do," they said to me, one after the other.

Zounds! the thing was easier said than done.

"Put more enthusiasm into your greeting to papa Dugrand!"

The greater my enthusiasm, the more laughable was my awkwardness.

"See here; watch my movements carefully!"

"I do watch, but I don't know how to go to work to imitate you; I don't seize the details of your gesture." (It varied with every repetition.) "I don't understand why your examples, with which I am satisfied, lead to nothing in me."

"You don't understand! You don't understand! It's very simple! Really, your wits must have gone wool-gathering, my poor boy, if you are unable to do what I have shown you so many times. Watch closely now!"

"I am watching, sir, with all my eyes."

"You certainly see that the first thing is to stretch out your arms to your papa Dugrand, since you are so pleased to see him again!"

I stretched out my arms to their utmost extent; but my body, not following the movement, still wanted poise, and recoiled into a grotesque attitude. My teacher, for lack of basic principles to guide him, was unable to correct my awkwardness; and, vexed at his inability which he wished to conceal, fell back on blaming my unlucky intellect.

"Fool," said he finally, "you are hopelessly stupid! Why are you so embarrassed? Are my examples, then, worthless?"

"Indeed, sir, your examples are perfect."

"Well, then, imitate them, imbecile!"

"I will try, sir."

In this, as in all preceding lessons, I could give only a blind imitation, which had not the small merit of being twice alike, even in my own eyes, for every time I reproduced them I observed marked variations which the master did not perceive.

I went to my room, as I had done many times before, with tears in my eyes and despair in my heart, to renew my useless efforts, vainly turning and returning in all lights my unfortunate papa Dugrand.

This cruel ordeal lasted five months without the least progress to lessen its bitterness.

Heaven knows with what ardor I cultivated my papa Dugrand! I thought of him by day, and I dreamed of him by night. I clung to him with all the frenzy of despair, for I was determined not to be beaten. I was bound to triumph at any cost, for it was life or death to me. I resolved not to give up papa Dugrand, even though he should resist me ten years!

My unceasing repetitions of (to them abominable) papa Dugrand caused my comrades to call me a bore. In short, I became disagreeable to all around me. Alas! all this study, all these efforts, could not overcome the stubborn resistance of papa Dugrand. My teachers were at their wits' end, and finally refused to give me another lesson on the subject. But nothing could daunt the ardor of my zeal.

One day I was measuring the court-yard of the Conservatory, as usual, in company with papa Dugrand, and repeating my "how are you?" in every variety of tone, when, all at once, having got as far as: "How are you, pa--," I stopped short without finishing my phrase. It was interrupted by the sight of a cousin of mine, whose visit was most unexpected.

"Ah! how are you?" I said; "how are you, dear cou--"

Here my words were again interrupted by a surprise; but this surprise was far greater than that caused by the appearance of my cousin. Struck by the analogy between this greeting and the unstudied attitude which I had assumed under the action of a genuine emotion, I cried in a transport of joy which bewildered my innocent cousin: "Leave me--don't disturb me--I've got it--wait for me--stay where you are--I've got it."

"But what is it that you've got?"

"The dickens, papa Dugrand!"

Thereupon I vanished like a flash, to run to my mirror and reproduce to my sight papa Dugrand, Judge of my astonishment: not only my gesture, until now so persistently awkward, seemed suddenly metamorphosed and became harmonious and natural; but, stranger yet, it did not correspond in the least to what had been prescribed. However, it was nature herself that had revealed this to me. Then, the movements of my body, but a moment before so discordant in my eyes, had acquired, under the influence of this gesture inspired from above, an ease and a grace that filled me with surprise. Without doubt, I now possessed the truth. An emotion, spontaneously produced and so deeply felt, could not result in an error.

This is what had happened under the action of a natural surprise:

My hands were not extended toward the object of my surprise--not the least in the world. By an anterior extension of the arms, they were raised high above my head, which, far from being uplifted with the exultation which I had hitherto simulated, was lowered to my breast; and my body, stranger yet, instead of bending toward the attractive object, bent suddenly backward.

What a blow nature had given to my masters! What an overthrowal of all conjectures! My reason, before this sovereign decision, was humbled and dumbfounded. What arguments could my instructors invoke in the face of truth itself?

"What," thought I, "are my masters absolutely ignorant of the laws of nature?"

"What, does their reason, as well as mine, know nothing of all this? How is it that this much-praised reason has inspired me with effects precisely opposite to those that were prescribed? What is reason? Is it, then, a blind faculty?"

Let us first see what these strange phenomena, whose importance I cannot deny without denying nature herself, signify.

I was in the midst of these reflections when the recollection of my cousin came into my mind.

"Good heavens," thought I; "I had forgotten all about my poor cousin; what will he think? I will hurry down, and, lest my precious ideas take flight, send him away, and return to my reflections.

"Wretch that I am; I think only how to get rid of him, when he has so enriched me! This is a lesson to me. Poor boy! What opinion will he have of me? Ah, that is he whom I see stretched out on that stone bench. He has been patient, indeed. I believe that he is asleep!"

"No, I am not asleep," said he, rising; "I am furious! Explain, if you are not too insane to be rational, the extraordinary manner in which you received me. Do you know that I have been waiting here for you more than an hour?"

"Ah, my dear cousin," said I, embracing him warmly, "you do not know what a service you have rendered me. I embrace you now, my good friend, for the wonderful lesson you have given me. Without you I should never have found it out, and, rest assured, I shall never forget it."

"What? Who? What is it?"

"Zounds, papa Dugrand! I freely acknowledge that I have learned more from you in one second than from all my masters during four years."

"Are you in your right senses?"

The matter was finally explained. My cousin then told me about my home and my family; but I must confess that I paid little attention to the good news that he brought me, so excited and preöccupied was my mind. Even then I could not help thinking of the fragility of the heart in its affections. We soon separated, and I hurried to my room, which seemed to me on this day-paradise itself.

I gave myself up to my interrupted course of reflections.

I had proved the impotence of my own reason, and also that of my masters. Now, as it was not probable that all my teachers and myself were more stupid than the rest of mankind--the common herd--I concluded that reason is blind in the matter of principles, and that all her instructions would be powerless to guide me in my researches. But, from another side, it was evident to me that without this reason I could not utilize a principle. What is human reason, that faculty at once of so little avail and yet so precious? What role does it play in art? I feel that this is most important for me to know.

The answer to this question must spring from the study of the phenomena of instinct. Let us examine, then, what nature offers us freely.

If these phenomena are directed by a physiological or a spiritual necessity, a necessity on which instinct is based, I am forced to admit, here, a reason that is not my reason; a superior, infallible reason in the disposition of things; a reason that laughs at my reason, which, in spite of itself, must submit under pain of falling into absurdity. I feel that it is only by this absolute submission of my reason that it can rise to the reason of things, since, of itself, it would know nothing. [See definition of reason.]

Let us seek, then, without prejudice, the reason of the things that interested me, in order that my own reason may be raised to a higher plane. And when it shall be illumined with the light that must break upon it from the superior reason, I feel that my reason can generalize instruction, and will be all-powerful in arranging the conclusions that it may deduce. I am aware, from the utter impotence of my reason, that all principles must be accepted humbly, in order to understand the deductions. My reason does not know how to lead me to principles of which it is ignorant; but it knows how to guide me back. In other words, it is a blind person _a priori_, it is a luminary _a posteriori_. Though it may not know at first, once shown, it readily recognizes; though it may not divine, it learns by study; though it may not seize, it retains, masters and generalizes.

Reason, then, is a reflex power, and as such, if, in a matter of principle, it recognizes itself as impotent and even absurd _a priori_, it knows that once in possession of the principle, it borrows from its light and becomes identified with it--an incomparable power of generalization.

Let the reason of the attitudes that I had observed be once shown me, and my individual reason would possess the Archimedean lever with which I might open unknown worlds.

My reason! Ah! I will identify it with the reason of things! Henceforward this shall be my method, this shall be my law.

But the reason of things--who will give it to me? Is it not my reason itself? Oh, mystery! I will follow thee to the depths of thy abyss. Thou shalt have no more secrets from me, for God has said that He hides only from the wise and prudent man, but reveals Himself to the simple and to children. Yes, these things shall be given to me through my reason, if it will bow itself and be attentive and humble; if it will patiently await the teachings of a mute and persevering observation; if it will subordinate itself to the intuitive lights that constitute genius; and, finally, if it knows how to estimate things other than itself.

Thus my reason, established, inflamed, consumed by the charm of its contemplation, will be transfigured in order to be more closely united to the sovereign reason toward which it ever reaches out.

The first fruit of my observation consists in making me recognize, in the facts examined, the proof of a superior and infallible reason, and then to arm against my individual reason and all its errors. Another thing yet more strange, but easily comprehended on reflection, is that to this defiance, this contempt of self, I owe the boldness and the power of my investigations.

Let us see, now, from which observations the preceding thoughts are the direct result.

In the phrase, "How are you, etc.," my reason dictated this triple, parallel movement: Advancing the head, and the arms, with the torso on the fore-leg. Now, the similar phrase, "How are you, dear cousin," although uttered in a situation identical with that of papa Dugrand, produced phenomena diametrically opposed to those that my reason had said were the only ones admissible. Is it not reasonable to suppose that the sight of an agreeable or loved object will excite in us a genuine feeling that before we had vainly striven to simulate? Does it not seem natural to extend the hand to a friend when, with affectionate surprise, we exclaim: "How are you, dear friend?" And should we ever think of drawing the body away from the object that attracts us? Finally, does it not seem that the head should be raised, the better to see that which charms us?

Ah, no! All these things, apparently so true and so perfectly clear, are radically false. Facts prove this beyond a doubt, and with facts there can be on discussion, no argument. We must admit them _a priori_ or renounce the truth. Here, as in all questions of principle, _the greatest act of reason consists in an act of faith_. This is absolutely undeniable.

In the phrase, "How are you, papa Dugrand," the arms should be raised, the head lowered and the torso thrown back, supporting itself on the back leg. This was indeed a blow to the presumption of my poor reason, but should it complain? No, for it has gained even from its confusion most fruitful instruction.

Let us see. In questioning the effects and the analogy, we shall doubtless explain their reason of being. Why should the head become lowered? I do not see all at first sight; but let us generalize the question and probably it will specify itself.

When does a man bow his head before the object which strikes his eye?

When he considers or examines it.

Does he never consider things with head raised?

Yes, when he considers them with a feeling of pride. It is thus that he rules them or exalts them; and also when he questions them with his glance; in fine, when what he sees astonishes or surprises him.

This last statement contradicts the example in question, and seems to condemn it. Not the least in the world. How is this? Thus: when the astonishment or the surprise is not intense enough to shake the frame, the head wherein all the surprise is concentrated, is lifted and exalted. But so soon as that surprise is great enough to raise the shoulders and the arms, as by a galvanic shock, the head takes an inverse direction, it sinks and seems anxious to become solid to offer more resistance to that which might attack it, for the first instinctive movement in such a case is to guard against any unpleasant event; then if the head is lifted to look at that which surprises it, it is because it has no great interest in the recognition of that which it considers; but as soon as that interest commands it to examine, to recognize, it is instantly lowered and placed in the state of expectation.

O, now it becomes clear.

Now, how does surprise cause us to lift our arms?

The shoulder, in every man who is agitated or moved, rises in exact proportion to the intensity of his emotion.

It thus becomes the thermometer of the emotions. Now, the commotion that imprints a strong impression, communicates to the arms an ascending motion which may lift them high above the head.

But why do not the arms, in an agreeable surprise, tend toward the object of that surprise?

The arm should move gently toward the object that it wishes to caress. Under the rapid action of surprise, therefore, it could only injure or repel that object.

This it does in affright.

But instinct--that marvelous agent of divine reason--in that case turns the arms away from the object which they might injure by the rapidity of their sudden extension, and directs them toward heaven, leads them to rise as if expressing thanks for an unexpected joy, so true it is that everything is turned to use and is modified under the empire of our instinct. Certainly, there is no similarity between this and the superfluous action, the inconsequent movements determined by the working of a rule without a reason. And this is so because in all that instinct suggests, it is the Supreme Artist himself who disposes of us and acts in us, while whatever is suggested by a reason insufficiently inspired by the contemplation of the divine handiwork is fatally incoherent, for we thus pretend to substitute ourselves for God, and God thenceforth leaving us to ourselves, surrenders us to all the discordant effects of an inconsequential and vain conception.

It remains to find the justificatory reason for this retroactive movement of the body, which seems illogical at first sight.

Let us inquire in what case and under the action of what emotions a man may shrink from the object which he is considering.

In the first place, he shrinks back whenever it inspires him with a feeling of repulsion. He shrinks from it particularly when it inspires him with fright. This is a matter of course and self-evident.

In what case does the body take an inverse direction to the object which attracts it? This we must know before we can explain the phenomenon in question.

We move away from the thing which we contemplate to prove to it, doubtless, the respect and veneration that it inspires. In fact, it seems a lack of respect to that which we love to approach it too closely; we move away that we may not profane it by a contact which it seems might injure its purity.

Thus the retrograde movement may be the sign of reverence and salutation, and moreover a token that the object before which it is produced is more eminent and more worthy of veneration.

A salutation without moving shows but little reverence, and should only occur in the case of an equal or an inferior.

In justification of the actual fact, let me give another observation of quite another importance.

When a painter examines his work, he moves away from it perceptibly. He moves away in proportion to the degree of his admiration of it, so that the retroactive movement of his body is in equal ratio to the interest that he feels in contemplating his work, whence it follows that the painter who examines his work in any other way, reveals his indifference to it.

The picture-dealer usually proceeds in quite another manner. He examines it closely and with a magnifying-glass in hand. Why is this? Because it is less the picture which he examines than the handiwork of the painter, the actual work which is the chief object of his survey.

But why does the artist move away from the work which he contemplates? The better to seize the total impression. For instance: if it be a full length portrait and the artist studies it too closely he sees, I will suppose, the nose of his portrait and nothing more. If he moves a little farther off he sees a little more, he sees the head; still farther and he sees both the head and the torso which supports it. Finally, moving still farther away, he gets a view of the whole and thus seizes its harmonious relations. This inspection may be called synthetic vision, and in opposition to this, direct vision, which I assumed before instinct taught me better, is but short and limited.

To sum up: If instinct did not lead us to retroact, to examine an object unexpectedly offered to our gaze, each surprise would expose us to error.

Now we must retroact to see an object as a whole and not expose ourselves to error, and then, too, does not the love which a creature inspires within us naturally extend to the medium which surrounds him, and in this way does it not seem as if all that touched him partook of his life and thus acquired some title to our contemplation?

Thus my mind, tortured by one preoccupying thought, had, thanks to the fixed idea which swayed it, found wondrous lessons in the simple incident of my cousin's return, otherwise so devoid of interest; and I may truly say that the lesson learned from meeting my cousin taught me more than all those I had received in the space of three years. In short, I had learned how vain is advice dictated by the caprice of a master without a system! I had learned the inanity of individual reason in a matter of experience. I knew that certain laws existed, that those laws proceeded from a Supreme Reason, an immense centre of light, of which each man's reason is but a single ray. I knew without a doubt how ignorant my masters were of those laws to the study of which I meant to devote my life. I possessed facts which I saw could be applied in countless ways, luminous doctrines radiating from the application.

Thenceforth I had the nucleus of the science I had so vainly asked of my masters, and I did not despair of formulating it.

Judge of my joy! The facts I then found myself the possessor of, seemed to me more valuable than all the treasures of the world.

Episode II.

Some time later, I again saw my worthy cousin, the innocent cause of all my joys. He was a medical student, and came to propose a visit to the dissecting-room. I did not hesitate to accept; the proposal harmonized with my desire.

I did not go, as so many go to the morgue, merely to see dead bodies. No; the curiosity that impelled me, and the avidity with which I pursued the object of my study, was not to be so easily satisfied.

Dead bodies only attracted me when they were--if not dissected--at least flayed. Children break their dolls to see what there is inside; so I, too, wanted to see what there was in a corpse. It seemed to me that under the mutilations which the scalpel had inflicted on the body, I should find the answer to more than one enigma--might solve some of the secrets of life.

The prospect of this visit had the charm of a pleasure party to me. I made it a holiday and awaited the hour with impatience.

But, on arriving, when I found myself in that place chill and gloomy as the tomb; when I felt choked by the mephitic gases that arose from this seat of infection; when I found myself in the presence of a heap of corpses mutilated by the scalpel, disfigured by putrefaction and partially devoured by rats and worms; when, beneath tables laden with these horrible remains, I saw mean tubs filled with human entrails mingled with limbs and heads severed from their trunks; when I felt fragments of flesh reduced to the state of filthy mud, clinging to my feet, my heart throbbed violently, and I was overcome by an indescribable sense of repulsion.

"What," I said to myself, "those shapeless and putrifying masses have lived! They have thought, they have loved! And, who would believe it from the horror and disgust that they inspire, they have been loved, cherished, perhaps adored! Ah! if, as some think, the soul is not immortal, if so many aspirations, so many schemes, so many hopes are to end here--what is man?"

But yet more lamentable food for thought was reserved for me: the spectacle of a ruin yet more profound than those which my eyes could scarce endure, was to appear before me in all its hideousness.

In fact, there reigns in these gloomy halls where no tear has ever fallen, no prayer has ever been heard and no ray of hope has ever pierced--there reigns something yet colder than death, something more unwholesome, more nauseous, more deleterious than the putrid miasmas that infect the air, something more sad to see than the nameless fragments of extinct life, something more loathsome than those filthy and disgusting remnants, something more repulsive than those noses eaten by worms and those empty eyeballs devoured by rats. I mean the cynicism of the dwellers in that place; I mean their insensibility, their indifference and calm heedlessness in the presence of such grave subjects for thought. I mean that lack of perception, that spirit of negation and revolt of which those wretched men make a boast and which they obstinately oppose to all religious sentiment, all principle of tradition or revealed authority. I mean the atheism and ceaseless mockery with which they invariably meet any generous impulse aroused in an honest soul by a healthy faith.

This struck me even more sensibly than the spectacle of death and dissolution which I have striven to describe. Thus the apparently living men who haunt this spot are more truly dead than the corpses upon which they exercise their pretended science. They seemed to me ruins far more terrible than those of the body, ruins which repelled all hope, being born of doubt and leading to negation.

If the mutilated and half-devoured bodies that lay before me, filled me with horror and disgust, they, at least, left within me a faint lingering hope surviving death; but the state of blindness of those souls who have lost consciousness of their being and even the feeling of their existence, the shadowy abyss into which they allow themselves complaisantly to glide, the nullity which they adorn with the title of science,--all this filled me with fright, for I felt the doubt and despair into which contact with it would inevitably have plunged me, if, by a special favor, the tone and mimetics, alike self-sufficient and mocking, of these free-thinkers, as they are now styled, had not, from the first, inspired me with aversion for them and a salutary hatred of their doctrine.

And yet, amidst so many repulsive objects, the faculty of observation to which I already owed such fruitful remarks was not dormant in me: I had already asked myself by what evident sign one could recognize a recent corpse.

From this point of view, I made a rapid exploration, and I questioned the various corpses left almost intact; I sought in some portion of the body, common to all, a form or a sign invariably found in all.

The hand furnished me that sign and responded fully to my question.

I noticed, in fact, that in all these corpses the thumb exhibited a singular attitude--that of adduction or attraction inward, which I had never noted either in persons waking or sleeping.

This was a flash of light to me. To be yet more sure of my discovery, I examined a number of arms severed from the trunk; they showed the same tendency. I even saw hands severed from the forearm; and, in spite of this severing of the flexor muscles, the thumb still revealed this same sign. Such persistence in the same fact could not allow of the shadow of a doubt: I possessed the sign-language of death, the semeiotics of the dead.

I rejoiced, foreseeing the service which this discovery would render upon a battle-field, for instance, where more than one man risks being buried alive. I divined, moreover, something of its artistic importance.

I then questioned my cousin and the other students present in regard to the symptomatics of death, and I saw with surprise that, not only had the expression of this phenomenon escaped them hitherto, but that they had no exact and precise knowledge concerning this grave and important question.

There remained, in order to complete my discovery and to deduce useful results from it, to verify the symptom on the dying man. It was important for me to know in what degree it might become manifest on the approach of death.

My wishes were gratified as if by magic, for I was led from the school of anatomy to that of clinical medicine. There a house-student, a friend of my cousin, placed me beside a dying patient, and I examined with the utmost attention the hands of the unhappy man struggling against the clutches of inevitable death.

At first I observed something strange in regard to myself, namely that the emotion which such a sight would have caused me under any other circumstances, was absolutely null at this moment; close attention dulled all feeling in me. I then understood the courage which may inspire the surgeon in the discharge of his duty; and I drew from this observation deductions of great artistic interest.

Now I proved that the thumbs of the dying man contracted at first in almost imperceptible degree; but as the last struggle drew near, and in the supreme efforts made by the patient to hold fast to the life which was slipping from him, I saw all his fingers convulsively directed toward the palm of the hand, thus hiding the thumbs which had previously approached that centre of convergence. Death speedily followed this crisis and soon restored to the fingers a more normal position; but the contraction of the thumb persistently conformed to my previous observations. The presence and progress of this phenomenon in the dying was invariably confirmed by numerous tests which I afterward tried.

Thus, I had acquired the proof that, not only does the total adduction of the thumb characterize death, but that this phenomenon indicates the approach of death in proportion to its intensity. I, therefore, possessed the fundamental principle of a system of semeiotics hitherto unknown to physiologists; but this principle, already so full of interest, must be made profitable to art.

A multitude of pictures, which in former times I had admired at the museum, passed before my mind's eye. I recalled battle-scenes where the dying and the dead are represented; descents from the cross where Christ is necessarily represented as dead. The idea struck me that I would go and verify the action of the thumb in these various representations which the painter's fancy has given us of death.

It was on a Sunday. The Louvre was on my way to the Conservatory, where, as is well known, I lived as pensioner.

I had often traversed the galleries of the Louvre; but now I was armed with a criterion that would give my criticisms indisputable authority.

The ignorance of the fact I sought, even among artists of renown, was not long in being made apparent: all those hands, where they thought they had depicted death, afforded me nothing but the characteristics of a more or less peaceful sleep. The correctness of my criticism may be verified anywhere.

Thus, the mere discovery of a law sufficed to elevate a poor boy of fifteen years, destitute of all science and deploring the deep ignorance in which he had hitherto been left, to the height of an infallible critic in whom the greatest artists found no mercy. I then understood all the power, all the fertility given by an acquaintance with the laws that regulate the nature of man, and in how much even genius itself may be rendered sterile by ignorance of those laws which simple observation would make them acquainted with. But, I thought, my discovery is not complete, for if, thanks to it, I have succeeded in proving that all these pictures of death are false, true only as representing sleep, it is, on the other hand, impossible for me to prove in how far those figures live, in which the painter aims to represent life. I must, therefore, seek the sign of life to complete my standard of criticism.

Suddenly, struck with amazement by the dazzling rays of unexpected light, I asked myself whether the criterion of death would not reveal to me, by the law of contraries, the thermometer of life. It should _a priori_--it does!

Still I felt that it was not here that I might be permitted to contemplate the vital phenomena attached to the thumb: since death was so badly rendered here, I had strong reasons for thinking that life was no better treated.

I left the museum, then, where I had nothing more to learn; and, to observe living mimetics of the thumb, I went out on the promenade of the Tuileries thronged by aristocratic people. I carefully examined the hands of this crowd, but I was not long in discovering that these elegant idlers had nothing good to offer. "This class," I said to myself, "is false from head to foot. They live an artificial, unnatural life. I see in them only artifice, or an art dishonored by using it to mask their insincerity and artificiality."

The happy idea came to me to mingle with mothers, children and nurses.

"Ah," said I, "in the midst of this throng, laughing and crying at the same time--singing, shouting, gesticulating, jumping, dancing--here is life! If the contemplation of this turbulent and affectionate little world does not instruct me, where shall I find the solution I seek?"

I did not have to wait long for this solution.

I noticed nurses who were distracted and indifferent to the children under their charge; in these the thumb was invariably drawn toward the fingers, thus offering some resemblance to the adduction which it manifests in death. With other nurses, more affectionate, the fingers of the hand that held the child were visibly parted, displaying a thumb bent outward; but this eccentration rose to still more startling proportion in those mothers whom I saw each carrying her own child; there the thumb was bent violently outward, as if to embrace and clasp a beloved being.

Thus I was not slow to recognize that the contraction of the thumb is inversely proportionate, its extension directly proportionate to the affectional exaltation of the life. "No doubt," I said to myself, "the thumb is the _thermometer of life_ in its extending progression as it is of _death_ in its contracting progression."

Countless examples have confirmed this. I could even, on the spot, form an idea of the degree of affection felt for the children entrusted to their care, by the women who passed before my eyes.

Sometimes I would say: "There is a servile creature whose heart is dead to that poor child whom she carries like an inert mass; the position of the thumb drawn toward the fingers renders that indifference evident," Again it was a woman in whom the sources of life swelled high at the contact with the dear treasure which she clasped; that woman was surely the mother of the child she carried, the excessive opening of her thumb left no room for doubt.

Thus my diagnostics were invariably confirmed by exact information, and I could see to what extent the remarks which I had recorded, were justified. I drew from them most interesting applications for my special course of study.

Thus, suppose I had asked the same service from three men, and that each had answered me with the single word _yes_, accompanied by a gesture of the hand. If one of them had let his thumb approach the forefinger, it is plain to me that he would deceive me, for his thumb thus placed tells me that he is dead to my proposition.

If I observe in the second a slight abduction of the thumb, I must believe that he, although indisposed to oblige me, will still do so from submission.

But if the third abducts his thumb forcibly from the other fingers, oh! I can count on him, he will not deceive me! The abduction of his thumb tells me more in regard to his loyalty than all the assurances which he might give me.

Behold, then, an intuition whose correctness the experience of forty years has not contradicted.

It is hard to imagine the joy I felt at my discovery produced and verified in a single day by so many examples, differing so greatly one from another and of such diverse interest.

All the emotions of this extraordinary and fertile day had so over-excited my imagination that I had great difficulty in calming my poor brain, and far from being able to enjoy the rest which I so much needed, I was a prey to wakefulness in which the turmoil of my ideas at one time made me fear that I was going mad. I then felt for the first time the frailty of the instrument of thought in regard to the faculty which rules and governs it.

In brief, I was--thanks to my double discovery--in possession of a law whose deductions ought to touch the loftiest questions of science and art,--and I was enabled thenceforth to affirm upon strong and irrefragable proof that the thumb, in its double sphere of action, is the thermometer of life as well as of death.

Episode III.

The day after that which had been so fruitful both in emotions and discoveries, a thousand recollections tumultuously besieged my mind and still disturbed me. I saw that if I could not contrive to classify them in strict order of succession, I should never be able to derive any practical value from them. I therefore took up link by link the chain of events of the previous day, but in inverse order. That is, I began my course where I left off the day before, and thus proceeded toward the Tuileries to end at the Medical School.

At the retrospective sight of all that merry, noisy little world, of all those fat, cheerful nurses, careless and laughing as they were, of those mothers each so tenderly expansive in contemplation of her child, so happy in its health and strength, so joyous and so proud of its small progress, the recollection of a phenomenon which I had not at first observed struck me with all the force of a vivid actuality.

I should say, by the way, that it is much more to the strength of my memory than to the present observation of facts, that I owe these remarks. Stability is the _sine qua non_ of the things one proposes to examine, and the memory must possess the singular power of communicating fixity to fugitive things, permanence to instantaneousness, and actuality to the past.

Now, the phenomena of life occurring with the rapidity of lightning can only be studied retrospectively; that is to say, in the domain of memory, except to be verified if the attention, free from all other preöccupation, allows us to seize them on the wing once more. The remark suggested to me by memory seemed all the more interesting because it formed in a new order of facts a flagrant opposition to the opinion formulated by my masters under the title of theory. Thus nature once more proved to me that the only point in which I had found them to agree, rested upon a fundamental error. I have since recognized that it is thus in the majority of cases, so that one may almost certainly pronounce erroneous any statement in regard to which all the masters of art agree.

This proposition at first seems inexplicable, but its reason is readily understood by those who know the sway of falsehood over a society perverted in its opinions as in its tastes; to those who know the deplorable facility with which error is spread and the tenacity with which it clings to our poor mind. Error, moreover, owes to our abasement which it flatters and crushes, the privilege of freedom from contradiction, and it is only in regard to truth that the minds of men are divided and contend.

On retracing in my memory the walks I had taken in the Tuileries, I was struck by an important fact amidst the phenomena called up: the voice of the nurse or mother, when she caressed her child, invariably assumed the double character of tenuity and acuteness. It was in a voice equally sweet and high-pitched that she uttered such words as these: "How lovely he is!" ... "Smile a little bit for mamma!" Now this caressing intonation, impressed by nature upon the upper notes of all these voices, forms a strange contrast to the direction which all singing-teachers agree in formulating; a direction which consists in augmenting the intensity of the sound in direct ratio to its acuteness. Thus, to them, strange to say, the entire law of vocal shades would consist in augmenting progressively the sound of the ascending phrase or scale, and diminishing in the same proportion for a descending scale. Now, nature, by a thousand irrefutable examples, directs us to do the contrary, that is, she prescribes a decrease of intensity (in music, _decrescendo_) proportionate to the ascensional force of the sounds.

Another blow, I thought, for my masters, or rather I receive it for them, for they, poor fellows, do not feel it. But how can these phenomena of nature have escaped them, and by what indescribable aberration can they direct, under the name of law, a process absolutely contrary to that so plainly followed by those same phenomena? However, I added, every supreme error under penalty of being self-evident, must, to endure, necessarily rest upon some truth or other. Now, on what truth do so many masters claim to base so manifest an error? This is what we must discover.

I was now convinced that caressing, tender and gentle emotions find their normal expression in _high_ notes. This is beyond all doubt. Thus, according to the foregoing examples, if we propose to say to a child in a caressing tone that he is a darling, it would clearly be very bad taste to bellow the words at him on the pretext that, according to singing-teachers, the intensity of the sound is augmented in direct ratio to its acuteness.

But my memory, as if to confirm this principle, and to show its contrast with the custom admitted by those gentlemen, suggests to me other instances derived from the same source. Let a mother be _angry_ with her child and threaten him with punishment; she instantly assumes a grave tone which she strives to render powerful and intense. Here, then, on the one hand (and nature proclaims it), the voice decreases in intensity in proportion as it rises higher; and, on the other hand, it increases in proportion as it sinks. This double fact, undeniably established, constitutes an unanswerable argument against the system in question. But it is not, therefore, necessarily its radical and absolute refutation. No, doubtless, whatever may be the significance and the number of the facts opposed to the directions of those gentlemen, these facts do not seem to exclude exceptions upon which they may be founded. In fact, I find in my memory many examples favorable to those masters. Thus, I have seen many nurses lose their temper and still use the higher tones of their voice; and, on the other hand, I also remark (and the remark is important) a certain form, the appellative form, where all the characters agree without exception in producing the greatest intensity possible upon the high notes.

The professors of singing triumph, for they find in this appellative form, always and necessarily sharp and boisterous at the same time, a striking confirmation of their system. Here I seem to stray far from the solution which I thought I already grasped! Far from it; the light is breaking. Hitherto the examples evoked had only increased my obscurity by their multiplicity, and I saw nothing in all these remarks but a series of contradictions whence it seemed impossible to deduce anything but confusion, into which I found myself plunged.

But was this confusion really in the facts which I examined, or was it not rather the creation of my own mind? Now, in the matter of principle, the weakness of individual reason has been too often proved to me to allow of my attaching any other cause to the contradictions which block my path and force me to confess my ignorance. I will not, then, here cry _mea culpa_ for myself or for others to justify that ignorance or excuse its confession. It must be acknowledged that God knows what He does, and His omnipotence is assuredly guiltless of the divagations which an impotent mind finds it convenient to attribute to it.

Now, let others in the blindness of proud reason, forget this truth, which they contest even by opposing to it the quibbles for which free-thinkers are never at a loss, and to escape the confusion which they inevitably derive from the ill-studied work of the Supreme Artist. Let them venture to attribute to it their own darkness. For my part, I shall not thereby lose my conviction that all which seems to me disordered or contradictory in the expression of the facts which I question, is only apparent and only exist in my own brain.

The profound obscurity into which light plunges us does not prevent the light from being; and the chaos of ideas which, most generally, results from our examination of things, proves nothing against the harmonies of their constitution.

The pebble virtually contains the spark, but we must know how to produce it. Thus the phenomena of nature contain luminous lessons, but we must know how to make them speak; and, what is more, understand their language. Now, I would add, the spirit of God is inherent in all things; and this spirit should, at a given moment, flash its splendors in the eyes of an intellect alike submissive, attentive, patient and suppliant.

Moreover, does not the Gospel show us the way to fertilize investigations such as those to which I have given my life? Does it not say: "Knock and it shall be opened, ask and it shall be given?" Then what must I do to find my way out of the maze in which my reason wanders? What must I do in presence of the contradictions which nevertheless must needs contain a fecund principle? Finally, what must I do in order to see light break from the very heart of those obscurities wherein light is lost?

I will seek anew, night and day, if needful; I will knock incessantly at the door of the facts which I desire to examine. I will descend into the secret depths of their organism; there I will patiently question every phenomenon, every organ, and I will entreat their Author to divulge to me their purpose, their relations and their very object.

Well! It is thus that those men, proud of their vain knowledge, were made dizzy by the splendor of that same light which they thought that they could subject to their investigations, and the blindness which has fallen upon them is the punishment which God is content to inflict upon them in this world.

Having said this, where was I in my investigations? Ah! it was here.

The memory of the high inflections invariably affected by the women whom I had seen on the previous day, caressing their infants, struck me with the more force that I had learned from my masters that law which had hitherto ruled uncontested, and now underwent a refutation which demonstrated the falsity of its applications with a clearness and minuteness which left no room for doubt.

The examples in virtue of which I saw the errors of my masters, unanimously proclaimed the tenuity of the voice to be in proportion to its acuteness.

Now this formula is, in letter as in spirit, the reverse of the prescription upon which, by a caprice whose cause I have just explained, all the masters of art agree.

I then perceived that my first affirmations were no better founded than those of the masters, whose theories I had attacked. The truth of the matter is that ascending progressions may arise from opposite shades of meaning. "Therefore," said I to myself, "it is equally inadmissible to exclude either affirmation."

The law is necessarily complex: let us bring together, that we may seize them as a whole, both the contrary expressions and the circumstances which produce them.

Vulgar and uncultured people, as well as children, seem to act in regard to an ascensional vocal progression in an inverse sense to well-educated, or, at any rate, affectionate persons, such as mothers, fond nurses, etc.

No example has, to my knowledge, contradicted this remark.

But why this difference? What are its motive causes?

"Ha!" I cried, as if struck by lightning, "I've found the law! As with the movements of the head, _sensuality_ and _tenderness_, these shades of the voice may be traced back to two distinct sources: _sentiment_ and _passion_. It is sentiment which I have seen revealed in mothers; it is passion which we find in uncultured persons."

Sentiment and passion, then, proceed in an inverse way. Passion strengthens the voice in proportion as it rises, and sentiment, on the contrary, softens it in due ratio to its intensity. It was the confusion of these different sources which caused a momentary obscurity in my understanding.

Let us now formulate boldly the law of vocal proportions.

Given a rising form, such as the ascending scale, there will be intensitive progression when this form should express passion (whether impulse, excitement or vehemence).

There will be, on the other hand, a diminution of intensity where this same form should express sentiment.

This law even seems regulated by a quantitative expression, the form of which appeared to me like a flash of light. This is the formula:

Under the influence of sentiment the smallest and most insignificant things that we may wish to represent proportion themselves to the degree of acuteness of the sounds, which become softened in proportion as they rise.

Under the influence of passion, on the contrary, the voice rises, with a corresponding brilliancy, in proportion to the magnitude of the thing it would express, and becomes lowered to express smallness or meanness. Thus an ascending scale being given, it must be considered as a double scale of proportion, agreeing alternately with an increasing or decreasing intensitive progression, increasing under the influence of passion and decreasing under the influence of sentiment.

Thus we would not use the same tones for the words: "Oh, what a pretty little girl!" "What a lovely little flower!" and: "See that nice, fat peasant woman!" "What a comfortable great house!"

By such formulæ as these I was able to sum up, in clear and didactic form, the multifarious examples suggested by my memory, startled at first by their contradiction and then delighted at the light thrown upon them by these very formulæ, due, not to my own merit, but to the favor of Him who holds in His hand the source of all truth.

Thus, I feel and readily acknowledge, that the discovery upon which I am at work is not my own work; and, therefore, I pray for it as for a signal favor. Nor can it be otherwise with any man. It is, therefore, always an impertinence for any man to attribute to his personal genius, vast as he may suppose it to be, the discovery of any law. God alone discloses His treasures, and, as I have experienced, He only reveals them to the eye of reason raised by humility to contemplation.

Man seeks that which he desires to know with attention and patience proportioned to the ardor of his desire. The attention of which his mind is capable and the constancy of will brought to bear in pursuit of his research, constitute his only mark of distinction. Herein lies all the merit to which he can lay just claim. But at a moment absolutely unforeseen, God reveals to him that which he seeks, I should say that for which he does not seek, and for his due edification it is generally the opposite of what he seeks which is revealed to him. This is not to be contested. Thus the things discovered to him cause him such surprise that he never fails to beat his brow when he sees them, as if to prove that he is not the author of their discovery, and that he was far from foreseeing anything like what has been shown to him; and that there may be no possible mistake in the interpretation of the gesture, he invariably accompanies it by the phrase: "What a fool I am!" All will admit that if a man really believed himself the author of his discovery, he takes a very inopportune time to declare his impotence and his stupidity so distinctly. But taking none too kindly his avowal which, moreover, is but the proclamation of an indisputable truth, let us rather say that this act of humility is forced from him by the greatness of his surprise.

Happy, very happy is the man whose pride does not instantly react against the humble and truthful confession of his folly.

Ever since I made these remarks I have asked myself the cause of the sterility of the learned bodies, and I do not hesitate to say to-day, that it is because scientists refuse to declare themselves fools, and it is to this lack of sincerity that they doubtless owe the punishment that paralyzes their genius.

How can these men fail to take seriously the little knowledge to which they cling and their fortune and renown; how can these wise men, to whom the world pays incessant homage, consent meekly to confess the infirmity of their reason? They feign, on the contrary, even when crushed beneath the Divine splendor, an air of great importance; and when the Omnipotent in His mercy deigns to bend to their low level, to lay open to them the treasures of His sovereign thought, do you think that in token of the sacred and respectful admiration which they owe in return for such goodness, they will prostrate themselves like the Seraphim whose knowledge assuredly equals the few notions which they adorn with that title? Ah! far from it. You little know these scientists, when you impute to them an act which they would qualify as contemptible and would declare unworthy of a free-thinker! They stand erect, on the contrary, with head held high, insolently laying claim, by virtue of I know not what conquest of the human mind, to judge the eternal and immovable light of the Divine Reason.

Episode IV.

My retrospective journey from this point of departure seemed destined to be even more full of observations than that which preceded it. My day had been so full of work, so fruitful in unexpected discoveries, that it was absolutely necessary for me to stop at this first station.

After a few days of rest I naturally resumed my walk, toward the garden of the Tuileries, whither I was led by an instinct full of promise. There, in fact, fresh re-appearances were not long in adding light to that with which I was still dazzled!

I remember that I had been vaguely struck by the contemplative attitude of a mother toward her child. The reason why this attitude struck me even in the midst of my absorption in search of notes relative to the thumb, was, first, because this attitude was a contrast to that assumed by most of the nurses under the action of the same feeling; and, in the next place, it seemed to deny the contemplative forms which I had deduced from my first discovery, and which rested upon such motives as the following: That a painter admires his work by throwing back his head. Hitherto it had seemed to me clearly proven that admiring contemplation entailed this retroaction. I considered this, it will be remembered, the characteristic feature of a law, and that for the reasons which I had previously given. Well! were all these reasons, plausible as they appeared, to be contradicted by a single fact still present to my memory, in spite of the observations in the midst of which it arose, and which, moreover, should have been more than enough to efface it? Strange to say, this fact vaguely noted amidst preöccupations to which it seemed absolutely foreign, had remained persistently in my mind! Now this fact, becoming by a reflex act the object of serious thought, resulted from this observation:

That a woman, as she contemplated her child, bent her head toward it.

Searching in my memory, I found several similar instances completely confirming this principle, opposed to my observations, that contemplation tends to push the head toward the object contemplated.

And yet this example does not affect those to which I had at first paid exclusive heed. Here, as in the preceding remarks, the law is complex, and it must first be recognized that contemplation or simple admiration is produced alike by the retreat or advance of the head. This double action being admitted, it remained to decide how far they might be mingled in a single situation; that is to say, to what point these two inverse inclinations might be produced indifferently; and if, as I must _a priori_ suppose, these inclinations recognized two distinct causes. If so, what were those reasons? The question was not easy of solution, and yet it must be decided definitely. I could enjoy no peace until I had answered it. The doubt instilled into my mind by this new contradiction was intolerable. I set boldly to work, determined not to pause until I had found a final solution. I called to mind all my memories having any bearing on this double phenomenon. These memories were far more numerous and far more striking than I had dared to hope. What a magnificent thing are those mysterious reservoirs whence, at a given moment, flow thousands of pictures which until then we knew not that we possessed? A whole world of prostrate believers adoringly turning their heads toward the object of their worship, appeared before me to support the example afforded me by the mother lovingly bending her head toward the child at which she gazed.

Among other instances, I saw a venerable master affectionately bending his head toward the being to whom he thus seemed with touching predilection to give luminous instructions.

I saw lovers gazing at their loved one with this attractive pose of the head, their tenderness seeming thus to be eloquently affirmed. But, side by side with these examples, I saw others totally opposite; thus, other lovers presented themselves to my mind's eye with very different aspect, and their number seemed far greater than that of the other. These lovers delighted to gaze at their sweetheart as painters study their work, with head thrown back. I saw mothers and many nurses gazing at children with this same retroactive movement which stamped their gaze with a certain expression of satisfied pride, generally to be noted in those who carried a nursling distinguished for its beauty or the elegance of its clothes.

Two words, as important as they are opposite in the sense that they determine, are disengaged: _sensuality_ and _tenderness_.

Such are the sources to which we must refer the attitudes assumed by the head on sight of the object considered.

Between these inverse attitudes a third should naturally be placed. It was easy for me to characterize this latter: I called it _colorless_ or _indifferent_.

It is entirely natural that the man who considers an object from the point of view of the mere examination which his mind makes of it, should simply look it in the face until that object had aroused the innermost movements of the soul or of the life.

Whence it invariably follows that from the incitement of these movements, the head is bent to the side of the soul or to the side of the senses.

"Which is, then, for the head, the side of the soul," you will ask me, "and which the side of the senses?"

I will reply simply, to cut short the useless description of the many drawbacks that preceded the clear demonstration that I finally established, that the side of the heart is the objective side that occupies the interlocutor, and that the side of the senses is the subjective, personal side toward which the head retroacts; that is to say, the side opposed to the object under examination. Thus, when the head moves in an inverse direction from the object that it examines, it is from a selfish standpoint; and when the examiner bends toward the object it is in contempt of self that the object is viewed.

These are the two related looks that I have named Sensuality and Tenderness, for these reasons:

The former of these glances is addressed exclusively to the form of its object; it caresses the periphery of it, and, the better to appreciate its totality, moves away from it. This is what occurs in the retroactive attitude of the head.

The other look, on the contrary, aims at the heart of things without pausing on the surface, disdaining all that is external. It strives to penetrate the object to its very essence, as if to unite itself more closely within it; it has the expression of confidence, of faith--in a word, the giving up of self.

Thus, when a man presses a woman's hand, we may affirm one of three things from the attitude which his head assumes:

1. That he does not love her, if his head remains straight or simply bent in facing her.

2. That he loves her tenderly, if he bows his head obliquely toward her.

3. Finally, that he loves her sensually--that is to say, solely for her physical qualities--if, on looking at her, he moves his head toward the shoulder which is opposite her.

Such are, in brief, the three attitudes of the head and the eyes, which I have named _colorless, affectional, sensual_.

Henceforth I possessed completely the law of the inclinations of the head, a law which derives from its very complexity the fertility of its applications.

Episode V.

Semeiotics of The Shoulder.

When I found myself the possessor of this law whose triple formula is of a nature to defy every objection, I sought to appropriate to myself, before the mirror, all its applications.

But there arose yet another difficulty that I had not foreseen.

I, indeed, reproduced, and at the proper time, the movements of the head already described, but they remained awkward and lifeless.

What was the cause of this awkwardness and coldness of which I was well aware, but which I could not help? I strove unceasingly to reproduce the examples that lived so vividly in my memory, but all these laborious reproductions, these efforts from memory, were futile. The stubbornness of an indomitable will, however, led only to a negative result. I was vexed at an awkwardness the reason of which I could not find.

One day, almost discouraged by the lack of success in my researches, I sorrowfully said to myself: "What shall I do? Alas! the more I labor, the less clearly I see; am I incapable of reproducing nature--is the difficulty that holds me back invincible?"

As I uttered the preceding words, I noticed that, under the sway of the grief which dictated them, my shoulders were strangely lifted up, and, as then I found myself in the attitude which I had previously tried to render natural, the unexpected movement of my shoulders, joined to that attitude, suddenly impressed it with an expression of life so just, so true, so surprising, that I was overwhelmed.

Thus I gained possession of an æsthetic fact of the first rank, and I was as amazed at my discovery as I was surprised that I had not observed sooner a self-evident movement, whose powerful and expressive character seems fundamentally connected with the actions of the head. "How stupid I am," I thought, "not to have remarked so evident an action of an agent which leads the head itself. How could I let this movement of the shoulder escape me!" And I revelled in the pleasurable triumph of reproducing and contemplating expressions which I could not have rendered previously without dishonoring them. Thenceforth I understood without a doubt all the importance of this latest discovery. But this importance, clearly proven as it was, was not yet fully explained to me.

Thus, I knew henceforth the necessity for movements of the shoulder, but I was still ignorant of their motive cause; and I was reluctant to be longer ignorant. I foresaw a concomitance of relations between this movement of the shoulder and the expression of the head.

The shoulder, then, became, in its turn, the chief object of my studies, and I gained therefrom clear and indisputable principles.

In this way I managed to form the bases of my discovery. The mothers whom I had seen bending their heads over the children on whom they gazed, thus revealed something unreserved and touching; and in my ignorance the important part which the shoulder played in the attitude had escaped me. It was indeed from the action of the shoulder, even more than from the inclination of the head, that this expression of tenderness, so touching to behold, proceeded.

The head, in such a case, accordingly receives its greatest sum of expression from the shoulder. That is a fact to be noted.

For instance, let a head--however loving we may suppose it to be intrinsically--bend toward the object of its contemplation, and let the shoulder not be lifted, that head will plainly lack an air of vitality and warm sincerity without which it cannot persuade us. It will lack that irresistible character of intensity which, in itself, supposes love; in brief, it will be lacking in love.

"Then," I said, "I have found in the shoulder the agent, the centre of the manifestations of love."

Yes, if in pressing a friend's hand I raise my shoulders, I shall thereby eloquently demonstrate all the affection with which he inspires me.

If in looking at a woman I clasp my hands and at the same time raise my shoulders, there is no longer any doubt as to the feeling that attaches me to her, and instinctively every one will say: "He loves her truly;" but if, preserving the same attitude in the same situation, the same facial expression, the same movement of the head, I happen to withhold the action of the shoulder, instantly all love will disappear from my expression and nothing will be left to that attitude but a sentiment vague and cold as falsehood.

Once more, then, the inclinations of the head whose law I have previously determined, seem, to owe to the shoulder alone the affectionate meaning that they express; but the head--as I have said,--in its double inclination, characterizes two kinds of love (or rather two sources of love) which are not to be confounded: _sensuality_ and _tenderness_.

What part, then, does the shoulder play in regard to this distinction? It will be curious to determine this point. Let us see!

The part played by the shoulder is considerable in tenderness; that is not to be doubted. But its role seems to be less in sensuality. Thus the shoulder generally rises less when the head retroacts than when it advances toward the object of its contemplation. Why is this? Is it because sensuality pertains less to love than tenderness? Has it not the same title to rank as one of the aspects of love? In a word, why is less demand made upon the shoulder in one instance than in the other?

If I do not mistake, the reason is this: love gives more than it lays claim to receive, while sensuality asks continually and seeks merely the possession of its object. Love understands and loves sacrifice; it pervades the whole being; it inspires it to bestow its entire self, and that gift admits of no reserve.

Sensuality, on the contrary, is essentially selfish; far from giving itself, it pretends to appropriate and absorb in itself the object of its desires. Sensuality is, so to speak, but a distorted, narrow and localized love; the body is the object of its contemplation, and it [sensuality] sees nothing beyond the possession of the object.

But love does not stop at the body--that would be its tomb; it crosses the limits of it, to rise to the soul in which it is utterly absorbed. Thus love transfigures the being by consuming its personality, whence it comes that he who loves, no longer lives his own life, but the life of the being whom he contemplates.

Let the vulgar continually confound these two things in their manifestations; let lovers themselves fail to distinguish accurately between tenderness and sensuality; for me this confusion is henceforth forbidden, and I can from the first glance boldly separate them, thanks to the lessons taught me by the inflections of the head.

But let us return to the shoulder. Am I not right in saying that in this agent I possess the organic criterion of love? Yes, I maintain it. But let us follow the action of this organ in its various manifestations.

One thing at first amazed me, in view of the part which I felt I must assign to the shoulder. Whence comes, if the designation of that role be in conformity with truth,--whence comes the activity so apparent, so vehement indeed, which the shoulder displays in a movement of anger or of mere impatience? Whence comes its perfect concomitance or relations with moral or physical pain? Lastly, whence comes that universal application which I just now perceived clearly and which, until now, I had confined to such narrow limits? But if the elevation of the shoulder is not the criterion of love, if, on the contrary, that movement is met with again just as correctly associated with the most contradictory impressions, what can it mean?

Here I was, once again, thrown far back from the discovery that I was so sure I possessed.

It is very fortunate that I have been neither an author nor a journalist, and I bless to-day that distrust of self which has saved me from the mania of writing. I highly congratulate myself on the spirit of prudence that has invariably made me reply to whoever pressed me to publish: "When I am old."

Age has come, and it has found me even less disposed to publicity than ever. This work owes its existence solely to the earnest and continual solicitations, the sometimes severe demands of deep friendship and devotion, which it was impossible for me to refuse. This book is not, then, a spontaneous enterprise on my part; it is the work of friendship. And if this book has any measure of success, if it accomplishes any good, it may be traced back to and acknowledged as rising from the never-failing encouragement of my old friend Brucker.

Let us return, now, to where I was in my researches.

It remains, then, for me to specify the true meaning of the shoulders in the expression of the passions. Their intervention in all forms of emotion being proven to me, it would seem that the very frequency of that intervention should exclude the possibility of assigning any particular role to this agent.

Fancy my perplexity, placed face to face with an organ infinitely expressive, but whose physiognomy is mingled promiscuously with every sentiment and every passion!

How, then, are we to characterize the shoulder? What name shall we give to its dominant rôle? How specify that supreme power outside of which all expression ceases to exist? Is it allowable for me to call it _neutral?_ And if the universal application of that agent apparently authorizes that appellation up to a certain point, whence comes its importance? Whence the empire that it exerts over the aspect of its congeners? Is it admissible for a neutral agent to exert so much action upon the totality of the forces to which it is allied?

Assuredly not! The word _neutral_, moreover, excludes the idea of action, and even more strongly that of predominant action which belongs surpassingly to the shoulder. Truly, here was a treasure-house for me. It was, as they say, "to give speech to the dogs."

This new difficulty only increased the determination with which I had pursued my researches; and with the confidence arising from the fact that no obstacle had yet conquered me, I said to myself that the solution of this problem would be due to my perseverance. I could not, in view of the importance of its expression, consider the shoulder as a neutral agent. After spending a long time in vain study, I was on the point of giving up as insoluble the problem that I had set myself. Let us see by what simple means I obtained the solution. How much trouble and pains one will sometimes give himself in looking for spectacles that are on his nose!

The shoulder, in every man who is moved or agitated, rises sensibly, his will playing no part in the ascension; the successive developments of this involuntary act are in absolute proportion to the passional intensity whose numeric measure they form; the shoulder may, therefore, be fitly called _the thermometer of the sensibility_.

"Thermometer," I cried, "there is an excellent word, strikingly correct. But have I not, in pronouncing it, simply and naturally characterized the rôle that I am striving to define?

"Thermometer of the sensibility! Is not that the solution of the enigma? Thermometer; yes, that is it! That is the very expression to give to my researches, an expression without which nothing could be explained. That, indeed, answers to everything, and makes the difficulties against which my reason struggled disappear."

The shoulder is, in fact, precisely the thermometer of passion as well as of sensibility; it is the measure of their vehemence; it determines their degree of heat and intensity. However, it does not specify their nature, and it is certainly in an analogous sense that the instrument known by the name of thermometer marks the degrees of heat and cold without specifying the nature of the weather--a specification belonging to another instrument, the complement of the thermometer--the barometer. The parallel is absolute, perfect.

Let us examine this point:

The shoulder, in rising, is not called upon to teach us whether the source of the heat or vehemence which mark it, arise from love or hate. This specification does not lie within its province; it belongs entirely to the face, which is to the shoulder what the barometer is to the thermometer. And it is thus that the shoulder and the face enter into harmonious relations to complete the passional sense which they have to determine mutually and by distinct paths.

Now, the shoulder is limited, in its proper domain, to proving, first, that the emotion expressed by the face _is_ or _is not_ true. Then, afterward, to marking, with mathematical rigor, the degree of intensity to which that emotion rises.

After having finished the formulation of this principle I exultingly exclaimed:

"God be praised! I now possess the semeiotics of the shoulder, and thereby I hold the criterion of the passional or sensitive powers--a criterion outside of which no truth can be demonstrated in the sphere of sentiment or feeling."

Thus, a word suggested by chance became my Archimedean lever. The word, like a flash of light, flooded my mind with radiance which suddenly revealed to me the numerous and fertile applications of a principle hitherto unknown. Yes, I henceforth possessed an æsthetic principle of the utmost value, the consequences of which, I could readily see, were as novel as they were profound.

Episode VI.

First Objection to the Thermometric System of the Shoulder.

The innate æsthetic principle of the semeiotics of the shoulder was at last clearly demonstrated to me, and no more doubt or uncertainty upon that point seemed to me possible. I might safely formulate the following rule:

When a man says to you in interjective form: "I love, I suffer, I am delighted," etc., do not believe him if his shoulder remains in a normal attitude. Do not believe him, no matter what expression his face may assume. Do not believe him--he lies; his shoulder denies his words. That negative form betrays his thoughts; and, if he expresses ardent passion, you have merely to consult the thermometer which, all unwittingly, he himself offers to your inspection. See, it marks zero! therefore he lies; doubt it not, he lies! but his shoulder does not lie. He amiably puts it at your disposal--read, read at your ease; it bears inscribed in living letters his deceit and craft. It can never cheat you, and when the gentleman accosts you with such words as: "Dear friend! how charmed I am to see you!" say to yourself as you look at his thermometer: "Traitor, your delight as well as your friendship is below zero! You try to deceive me, but in vain; henceforth you have no secrets from me, clumsy forger! You do not see, as with one hand you proffer the false jewel which you would sell me, that the other at the same instant gives me the touch-stone which reveals your tricks; your right hand thus incessantly exposing to me the secrets of your left hand!"

What an admirable thing is this mechanism of the body working in the service of the soul! With what precision it reveals the least movements of its master! What magnificent things it lays bare! Voluntarily or involuntarily, everything leads to truth under the action of the translucid light which breaks forth in the working of each of our organs!

And yet, well founded as the preceding theory may be, solid as are the bases upon which it rests, is it free from any and all objection? May not some oppose to it, for instance, the impassibility of men and women of the world, among whom it would be difficult to find the movements of the shoulder, which such people deem so ungraceful in others as to deprive them of all desire to imitate them? Now what conclusions are we to draw from the absence of this movement in those who are known as aristocrats? Must we tax them all indiscriminately with falsehood?

Here I might, and without hesitation, answer by the affirmation, Yes, all aristocrats lie! The medium which they constitute and which is called _the world_ is nothing but a perpetual lie. Civility itself rests upon a lie. Nay, more, it insists upon deceit as a duty. Heavens, what would become of the world if truth were a necessity! Quarter of an hour of sincerity would be intolerable; ... the inhabitants would slay each other!

In the world people display their feelings, even the most avowable, with great reserve; this prudence, which paralyzes the very springs of sensitive life, seems as if it needs must neutralize the role which I attribute to the shoulder; and yet, in spite of contrary appearances, I deny that the thermometric action of the shoulder undergoes the least alteration in the aristocratic world; I deny explicitly that this agent proves less expressive and, above all, less truthful there than in the street; and that for the following reasons:

In the first place, we cannot reasonably suppose very ardent passions in men who are enervated by the perpetual influence of an artificial society. Now, here the stationary condition of the thermometer is explained: it proves absolutely nothing against the truth of the reports; it remains at zero to mark a colorless medium totally destitute of vitality. The shoulder would violate its law if it were to rise under such circumstances. It is, therefore, perfectly in character here; it should be, _a priori_, impassive in a negative society.

But is the shoulder really impassive in that medium which we call society?

_Yes_, in the eyes of people who are not of it, and who, from that very fact, cannot understand the value of certain expressions which are almost imperceptible; _no_, to those who constitute that special world of relations called superior.

How many things, in fact, the shoulder reveals by those slight changes unseen by ignorant persons, and expressing particularly the delicate and exquisite charm of spiritual relations! It is the law of infinitesimal quantities, of those scarcely perceptible movements or sensations that characterize the finer relations of people of culture, of eloquence, of grace, and of refined tastes.

It should be borne in mind, as I have already shown, that the manifestations of the shoulder in the street by no means accord with those of people ruled by the fashions of society. There is very little harmony or relation between the exquisite joints of a refined nature, the swift and flexible movements of an elegant organism, and the evolutions clumsily executed by torpid limbs, ankylosed, as it were, by labor at once hard and constant

This observation logically led me to an important conclusion, namely, that the value or importance of a standard is deduced expressly from the nature of the being, or the object to which it is applied. Of what value, for instance, could a millimeter be when added to the stature of a man? That same millimeter, however, would acquire a colossal value when added to the proportions of a flea. It would form a striking monstrosity.

An imperceptible fraction may, in certain cases, constitute an enormity. Again, the value of a standard, not the specific or numerical value which is an invariable basis, but the relative or moral value, must be deduced from the importance of the medium to which it applies. For instance: Five hundred men constitute a very good army in the midst of a peaceful population; and this handful of soldiers exerts, indeed, more moral power than the multitudes restrained under their government. A smile coming from the lips of a sovereign leaves in the soul that it penetrates a far deeper trace than all the demonstrations of a common or vulgar crowd. The traveler, detained by the winter in the polar regions, finds that he is warm and takes pleasure in the discovery, though at the time the thermometer marks 10 degrees below zero.

The atmosphere of a cave that we find warm in winter seems to us, without being modified in the least, of an icy coldness in summer.

The large quantity of alcohol that laboring people consume would ruin the health of less strongly constituted persons.

To conclude, then, these examples prove beyond dispute that one can only appreciate the importance of an act when he takes into account the nature of its agents, and that without these considerations he will be obliged to give up immediately all serious estimation of these manifestations.

Here I touch, it seems to me, a law of harmony, a curious law that I wish to examine incidentally. I shall, then, occupy myself with the objections that may, perhaps, be opposed even yet to the thermometric system of the shoulder

Episode VII.

The foregoing study has, as it seems, established an important fact, namely, that among the various classes of men which make up society there is no common standard of measure. It, therefore, appears impossible, at first sight, to establish a harmonious scale of relations between so many various circles.

However, if these circles, whatever their differences may be, were specified and sufficiently known; if I could, for example, judge _a priori_ of the style and mode of activity adapted to each class of society; in a word, if it were possible for me to characterize each of its classes dynamically, should I not succeed in ascertaining a proportionate gamut or scale among them, and thereby should I not be enabled securely to apply the principles established above?

Let us say, to begin with, that if each social sphere affects a determinate character in the intensity of its passional evolutions, it has, in consequence, its special gamut; then, as many spheres as there are, so many gamuts must there be. Now, all these gamuts taken together must form a scale of proportion in virtue of which they may be characterized. That is obvious. But the difficulty is to prove the mode or first tonality of these gamuts. How are we to set to work?

I cut short, for the clearness of my demonstrations, the recital of the events through which I have been obliged to pass before realizing even my earliest observations. I shall set forth, plainly and simply, the final result of my studies; and it will be seen, in spite of the many difficulties that may arise, with what absolute certainty the principles I have established can be applied.

What I Propose.

I propose a great, a worthy subject for your study. At those oratorical sessions which are rapidly increasing under the name of conferences, sessions at which so many distinguished men take the floor, you have been told in elegant terms, often in eloquent terms, of the sciences, of their application and of their progress. You have listened to discourses upon art, its primitive purity, its supposed principles, its decadence, its renaissance, its multifarious changes; its masterpieces have been pointed out to you; they have been described to you; you have, in some degree, been made familiar with their origin. You have heard the story of the lives of the great artists. They have been shown to you in their weakness and in their strength. The times and manners amid which they lived have been painted for you in more or less imaginary colors. I propose something better than all this.

I offer you a work superior even to those sciences which have been described to you; superior to all which the genius of a Michael Angelo or a Raphael could conceive; a work in comparison with which all the magnificences of science and of art must pale. I propose that you should contemplate yourselves!

Nothing is so unfamiliar to man as himself. I will, therefore, as I have promised, show you the marvels which God himself has placed within you, in the transluminous obscurities of your being.

Now, if there be more science, more genius in the production of a violet or a worm than is revealed by all the combined powers of science and of art, how much admiration should we not feel at the sight of all the splendors which God has spread broadcast in the privileged work wherein He was pleased to reveal his own image! But a light inaccessible to the vain demonstrations of your sciences constantly removes this mysterious image from your gaze. As light eludes the eye which it illumines, if we would seize and contemplate it, we must have two things: we must have a special and a supernatural object. There must be light within you, and it must pierce the depths wherein that image dwells.

Here there is no question of the light which shines to show us the things of the natural world by which we are surrounded. Nor is it a question of the intellectual light sometimes visible to scholars. I speak of that light which is hidden from those very scholars because their eyes could not bear its lustre, a transluminous light which fills the soul with beatific visions, and of which it is said that God wraps it about Him as a mantle.

Now, three worlds, of the nature of which man partakes, are offered for our contemplation. These three worlds are: The _natural_, the _intellectual_, and the _supernatural_.

Three sorts of vision have been given man to initiate him into these three worlds. These different forms of vision are: _Direct, inward_ and _higher_.

By means of direct vision man is made acquainted with the world of nature; by inward vision he is shown the world of science; and, lastly, by higher vision he sees the world of grace. But as there can be no vision where no light penetrates, it follows that between the three kinds of vision described and the corresponding worlds there must intervene three sorts of light, in order to produce the triple vision necessary for the knowledge of man:

Direct vision--sidereal light--natural world.

Inward vision--the light of tradition--the world of science.

Higher vision--revealed light--supernatural world.

Such are the conditions necessary for the understanding of my demonstrations.

Having prepared your eye for the vision of these three worlds which serve as the bases of art, I shall, then, reveal to you their splendors; happy if, thus, I can help to make you bless the author of so many marvels, and communicate to you those keen joys which perpetuate in the soul a fountain of youth which can never be quenched by the infirmities of the body.

The Beautiful

Beauty is that reason itself which presides at the creation of things. It is the invincible power which attracts and subjugates us in it. The Beautiful admits of three characters, which we distinguish under the titles of _ideal_ beauty, _moral_ beauty, _plastic_ beauty.

Plato defined ideal beauty when he said: "Beauty is the splendor of truth." St. Augustine said of moral beauty that it is the splendor of goodness. I define plastic beauty as the plastic manifestation of truth and goodness.

In so far as it responds to the particular type in accordance with which it is formed, every creature bears the crown of beauty; because in its correspondence with its type it manifests, according to its capacity, the Divine Being who created it.

The Beautiful is an absolute principle; it is the essence of beings, the life of their functions. Beauty is a consequence, an effect, a form of the Beautiful. It results from the attractions of the form. The attraction of the form comes from the nobility of the function. This is why all functions not being equally noble, all do not admit of beauty. The characteristic of beauty is to be amiable; consequently a thing is ugly only in view of the amiable things which we seek in beauty.

Beauty is to the Beautiful what the individual reason is to the Divine reason of things. Human reason is but one ray of a vast orb called the reason of things,--Divine reason. Let us say of beauty what we have said of the individual reason, and we shall understand how the Beautiful is to be distintinguished from it. Beauty is one ray of the Beautiful.

Beauty is the expression of the object for which the thing is.

It is the stamp of its functions. It is the transparency of the aptitudes of the agent and the radiance of the faculties which it governs. It is the order which results from the dynamic disposition of forms operated in view of the function.

Beauty is based on three conditions: Clearness, integrity and due proportion.

Beauty exists in the practical knowledge of the tendencies affected by the form in view of the object for which it is; in view, above all, of the action which it exerts upon the beings with whom it is in relation. Thus a thing is not only beautiful from the transparency of its aptitudes, it is especially so from the beauty of the acts which its use determines abroad. This is the reason why beauty is to all creatures an object of appetency, of desire and of love.

Trinity.

There is a mystery full of deep instruction, a mystery whose divine obscurities surpass all the light whose splendors dazzle us by their supernatural clarity, and which, as a great saint once said, radiates splendid beams and floods with the glory of its fires those spirits who are blind with the blindness of holiness. This mystery, outside of which all is to man dark and incomprehensible, illuminates everything and explains it in the sense that it is the cause, the principle and the end of all things.

This dazzling mystery is the universal criterion of all truth; it is the science of sciences, which is self-defining and whose name is Trinity.

Here we foresee an objection to which we must first reply. Some will be surprised that a system declared to be infallible should rest upon a mystery; they will ask what a mystery can have to do with a purely didactic question. Patience! You shall see that it cannot be otherwise. Nothing is more evident than light, yet light is a mystery, the most obscure of all mysteries. Thus light escapes the eye and it does not see that by means of which it sees. Now, if light is a mystery, why should not mystery be a light? Let us see first what the church teaches us in regard to this mystery.

God is a word which serves as a pretext for every Utopia, for every illusion and for every human folly. The Trinity is the express refutation of all these stupidities; it is their remedy, corrective and preservative. Deprive me of the Trinity and I can no longer understand aught of God. All becomes dark and obscure to me, and I have no longer a rational motive for hope.

The Trinity, the hypostatical basis of beings and things, is the reflection of the Divine Majesty in its work. It is, as it were, a reflection upon us of its own light. The Trinity is our guide in the applied sciences of which it is at once the solution and the enigma.

The Trinity is manifest in the smallest divisions of the Divine work, and is to be regarded as the most fertile means of scientific investigation; for if it is at once the cause, the principle and the end of all science, it is its infallible criterion and we must start from it as an immovable axiom.

Every truth is triangular, and no demonstration responds to its object save in virtue of a triply triple formula.

_Theory of Processional Relations; or of the Connection between Principiants and Principiates._

THEOREM.

Each term in the Trinity is characterized processionally by the arrangement of the relations which unite it to its congeners. We will represent the nature of these relations by an arrow, the head of which starts from the principiant, touching with its point the principiate.

Example.

Principiant terms ---------------> Principiate terms

This established, let us see by what sort of relations we are to distinguish the persons in the Trinity represented by 1, 2 and 3.

1. The Father--a term exclusively principiant, giving the mission and not receiving it.

2. The Son--a term both principiant and principiate, receiving and giving the mission.

3. The Holy Ghost--a term exclusively principiate, receiving the mission and not giving it.

TYPICAL ARRANGEMENTS BASED ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE PROCESSIONAL RELATIONS INTERUNITING THE PERSONS IN THE TRINITY.

3 / \ / \ / \ B/ \C / TRINITY \ / \ 1/ \2 --------------- A

_A._ Relation of generation starting from the generator, ending at the engendered (2), expressing by its horizontality the co-equality of the principiant with the principiate.

_B._ Relation of spiration starting from the spirator or first principiant 1, ending at the principiate 3.

_C._ Relation of spiration starting from the spirator or second principiant 2, ending at the principiate 3, emanated by way of the common spiration of its double principle 1 and 2.

_Vicious Arrangements._

Reversal of the Processional Relations and Confusion Which Leads to Reversals.

These first three examples sin from lack of a necessary relationship, in default of which the extreme terms cannot be designated. Here, therefore, the intermediate term alone can be estimated.

1 >--------> 2 <--------< 3

Here the Son offers the relational characteristics of the Holy Ghost.

1 <--------< 2 >--------> 3

Here He plays the part of the Father by the arrangement of His relations.

1 >--------> 3 >--------> 2

Here the Holy Ghost is evidently out of place, for He indicates relations which belong only to the Word.

(1.) According to these relations, the Holy Ghost plays the part of the Son, and the Son that of the Holy Ghost.

3 ^ \ / 1 \ / v 1------>2

(2.) Here all the relations are reversed so that the Father plays the part of the Son; the Holy Ghost plays the part of the Father; and, finally, the Son that of the Holy Ghost.

3 / \ / 2 \ v v 1------>2

(3.) This curious example represents by the identical arrangement of the terms that it brings together, three Sons; that is to say, the person of the Son three times over.

3 ^ \ / 3 \ / v 1<------2

(4.) Another reversal of the relations, which derives the Holy Ghost from the Father, the Father from the Son, and the Son from the Holy Ghost.

3 / ^ / 4 \ v \ 1<------2

Passion Of Signs. Signs of Passion.

These two terms at first sight seem very similar. It is not so. They express two wholly distinct things. Therefore to know the meaning of words by no means proves one capable of finding words and fitting them to the meaning.

It is clearly easier to translate a language than to write it, and just as we must learn to translate before we can compose, so we must become thoroughly familiar with semeiotics before trying to work at æsthetics; and, as the science of semeiotics is still wholly incomplete, it is, therefore, absolutely impossible that that which is called æsthetics should in the least resemble the science which I have just defined.

I have shown you æsthetics as a science. I have given you its definition. I have fixed its special part in the sum total of knowledge which goes to make up art; moreover, I have pointed out what this science is intended to teach you. I have, by so doing, assumed serious obligations toward you. I must needs produce under this title something more than mere fantastic reflections upon works of art, or more or less attractive stories about their authors and the circumstances in which they lived. It will not be so amusing, but assuredly it will be more profitable, and that is all for which I aspire.

Art, then, is an act whose semeiotics characterizes the forms produced by the action of powers, which action is determined by æsthetics, and the causes of which are sought out by ontology.

/ Ontology examines the constituent virtues of the being. | Art. < Æsthetics examines its powers. | \ Semeiotics characterizes its forces.

/ Inherent form of sentiments . . . . . . Æsthetics. | Art. < Metaphysical form of the principles . . Ontology. | \ Organic form of signs . . . . . . . . . Semeiotics.

The object of art, therefore, is to reproduce, by the action of a superior principle (ontology), the organic signs explained by semeiotics, and whose fitness is estimated by æsthetics.

Semeiotics is the science of the organic signs by which æsthetics must study inherent fitness.

Æsthetics is the science of the sensitive and passional manifestations which are the object of art, and whose psychic form it constitutes.

If semeiotics does not tell us the passion which the sign reveals, how can æsthetics indicate to us the sign which it should apply to the passion that it studies? In a word, how shall the artist translate the passion which he is called upon to express?

Æsthetics determines the inherent forms of sentiment in view of the effects whose truth of relation it estimates.

Semeiotics studies organic forms in view of the sentiment which produces them.

It is thus that _wisdom_ and _reason_ proceed in inverse sense from the principle to the knowledge which is the object of both. Wisdom, in fact, studies the principle in its consequences, while reason studies the consequences in the principle, hence it comes that wisdom and reason are often at war with each other; hence also the obscurity which generally prevails as to the distinction between them. Let us say that _wisdom_ and _reason_ are to intelligence what æsthetics and semeiotics are to art. Let us add to this parallel that _wisdom_ and _reason_ are to intelligence what æsthetics and semeiotics are to ontology; that is:--

1. If, from a certain organic form, I infer a certain sentiment, that is _Semeiotics_.

2. If, from a certain sentiment, I deduce a certain organic form, that is _Æsthetics_.

3. If, after studying the arrangement of an organic form whose inherent fitness I am supposed to know, I take possession of that arrangement under the title of methods, invariably to reproduce that form by substituting my individual will for its inherent cause, that is _Art_.

4. If I determine the initial phenomena under the impulsion of which the inherent powers act upon the organism, that is _Ontology_.

5. If I tell how that organism behaves under the inherent action, that is _Physiology_.

6. If I examine, one by one, the agents of that organism, it is _Anatomy_.

7. If, amid these different studies, I seek by means of analogy and generalization for light to guide my steps toward my advantage, that is _System_.

8. If I make that light profitable to my material and spiritual interests, that is _Reason_.

9. If I add to all this the loving contemplation of the Supreme Author in His work, that is _Wisdom_.

Let us now leave the abstractions to which you have kindly lent your attention. I cannot here avoid casting a rapid glance at those sources of science and art, the sources whence I desire to draw applications which I am assured will interest you as they interest me. May they afford you the same delight!

By listening to me thus far you have passed through the proofs requisite for your initiation into science as well as art; into science, whose very definition is unknown to the learned bodies, since they have never studied aught of it but its specialties; into art, whose very fundamental basis is unsuspected by the School of Fine Arts, as I have elsewhere demonstrated. Therefore, I now desire in the course of these lectures to set aside the terms of a technology which I could not avoid at the outset, and by the recital of my labors and my researches, my disappointments and my discoveries, to show you the painful birth of a science, whose possession entitles me to the honor of addressing you to-day.

Definition of Form.

Form is the garb of substance. It is the expressive symbol of a mysterious truth. It is the trademark of a hidden virtue. It is the actuality of the being. In a word, form is the plastic art of the Ideal.

We have to consider three sorts of form: The form assumed by the being at birth and which we will call _constitutional_ form. Under the sway of custom forms undergo modifications: We will call these forms _habitual_ forms. Then there are the _fugitive_ forms, modifications of the constitutional form, which are produced under the sway of passion. These forms, which we will call _accidental, passional_ or _transitory_, are fugitive as the things which give them birth.

On Distinction and Vulgarity of Motion.

Motion generally has its reäction; a projected body rebounds and it is this rebound which we call the reäction of the motion.

Rebounding bodies are agreeable to the eye. Lack of elasticity in a body is disagreeable from the fact that lacking suppleness, it seems as if it must, in falling, be broken, flattened or injured; in a word, must lose something of the integrality of its form. It is, therefore, the reäction of a body which proves its elasticity, and which, by this very quality, gives us a sort of pleasure in witnessing a fall, which apart from this reäction could not be other than disagreeable. Therefore, elasticity of dynamic motions is a prime necessity from the point of view of charm.

In the vulgar man there is no reäction. In the man of distinction, on the contrary, motion is of slight extent and reäction is enormous. Reäction is both slow and rapid.

Gesture.

The artist should have three objects: To _move_, to _interest_, to _persuade_. He interests by _language_; he moves by _thought_; he moves, interests and persuades by _gesture_.

Language is the weakest of the three agents. In a matter of the feelings language proves nothing. It has no real value, save that which is given to it by the preparation of gesture.

Gesture corresponds to the soul, to the heart; language to the life, to the thought, to the mind. The life and the mind being subordinate to the heart, to the soul, gesture is the chief organic agent. So it has its appropriate character which is persuasion, and it borrows from the other two agents interest and emotion. It prepares the way, in fact, for language and thought; it goes before them and foretells their coming; it accentuates them.

By its silent eloquence it predisposes, it guides the listener. It makes him a witness to the secret labor performed by the immanences which are about to burst forth. It flatters him by leading him to feel that he partakes in this preparation by the initiation to which it admits him. It condenses into a single word the powers of the three agents. It represents virtue effective and operative. It assimilates the auxiliaries which surround it, and reflects the immanence proper to its nature, the contemplation of its subject deeply seen, deeply felt. It possesses them synthetically, fully, absolutely.

Artistic gesture is the expression of the physiognomy; it is transluminous action; it is the mirror of lasting things.

Lacordaire, that spoiled child of the intellect, spoke magnificently. He interested, he aroused admiration, but he did not persuade. His organism was rebellious to gesture. He was the artist of language. Ravignan, inferior intellectually, prepared his audience by his attitude, touched them by the general expression of his face, fascinated them by his gaze. He was the artist of gesture.

Thus, if we sing, let us not forget that the prelude, the refrain, is the spiritual expression of the song; that we must take advantage of this exordium to guide ourselves, to predispose our hearers in our favor; that we must point out to them, must make them foresee by the expression of our face the thought and the words which are to follow; that, in fact, the ravished spectator may be dazzled by a song which he has not yet heard, but which he divines or thinks that he divines.

_Definition of Gesture._ (Compare Delaumosne, page 43.)

Gesture is the direct agent of the heart. It is the fit manifestation of feeling. It is the revealer of thought and the commentator upon speech. It is the elliptical expression of language; it is the justification of the additional meanings of speech. In a word, it is the spirit of which speech is merely the letter. Gesture is parallel to the impression received; it is, therefore, always anterior to speech, which is but a reflected and subordinate expression.

Gesture is founded on three bases which give rise to three orders of studies; that is, to three sciences, namely: The _static_, the _dynamic_ and the _semeiotic_.

What are these three sciences, and, first of all, what are they in relation to gesture? The semeiotic is its mind; the dynamic is its soul; the static is founded on the mutual equilibrium or equipoise of the agents.

The dynamic presents the multiple action of three agents; that is to say, of the constituent forces of the soul.

The semeiotic presents to our scrutiny a triple object for study. It sets forth the cause of the acts produced by the dynamic and the static harmonies. Moreover, it reveals the meaning of the types which form the object of the system. It offers us a knowledge of the formal or constitutional types, of the fugitive or accidental types, and, finally, of the habitual types.

The triple object of the dynamic are the _rhythmic, inflective_ and _harmonic_ forms. Dynamic rhythm is founded upon the important law of mobility, inversely proportionate to the masses moved. Dynamic inflections are produced by three movements: Direct movements, rotary movements and movements of flexion in the arc of a circle.

Dynamic harmony is founded on the concomitance of the relations existing between all the agents of gesture. This harmony is regulated by three states, namely: The tonic or eccentric state, the atonic or concentric state, and the normal state. It, therefore, remains for us to fix the three vital conditions of the static part of gesture. The vital condition of the static is based upon the knowledge of the nine stations. The spirit of the static entails the study of scenic planes which embrace three conditions: The condition of the personage in relation to the scenic centre or to the interlocutor whom he addresses; in the second place, his situation; and, finally, the direction assumed by his body in regard to the conditions already indicated.

The soul of the static is in the harmonic opposition of the surfaces moved.

The most powerful of all gestures is that which affects the spectator without his knowing it.

From this statement may be deduced the principle that: Outward gesture, being only the echo of the inward gesture which gave birth to it and rules it, should be inferior to it in development and should be in some sort diaphanous.

Attitudes of the Head.

The head, considered in its three direct poses, presents three conditions or states. When facing the object contemplated, it presents the normal state; bent forward and in the direction of the object, it presents the concentric state; raised and considering the object from above, it presents the eccentric state. [Compare Delaumosne, page 65.]

If, now, we consider each of its attitudes in connection with a double lateral inclination of which they are capable, we have the following nine:

1. The first is normal. The head is neither high nor low, the glance being direct.

2. The second is characteristic of tenderness. This attitude consists in bending the head obliquely toward the interlocutor. The body, in this attitude, should not face the object; thus the head, in bending toward it, bends sidewise in relation to the body.

3. The third attitude is characteristic of sensuality. This attitude is marked by an inclination quite the reverse of the second; that is to say, away from the interlocutor. Naturally, in this attitude, as in the preceding one, the glance is oblique; the head being bent forward and backward, is here placed obliquely.

4. The fourth is characteristic of scrutiny, reflection. The head in this attitude is bent forward as we said in concentration, and the eye, from the effort to lower the head, is thrown up to inspect the object.

5. The fifth is characteristic of veneration. This attitude offers the same inclination as the second; but here, as the head must be lowered, the eye is directed both obliquely and upward.

6. The sixth is characteristic of suspicion. This attitude offers the same inclination as the third, with the concentric modifications indicated for the preceding one.

7. The seventh is characteristic of exaltation, passion. This attitude is eccentric and direct, as we have already said.

8. The eighth attitude is characteristic of abandonment, extreme confidence. This attitude presents the inclination of the second and the fifth, with this difference, that here the head is thrown back and the eye, instead of being bent directly upon the object as in the second and upward as in the fifth, here gazes downward.

9. The ninth attitude is characteristic of pride. This last attitude takes the inclination of the sixth and eighth attitudes, with the differences in gaze indicated in the foregoing.

Thus, to sum up what we have already said, we see that the first, fourth and seventh attitudes are directly toward the object; that the second, fifth and eighth bend obliquely toward the object; and, finally, that the third, sixth and ninth are the result of an oblique inclination away from the object.

NOTE.--It is to be understood that the various attitudes of the head are asserted only in regard to the direction taken by the eye. Thus it is not absolutely true to say that the head is in the eccentric state because it is raised; for it may be that, raised as it is, the direction of the eye may be even higher than it, and, in that case, the head might, although raised, present the aspect of the concentric state. Then it would be true to say that the head presents the concentric state in a high direction.

Attitudes of the Hands.

The hands, like the legs, have three kinds of attitudes. They open without effort and present the normal state; they close and present the concentric state; then they open forcibly and present the eccentric state. These three kinds of attitudes produce nine forms.

1. The first is characteristic of acceptance. In this the hand is presented open without effort, the fingers close together and the palm up.

2. The second is characteristic of caressing. In this attitude the palm of the hand faces the object considered and gently follows its forms.

3. The third is characteristic of negation. This attitude is executed in the following fashion: The arm and hand are placed as in caressing; but, instead of following the form of the object, the hand rids itself of it by a rotary movement, thus placing the palm in a lateral direction.

4. This attitude is executed with the closed fist, the arm hanging naturally, that is, without any action determined by the will.

5. The fifth is characteristic of will. This attitude consists in carrying the fist forward, the back up.

6. The sixth attitude is characteristic of menace. This attitude is effected by an outward rotary movement compressed in the fist, so that, contrary to the will, the back of the hand is down.

7. The seventh is characteristic of desire. The hand, in this attitude, moves forward as in the first, but with the difference that here the fingers are spread apart, this spreading signifying "I do not possess," expresses desire. There is, by the fact of the advance of the hand, aspiration and not possession.

8. The eighth is characteristic of imprecation. It consists in stretching the palm of the hand toward the object as in a caress, but with this difference, that the fingers are spread apart, thus offering a repulsive aspect.

9. The ninth is characteristic of refusal, repulsion. It consists in carrying the hand obliquely as in negation, observing the spreading of the fingers which characterizes this species.

_Affirmation--The Hand._

To make the demonstration of the different affirmations of the hand more clear, we employ the cube which, as is well known, has six faces, eight angles, and twelve edges.

When the hand is placed upon a flat surface the affirmation is simple; when the hand is placed upon an angle the affirmation is triple or common to three faces or surfaces. There are three directions in the cube: Horizontal, vertical and transverse. So, too, there are three directions possible for the hand in relation to the body:

1. Abduction--which removes, 2. Adduction--which brings close, and 3. The normal direction.

There are three sorts of adduction, three sorts of abduction, and three sorts of normal direction.

There are three horizontal, three vertical and three transverse directions; hence nine terms applicable to the nine modes of presenting the hand in connection with the cube, which are:

2. The second attitude is characteristic of repose in strength. The weight of the body is thrown upon one hip, the free leg being carried forward. This change should be effected without tension or stiffness. This attitude is also characteristic of certain concentric passions hidden under seeming calm.

3. This attitude is characteristic of vehemence, of which it is the type. It is preëminently the eccentric attitude. It consists in carrying the whole weight of the body forward, the backward leg extended in equal proportion to the forward poise of the torso.

4. This attitude is characteristic of the weakness which follows vehemence. It is the type of concentration; it is also in character as in species the antipodes of the third attitude, since it is its resolute expression. This attitude consists in throwing the whole weight of the body backward, contrary to the preceding attitude where the body was brought forward, and in bending the leg which bears the weight of the body, which is also the reverse of the preceding attitude, where the leg is extended. This attitude is nearly that of the fencing-master; it differs, however, in the position of the backward foot, which, in fencing, is turned outward. The regularity of this attitude may be verified by kneeling, which is its paroxysm. If the attitude is well done it leads to it naturally.

5. The fifth attitude serves as a preparation for oblique steps; it is also colorless, transitive, suspensive. It ends all the angles formed by walking. We may define this attitude as a third transversal; that is to say, the free leg, instead of being behind as in the third, is impassive, so that the body, instead of being advanced, should be slightly inclined to one side.

6. The sixth attitude is an attitude of pomp and ceremony. It is only assumed in the presence of kings, princes, or persons for whom we have great respect. We will define this attitude as a third crossed proceeding from the fifth; that is to say, the free leg of the fifth becomes the strong leg moving sidewise and slightly forward, thus crossing the back leg.

7. The seventh attitude is an attitude characteristic of absolute repose. It is the strongest attitude, and, consequently, that assumed by intoxication to resist a lack of equilibrium. It is the attitude of vertigo, or of extreme trust.

Do not be surprised by the bringing together of these very different and opposite terms in one and the same attitude. It is a sufficient explanation to say that the strong attitude is sought out by weakness as a weak attitude is sought by strength. This attitude consists in the division of the weight of the body between both legs, which are spread wide apart in parallel directions. This attitude would be improper in a parlor.

8. The eighth attitude is an attitude characteristic of the alternation between the offender and defender. It is the exact medium between the third and fourth; it, therefore, expresses moral as well as physical alternation. A man placed between the offensive and the defensive always assumes this attitude as if to sound the resources of his courage in face of an enemy stronger than himself; in this attitude he may advance or recede. This attitude is a seventh, whose direction, instead of being lateral, is parallel to the body and antero-posterior. In this position the body faces the forward leg, both legs being spread wide apart, as in the seventh, both receive an equal portion of the weight of the body.

9. The ninth attitude is characteristic of defiance. This attitude is a stiff second. It differs only in that the free leg is rigid instead of being bent as in the second. To execute this attitude thoroughly well the free leg must be stretched to the very utmost, without allowing the strong leg to bend as in the fourth, which is the only attitude where the strong leg should be bent. To prevent this flexion, the body must be carried well over on the hip of the strong leg, so that the side of the free leg may be elongated.

_Chart Considered from the Organic Point of View._

2. The Son, 3. The Holy Ghost, 1. The Father.

Having examined the table organically, we will study it essentially.

Example.

What we have called eccentric, concentric and normal, we will call vitality, intellectuality and spirituality; lastly, having established this table from the organic and the essential point of view, it remains for us to examine it æsthetically and from a practical point of view.

Let us first examine a few gestures, for instance:

_Of the Hand._

3 colorless state abandonment /\ / \ / \ / 3 \ expansion 1 /________\ 2 prostration

3 exaltation 3 power /\ /\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / 1 \ / 2 \ 1 /________\ 2 1 /________\ 2 exasperation execration convulsive state struggle

_Of the Eye._

abandonment /\ / \ / \ / 3 \ indifference /________\ moroseness

stupor depression or somnolence /\ /\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / 1 \ / 2 \ 1 /________\ 2 1 /________\ 2 surprise firmness contempt contention of mind

_Of the Torso._

dynamic apparatus /\ / \ / \ / 3 \ limbs /________\ head

larynx veil of the palate /\ /\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / 1 \ / 2 \ 1 /________\ 2 1 /________\ 2 lungs mouth lips tongue

_Æsthetic Division._

3 pure spirituality /\ / \ / \ / 3 \ vital soul 1 /________\ 2 intellectual soul

3 spiritual life 3 spiritual intellect /\ /\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / 1 \ / 2 \ 1 /________\ 2 1 /________\ 2 animal life intellectual life animal intellect mental intellece

/ Mind / Science Human Hypostases < Soul Worlds < Grace \ Life \ Nature

/ Light / The mind / distinguishes Divine Attributes < Love Functions < The soul < reunites \ Power \ The life \ asserts

/ Understanding / Speculative Faculties < Will Reasons < Final \ Memory \ Seminal

/ Trial generates faith Theological Virtues< Tribulation generates experience \ Fulfilment generates charity

The Holy Trinity Recovered in Sound.

Sound is the reflection of the Divine image. In sound there are three reflex images: The reflex of life; of the intellect; and of love. They result from the parallel and simultaneous action of three agents: The projective (life), reflective (intellect), and vibrative (love).

Sound contains three sounds: That of the _tonic_, the _dominant_, and the _mediant_. The tonic (Father) necessarily generates the dominant (Son), and the mediant (Holy Ghost) proceeds necessarily from the first two.

Pythagoras discovered this law. Passing before a blacksmith's shop, he heard the sound of heavy hammer strokes upon a forge. He recognized perfectly that each blow gave out beside the principal tone (tonic) two other tones, which corresponded to the twelfth and seventeenth of the tonic. Now, the twelfth reversed is nothing but the fifth or dominant, and the seventeenth becomes, by a double reversion, the third or mediant of the tonic.

Let us say, then, that every tone necessarily contains the tonic its generator, the dominant its engendered, and the mediant which proceeds from the other two. The reünion of these three tones which makes them into one, forms the perfect chord. Full and absolute consonance is the expression of union, of love, of order, of harmony, of peace; it is the return to the source of goodness, to God.

If a fourth form should be added to the perfect chord, to consonance, there would necessarily be a dissonance. This fourth can only enter by an effort, almost by violence. It is outside of plenitude, of the calm established by the Divine law; it produces a painful sensation, a dissonance. As soon as there is a discord, a dissonance, the animal cries out, the dog howls, inert bodies suffer and vibrate; but all is order and calm again when consonance returns.

Speech.

Speech is an act posterior to will, itself posterior to love; this again posterior to judgment, posterior in its turn to memory, which, finally, is posterior to the impression.

Every impression, to become a sensation, must first be perceived by the intelligence, and thus we may say of the sensation that it is a definite impression. But, to be definite, it must pass into the domain of memory and there solicit the reappearance of its congeners with which it may identify itself. It is in this apparatus and surrounded by this throng of homogeneous impressions which gather round it, as if by magic, or rather which it draws about it as the magnet draws the iron, it is, I say, in this complex state that it appears before the intelligence to receive from the latter a fitting name. For the intelligence could not give it a name if the homogeneous impressions in which it has, so to speak, arrayed itself, did not serve to point it out.

Now, by this distinction, established by the double operation of the memory and the intelligence, a movement takes place in the soul, of attraction, if the intelligence approve; or of repulsion, if it disapprove. This movement is called the will. The will, therefore, becomes the active principle in virtue of which speech is expressed; thus speech is the express agent of the will. It is speech, in fact, which, under the incubation of this mysterious power, rules, groups and moves bodies with the aid of memory.

Inflection is the life of speech; the mind lies in the articulative values, in the distribution of these articulations and their progressions. The soul of speech is in gesture.

Breathing.

Breathing, according to its form of production, is: (1) Costal or combined; (2) diaphragmatic; (3) costo-diaphragmatic.

Breathing is a triple act based upon three phenomena: Inspiration, suspension, expiration. From the successive predominance of each of these three phenomena, or from their equal balance, result eighty-one respiratory acts, which may be reduced to three terms: The breathing is _normal, spasmodic_, or _sibilant_.

There are three questions to be considered in regard to breathing:

1. How should it, the breath, be produced to gain the greatest development for the voice?

2. What place should it occupy in speech?

3. What aspect does it assume under the influence of the passions?

In other words, three characters may be attributed to respiration: Vocal, logical, pathetic or passional.

_Vocal Respiration._

The lungs constantly contain a quantity of air, which is the source of life and with which we cannot dispense without inconvenience to health and to the voice. The quantity of air requisite for the renewing of the blood, and which is called the breath of life, amounts to a third of what the lungs are capable of receiving. In order to sing, therefore, it must be increased by two-thirds, and it is this borrowed breath only which should be given out in singing. When the lungs are thus filled with air, the sound is produced by escapement. From this it receives greater force, and its production, far from being a fatigue, becomes a relief.

Inspiration should always be followed by a suspensive silence; otherwise the lungs, agitated by the act of inspiration, perform the expiration badly.

_Logical Respiration._

Logical respiration constitutes the respiration itself. Suspension expresses reticence, disquietude. Inspiration is an element of dissimulation, concentration, pain. Hence, we have normal, oppressive, spasmodic, superior, sibilant, rattling, intermittent, crackling, and hiccoughing respiration.

Expiration is an element of trust, expansion, confidence and tenderness. If the expression contains both pain and love, the inspiration and expiration will both be noisy; but the one or the other will predominate according as pain predominates over love, or _vice versa._

_Passional Respiration._

The source of passional respiration lies in the agitation of the heart. The effect of respiration is most powerful, for the slighter and more imperceptible the phenomena are, the more effect they have upon the auditors.

Vocal Organ.

The organ assumes at birth a form; this form is called the timbre or tone, This tone corresponds to the constitutional form. Under the sway of habit, the form assumes an acquired tone which is called emission. The emissive form corresponds to the habitual tone. Under the sway of emotion the voice is modulated and assumes forms which we will call passional or transitory.

The mouth is normal, concentric and eccentric. [See chart in Delaumosne, page 81.]

From these three types we have succeeded in fixing and classifying forty-eight million phenomena.

Definition of the Voice.

The voice is the essential element in singing. It is based upon sound. This is based upon three agents:

The _projective_ agent, or the _lungs_.

The _vibrative_ agent, or the _larnyx_.

The _reverberative_ agent, or the _mouth_.

Each of these agents acts in different ways, nine acts resulting therefrom, which we will call products of phonetic acts.

The projective agent in its special activities engenders

Intensities, Shades, Respirations.

The vibrative agent in its special activities engenders

Prolations, Pathetic effects, Registers.

The reverberative agent in its special activities engenders

Emissions, Articulations, Vowels.

To recapitulate, the phonetic agents give us nine products; but, when studied from the vocal point of view, these products become as many elements and must be examined from the triple point of view of preparatory, practical and transcendant studies. We must, therefore, know first the general definition of these elements, their cause and their theoretical history, which constitutes phonology or the preparatory study of the voice.

Secondly, we must know the physical order in virtue of which these phenomena may be acquired or developed. The various special exercises and the vices to be avoided constitute phonation or the practical study of the voice.

Thirdly, we must know and appreciate the physiological, intellectual and moral meaning of these elements, the different relations of resemblance, of opposition and of identity which exist between these different phenomena.

The modes of application or principles of style form the transcendent study or æsthesiophony, that is, the voice applied to feeling, etc.

_What the Register is._

The register is an intrinsic modification of the sound; a modification which is produced in the larynx itself and which does not belong to the mouth. Now, we may say of registers that they are to the larnyx what emissions are to the mouth. Thus registers form a physiognomy which the sound assumes in the larynx, and emissions form the physiognomy which that same sound takes on in the mouth.

_On Shading._

Light and shade are not, as has been asserted, subject to the arbitration or inspiration of the moment. They are ruled by laws; for in art there is not a single phenomenon which is not subject to absolute mathematical laws. A knowledge of these laws is important, the art of shading forming the basis of style.

The opinion which makes the ascending phrase progressive is false six times out of seven. It is only correct in the following cases:

1. If an ascending phrase encounters no repeated and no dissonant note it is progressive, and the culminating note is the most intense. It has one degree of intensity.

2. If we find a note repeated in the ascending phrase, that note, even if it be the lowest of all, must be made more important than the highest note and will have two degrees of intensity. In this case, the higher the voice rises the softer it must become; for there cannot be more than one culminating point in a musical phrase any more than in a logical or mimetic phrase. All sounds must, therefore, diminish in proportion to their distance from this centre of expression, from this repeated note. The reason of the intensity of a repeated note lies in the fact that we repeat only that thing which we desire, and this intensity gives it a greater value.

3. If the repeated note be at the same time the culminating note, it will require a new degree of intensity. It will have three degrees of intensity.

4. We may possibly find a dissonant note in the ascending phrase, with a repeated culminating note. (This note would, then, be more than an indication; it would receive an adjective form from the accident, assuming in the musical phrase the value that an adjective would have in a logical phrase.) Its intensity, therefore, would be greater than that of the highest repeated note, and it would have four degrees of intensity.

5. If the dissonant note is also the highest note, it acquires from that position a fifth degree of intensity.

6. It may happen that the dissonant note appearing in a rising phrase is repeated; by reason of this repetition it would receive a sixth degree of intensity.

7. Finally, if the dissonant note is at the same time culminating and repeated, it has seven degrees of intensity.

_Pathetic Effects._

Pathetic effects are nine in number, the principal of which are as follows: The veiled tone; the flat or compressed tone; the smothered tone; the ragged tone; the vibrant tone. The last is the most powerful.

Vibration or tremolo, bad when produced involuntarily by the singer, becomes a brilliant quality when it is voluntary and used at an opportune time. Every break must be preceded by a vibration, which prepares the way for it.

Prolations are laryngeal articulations. Great care must be taken not to substitute pectoral articulations for them.

The chest is a passive agent; it should furnish nothing but the breath. The mouth and the larynx alone are entitled to act.

_On the Tearing of the Voice._

Exuberance of the contained brings on destruction of that which contains it. Tearing of the voice, therefore, should only be associated with an excessive extension of the sound whose intensity, as we have demonstrated, is in inverse ratio to the dramatic proportion.

Number.

The figure 1 is characteristic of unity and measure. The figure 2, which is the measure in the 1, should become subordinate in its greatness and be equal with it. It is another one which gives birth to the idea of number.

The idea of number can only arise from the presence of terms of the same nature. Thus the idea of number cannot arise from the presence of a cart and a toad. We shall thus have two very distinct unities, having no kind of relation to each other. There must, therefore, be equality before there can be number. This is so true that we cannot say of a man and a child that they are two men or two children, because the one is not equal to the other. It is, therefore, from the point of an attributive equality that we are enabled to say: They are two. But we can say: There are two beings, because in regard to being they are equal one to the other. We now understand how two equals one, that the two figures have an equal importance, and that the figure 1 contains exclusively the idea of measure; the figure 2 contains the idea of number, which is not in the 1, this being the characteristic feature by which the two terms differ.

Now, how are we to form a perfect unity between these two equal but distinct terms?

A single operation will suffice to give us the idea we wish, and this operation is revealed to us entire in the word _weight_. In fact, the two terms can only be united by this word. We feel that 1 and 2 give us a common weight, the sum of which is represented by the figure 3. The figure 3 is, therefore, equal in importance to 1 and to 2; it maintains equality in the terms of which it is the representative, and its characteristic feature is equally important with those already described.

Thus to the figure 1 belongs the idea of _measure_; to the figure 2 belongs the idea of _number_; to the figure 3 belongs exclusively the idea of reünion, of community, of unity in fine, which no other figure can reveal to us. We may say: 1 and 1 are equal among themselves, in the unity of the figure 3; or, in other words: Measure and number find their unity in weight.

Medallion of Inflection (Compare Delaumosne, page 119.)

Explanation.--The vertical line 1 (from top to bottom) expresses affirmation, confirmation; 2, the horizontal line, expresses negation. The oblique lines, 3 and 4, from within outward and from without inward, express rejection. 4, an oblique line from within outward rejects things which we despise. 3, a line from within outward, rejects things which oppress us and of which we wish to get rid. 5, the quadrant of a circle, whose form recalls that of a hammock, expresses well-being, contentment, confidence and happiness. 6, a similar quadrant of a circle, an eccentric curvilinear, expresses secrecy, silence, domination, persuasion, stability, imposition, inclosure. The reëntering external curvilinear quadrant of a circle, 7, expresses graceful, delicate things. Produced in two ways, from above downward, it expresses physical delicacy; from below upward, moral and intellectual delicacy. The external quadrant of a circle, 8, expresses exuberance and plenitude, amplitude and generosity. The circular line surrounding and embracing is characteristic of glorification and exaltation.

Examples.

The Nature of the Colors of Each Circle in the Color Charts.

_Red, Blue and Yellow._

Red is the color of life. Indeed, this is asserted by fire, by the heat of the blood.

Blue is the color of the mind. Is not blue the color of the sky, the home of pure intellects, set free from the body, who see and know all things? To them everything is in the light.

Yellow is the color of the soul. Yellow is the color of flame.

Flame contains the warmth of life and the light of the mind. As the soul contains and unites the life and the mind, so the flame warms and shines. [Compare Delaumosne, page 157.]

The Attributes of Reason.

The human reason, that haughty faculty, deified in our age by a myriad of perverse and commonplace minds known under the derisive and doubly vain title of freethinkers, is but blind, despite its high opinion of its own insight. Yes, and we affirm by certain intuition that man's reason is not and cannot be otherwise than blind, aside from the revealing principle which only enlightens it in proportion to its subordination; for, abandoned to itself, reason can only err and must fatally fall into an abyss of illusions.

The melancholy age in which we live but too often offers us an example of the lamentable mistakes into which we are hurried by misguided reason, which, yielding to a criminal presumption, deserts without remorse the principle super-abounding in _life, light_ and _glory_.

To understand such an anomaly, to explain how reason, which constitutes one of the highest attributes of man, is so far subject to error, it is essential to have a thorough apprehension of the complexity of its nature. What, then, is the real nature of the reason so little studied and so illy known by those very men who raise altars in its honor? Let us try to produce a clear demonstration. And let us first say that reason does not constitute a primary principle in man; for a primary _principle_ could never mistake its object. Neither is it a primary _faculty_; it is only the form or the manner of being of such a faculty, and thus cannot be a light in itself. The rays by which it shines are external to it in the sense that it receives them from the principle which governs and fertilizes it. Still, let us say that, although neither a principle nor a faculty, reason is none the less, with conscience, of which it forms the base, the noblest power of man; for this power God created free; free from subjection to the principle that enlightens it; free, too, to escape from it. Yet every power necessarily recognizes a guiding principle to whose service it needs must bow; but to reason alone it is granted to avoid the law which imperiously rules the relations of the harmonious subordination of principiant faculties to their principles. Hence the error or possible blindness of reason; hence also its incomparable grandeur, which lies solely in its free and spontaneous subordination. These principles established, let us go still farther, and penetrate deeper into the mysterious genius of reason.

authorized to define reason. He did it in terms at once so simple, so precise, and of such exquisite clarity, that we may venture to think that reason itself could not have better rendered the terms of its own entity.

This definition, let no one fail to see, contains in its extreme brevity more substance than would fill a voluminous treatise. This, then, is his definition:

_Reason is the discursive form of the intellect._

Now by this St. Thomas plainly establishes that reason, distinct from the intellect, with which we must beware of confounding it, proceeds from it as effect proceeds from cause. Therefore, intellect surpasses reason as its principiant and guiding faculty; and reason only figures in the intelligential sphere, despite the important part it plays in virtue of its adjunctive or supplementing power.

But what is the purpose of this adjunction? Here, in reply to this grave and important question, let us refer to what the same scholar says elsewhere. "Reason arises," he says, "from the failure of intellect." Certainly this is a luminous, and doubtless a very unexpected proposition. From it we learn, on the one hand, that the intellect is liable to defects and consequently to weaknesses; on the other hand, it seems established that the adjunctive power comes to aid the faculty which governs it, since here the subjected is born of the failure of the subjector.

Let us explain this fresh anomaly. We have in the first place declared the preceding proposition luminous in spite of the obscurity into which we are plunged by the consequences which we have derived from it; but, patience! We are already aware that it is from the very obscurity of things that the brightest light sometimes bursts upon contemplative eyes; and since faith is the next principle to knowledge, let us have faith at least in the trustworthiness of him who addresses us, especially as he has given us repeated, unequivocal tokens of sound and upright reason. Let us, then, have no doubt that the preceding proposition contains a precious precept; and very certainly light will soon dawn on our mind.

This settled, and for the better understanding of the meaning attached to this proposition, let us call to our aid the powers of analogy.

If reason arises from the failure of intellect it is doubtless to rectify the valuations of the ego. Now the _compass_, which is in itself very inferior to the hand which fashions it and appropriates it to its own use, nevertheless implies a defect in that hand which directs it. So there is between the eye and the telescope, which comes to its aid, all the distance that divides the faculty from the instrument which it governs. Still the telescope joined to the eye communicates to it a great power of vision; but the instrument arises from the failure of the eye, which is nevertheless infinitely superior to it; for it is the eye which sees, and not the telescope.

It is thus that we must understand the relations of reason and intellect. Let us say, then, that the reason is to the intellect exactly what the telescope is to the eye. This established, we can formulate the following definition as well founded.

The intellect is the spiritual eye whose mysterious telescope reason forms, or: reason is a necessary appendage of mental optics, or again: reason is the glass used by the eye of a defective intellect.

But this is not all. St. Thomas provides us still elsewhere with the means of making our analogy more striking. He says, indeed: reason is given us to make clear that which is not evident. Is not this, as it were, the seal of truth applied to our demonstration? Thus the eye uses the telescope absolutely as the intellect employs the reason, to make clear that which is not evident.

Of course it is plain that if the sight and the intellect answered perfectly to their object, they could do without this adjunct which betrays their imperfection. The intellect would thenceforth have no more need of reason than the eye of glasses.

This explains the fact, so important to consider, that the clearer the mental vision is the less one reasons. The angels do not reason; they see clearly what is troubled and confused by our mind. No one reasons in heaven, there is no logician there, no--Intelligence is immortal, but reason, which serves it here below, will fade away in eternity with the senses which like it do but form the conditions of time.

Divine reason alone will endure because it has nothing accidental, and it is substantially united to the eternal word. It is that reason toward which all blest intelligences will finally gravitate. Hence, we see that what already partakes of the celestial life repels reasoning as a cause of imperfection or infirmity. It is thus, by its exclusion of reasons, that the Gospel supremely proves its celestial origin. It is, indeed, a thing well worth remark, especially worthy of our admiration, that there is not to be found, in the four Gospels, a single piece of reasoning, any more than there is an interjection to be found.

Let us add that faith does not reason: which does not mean, as so many misbelievers feign, that faith is fulfilled by blindness or ignorance of the objects of its veneration. Quite the contrary. Faith dispenses with reason because of the perfection of its sight. It is, finally, because it is superior to reason and sees things from a higher plane. This is what so many short-sighted people cannot see; and, to return to our analogy, it seems to them able to see nothing save through the glasses of reason. It seems to them, I say, that any man who does not wear glasses must see crooked. Keep your glasses, my good souls! They suit short limits of sight. But we, who, thank God, have sound sight, are only troubled and clouded by them.

It is thus that reason, which is given us to make clear what is not evident, frequently obscures even the very evidence itself. We might confirm this declaration by a thousand examples. To cite but one, let us point out how plainly the spectacle of the universe of thought and the idea of a Divine Creator prove that no glasses are required to contemplate God in His works. Well! scientists have felt obliged to direct theirs upon these simple notions, and have thus, _i.e._, by force of reasoning, succeeded in confusing out of all recognition a question sparkling with evidence, so much so that they will fall into such a state of blindness that they can no longer see in this world any trace of the Supreme Intelligence which is yet manifested with glory in the least of His creatures. Consequently, they will bluntly deny the existence of God; but as they still must needs admit a creative cause, they have to that end invented _moving atoms_ and have made from these strange corpuscles something so perfectly invisible that they can spare themselves the trouble of providing public curiosity with a living proof of their theory.

The scientist is born perverted, as was said of the Frenchman who created the vaudeville; and men, too strong-minded and above all too full of reason to give any credence to the mysteries taught by the church, have displayed a blind faith in respect to _moving atoms_. They think thus to set themselves free from what they call the prejudices of their fathers. They find no difficulty in attributing to invisible corpuscles both the plan and the execution of the beings who people the universe.

This is the fine conception attributed to what is called a higher reason--a conception before which bow legions of strong minds. To such a degree of degradation can reason drag man down.

It is, therefore, dangerous to consult the reason in any case where evidence is likely to be called into play. But, before proceeding farther in the course of our demonstrations, a question presents itself. It may be asked what we think of another kind of reason--_pure reason_; for it appears that in the opinion of certain philosophers pure reason does exist. I do not know where they authenticated and studied this species of reason. For myself I confess in all humility that not only have I never seen a pure reason, but it has never even been possible for me to raise my mind to the point of comprehending the signification of pure reason. I greatly fear that some nonsense lurks within the phrase, such transcendental nonsense as belongs to ideological philosophers alone. I know not why, but these gentlemen's pure reason always gives me the sensation of a strong blast of _moving atoms_. In fact, it is not clear; but why require clarity of philosophers and ideologists?

But let us leave these senseless words and pursue the course of our demonstrations.

What we have said of reason is quite sufficient to prevent its confusion with the faculty whose discursive form it is. But this is not enough. We must, by still more delicate distinctions, make any confusion between these two terms impossible.

Reason, although essentially allied to intelligence, is not, like it, primordial in man. Thus God created man intelligent, and consequently susceptible of reason; but we do not see the word reason brought into play in Genesis, because it merely expresses a derivation from the mind or intellect. Reason, therefore, is secondary and posterior in the genetic order. But here to the support of this assertion we have a striking and undeniable proof; namely, that the infant is born intelligent but not reasonable. Intellect proceeds directly from _that true light which shines in every man on his entrance into the world_, while reason is merely the fruit of experience. A proof of the superiority of intelligence to reason is seen in the fact that it partakes of the immutable, and is not like the latter, liable to progress.

Thus the child is seen to be as intelligent as an adult man can be. Let us rather say that it is in the child especially that intelligence displays its brightest rays. Yet he is not furnished with reason. And why not? Because he has no experience. Reason, therefore, is an acquired power, whose light is borrowed from experience or tradition.

Reason is proportional to the experience acquired. Practical reason or rationality is the ration or portion of experience allotted to each person.

Reason is to the mental vision exactly what the eye is to optical vision, and just as the eye borrows its visual action from external light, so reason borrows its power of clear and correct vision from traditional experience. The similarity is absolute.

Suppress light, and vision ceases to be possible. Suppress revelation from intellectual objects, and reason is thenceforth blind.

Between reason and intelligence, although there be inclusion and co-essentiality in these terms, there is a great difference in the mode of cognizance; for, as St. Augustine says, intelligence is shown by simple perception, and reason by the discursive process. Thus, while intelligence acts simply, as in knowing an intelligible truth by the light of its own intuition, reason goes toward its end progressively, from one thing known to another not yet known.

The latter, as St. Thomas says, implies an imperfection. The former, on the contrary, beseems a perfect being. It is, therefore, evident, adds the same profound thinker, that reasoning bears the same relation to knowledge that motion does to repose, or as acquisition to possession. The one is of an imperfect nature, and the other of a perfect nature. Boëthius compares the intellect to eternity; reason, to time.

Yet human reason, according to the principle which illuminates it, offers three degrees of elevation which we will distinguish, for readier comprehension, by three special terms, namely: first, tradition or the experience of another; second, personal experience; third, the reason of things.

Trained by tradition, reason is called _common sense_. Trained by personal experience to the knowledge of principles, reason is called _science_. Trained by the contemplation of principles to the perfection of the intellect, reason is called _wisdom_.

What we call practical reason is based upon the authority of tradition and the lessons of other people's experience in regard to the customary and moral matters of life.

Speculative or discursive reason judges by the criterion of its own experience; thereby inferring consequences more or less in conformity with traditional teachings, and arriving by the logical order of its deductions and in virtue of the principles which it accepts and which it applies to its discoveries, at what we call science.

Transcendental reason pursues, in the effects which it examines, the investigation of their cause, and rises thence to the very reason of things. Wherefore it silences reasoning, enters into a silent and persistent course of observation, consults the facts, examines, studies and questions the principles whence it sees them to be deduced; and, without yielding to the obscurity in which these principles are enveloped, pierces that obscurity by the penetrative force of unremitting attention. Inspired by the standard of faith, it knows that the spirit of God exists at the root of these mysteries. It clings thereto, unites itself thereto by contemplation, and finally draws from this union its _strength_, its _light_ and its _joy_.

Such is the course of wisdom, and such are the inestimable advantages of faith to reason. It is in fact by faith that reason is aggrandized and elevated to the height of the intellect whence it draws its certitude.

Reason believes because it desires to understand, and because it knows that faith is the next principle to knowledge.

Thus the grandeur of reason is proportioned to its humility; proportioned, I would say, to the efforts which it multiplies to forget itself when the truth addresses it. But such is not the method of procedure of "strong minds." They have a horror of the mysteries toward which they are still urged by correct instincts. The fact is, let us say it boldly, they fear lest they find God there.

In these misguided spirits there is so much presumption, self-conceit, self-love, that they are, in the nullity of their lofty pride, a worship unto themselves, an idolatry of their own reason. They have deified it,--that poor, frail reason; and this, while mutilating it, while proclaiming it independent and free from all law, from all principle, from everything definite.

To what excess of imbecility, then, have we not seen these freethinkers fall, these apostles of independent reason, who on principle boast that they have no faith and no law! Thence comes the scorn which afflicts these unbelievers for all who believe and hope here below; thence, their systematic ignorance of fundamental questions; thence, the incurable blindness in which they bask; thence, finally, the inconsistencies and contradictions which make them a spectacle humiliating to the human mind.

But agnostic man labors in vain. He cannot escape the mysteries which surround him on every hand, like a gulf in which reason is inevitably lost so soon as it ceases to seek the light.

Man stumbles at every turn against the efforts of a stronger reason than his own,--the Supreme Reason before which, nilly nilly, his must bow and confess the insanity of its judgments.

Logic is not, to reason, a sure guide; and even where it feels its foothold most strong, it sometimes trips, to the disgrace of the good opinion it had of its own infallibility.

Let us show by a simple example to what rebuffs our reason is exposed when counting on the support of its logic, face to face with the reason of facts.

Undoubtedly it is logical and perfectly in conformity with reason, to say that _one_ and _one_ make _two_. No doubt seems possible on that point. Well, this elementary truth, the most undeniable in the eyes of all men which can be produced, does not, despite the assurances which seem to uphold it, constitute an impregnable axiom; for there are cases when _one_ and _one_ do not make _two_! Certainly such a proposition seems scarcely reasonable, for its admission would entail the reversal of what are called the sound notions of logic! But what will the logician say if I affirm that in a certain case, _one_ and _one_ make but _one-half_? Would he even take the trouble to refute me? No, he would laugh in my face; he would not listen to me; he would tax me with absurdity and insanity, preferring thus to lose a chance of instruction rather than confess the impotence of his logic.

There is the evil, and it is generally in this way that ignorance is perpetuated. But let us return to the fact which we desire to prove, contrary to logic and the pretensions of ordinary reason.

Now, it is logical and perfectly in conformity with reason to say that two musical instruments make more noise than one; and that thus two double basses, for example, tuned in unison and placed side by side, produce one sound of a double intensity. This seems an elementary matter. It is as clear, you say, as that one and one make two. Well, no, it is not so clear as you suppose. It is, on the contrary, a mistake; for attentive experiment proves that the result is diametrically opposite to the logical conclusion.

This is a fact which no argument can destroy. Two double basses, placed in the above-named conditions--conditions of vicinity and tonal identity--far from adding up their individual result, are thus reduced each to a quarter of its own sonority, which in the sum total, instead of producing a double sound, produces a sound reduced to half of that given individually by each instrument taken alone. This is how a power plus an analogous power equals together with it but half a power; and thus we are forced to admit that one and one do not necessarily make two.

I have carried the experiment still farther; in the instrument which gained me a first-class medal at the exhibition of 1854, I was enabled to put thirty-six strings of the same piano into unison at once. Well! All these strings, struck simultaneously, did not attain to the intensity of sound produced by one of them struck singly. All these sounds, far from gaining strength by union, reciprocally neutralized one another. This is not logical, I admit; but we must submit to it.

Logic must be silent and reason bow before the brutal force of a fact to which there is no objection to be raised.

Since we are on the subject of the phenomena of sonority, let us draw another illustration from it, quite as overwhelming in its illogicalness as the former.

When two similar phenomena differ from one another on any side, the discord brought about by this difference is more apparent and more striking by reason of the closer conjunction of these phenomena. By way of compensation the dissimilarity is less appreciable in proportion as these phenomena are farther apart from each other.

This is rigorously logical and perfectly conformable to reason; yet there are cases where we must affirm the contrary. Thus the same sound produced, I will suppose, by two flutes not in accord with one another, forms those disagreeable pulsations in the air which discordant sounds inevitably produce. There seems to be no doubt that by gradually bringing these discordant instruments together, the falseness of their relation must be more and more striking, more and more intolerable. Wrong! For then, and above all if the mouths of these instruments be concentrically directed, a mutual translocation is produced between the two discordant sounds, which restores the accuracy of their agreement. Thus the lower sound is raised, while the higher one is lowered, in such a way that the two sounds are mingled on meeting and form a perfect unison. Now, here are contrasts, which, contrary to all rational data, so far from being exaggerated by contact, diminish gradually, until they are utterly annihilated. Thus, then, given two instruments of the same nature, if the harmony which they effect be true, they enter by reason of their conjunction into a negative state which neutralizes their sonority; while the contrary occurs in the case of false unison. Here the instruments become identical with one another, the sonority is increased and the tonal deviation is corrected to the most perfect harmony.

Obstinate rationalists, what is your logic worth here? Has it armed you against the surprises held in store for you by a multitude of facts inaccordant with your reasonings? Oh, proud and haughty reason, bow your head! Confess the inanity of your ways. Bow yet, once again, and contemplate the mystery whence luminous instruction shall beam for you!

At bottom these mysteries may surprise and baffle a reason deprived of principle; but they are never contrary to it, because they proceed from reason itself, from that Supreme Reason which created us in its own image; and, by that very fact, is always in accord with individual reason in so far as this will consent to sacrifice its own prejudices to it, or listen to its infallible lessons.

But man's reason most frequently heeds itself alone. Thence, once again, arise its infirmities. Thus, what will happen, if, because the truths which I utter here are obscure and do not at the first glance appear to conform to the requirements of logic, you hastily reject them with all the loftiness of your scornful reason, which would blush to admit what it did not understand! Poor reason! which in and of itself understands so little, and admits so many follies as soon as a scholar affirms them. The consequence will be that you will be strengthened in the error which flatters your ignorance. Behold that proud reason which would never bend before a mystery revealed, behold it, I say, bowed beneath the weight of prejudices, which there will be more than one scholar, more than one logician, ready to endorse.

Thus reason will refuse as unworthy itself, all belief in the actions of God or of unseen spirits, the angels, heaven, but will not dare to doubt the existence of _moving atoms_, invisible corpuscles. This is the mental poverty into which the enemies of religious faith unwittingly fall. They pervert that instrument of reason whose true use is to supplement and fortify imperfect intelligence, and misuse it to discredit and overthrow the original intuitions of intelligence.

Random Notes.

Type--Man. Prototype--Angel. Archetype--God.

It is within himself that man should find the reason of all he studies. In the angels he should find the secret of his being: they are his prototypes. Lastly, it is in the Divine archetype that we are to look for the universal reason.

* * * * *

_The Senses._

Taste and smell say: It is _Good_. Sight and touch say: It is _Beautiful_. Hearing and speech say: It is _True_.

* * * * *

Every agreeable or disagreeable sight makes the body reäct backward. The degree of reaction should be in proportion to the degree of interest caused by the sight of the object presented to our sight.

* * * * *

The _soul_ is a triple virtue, which, by means of the powers that it governs, forms, develops and modifies the sum total of the constituent forces of the body.

The _body_ is that combination of co-penetrating forces whose inherent powers govern all acts under the triple impulse of the constituent forces of the being.

The _immanences_ are powers which, under the impulse of the constituent virtues of the being, govern and modify the co-penetrating forces of the body.

The _powers_ govern the forces under the impulse of the virtues.

The _virtues_ are the impulses under the sway of which the powers govern and direct the forces.

* * * * *

Light is the symbol of order, of peace, of virtue.

* * * * *

Science and art form two means of assimilation: The one by means of absorption, the other by means of emanation. The one, more generous than the other, gives and communicates; the other unceasingly receives and appeals. Science receives, art gives. By science man assimilates the world; by art he assimilates himself to the world. Assimilation is to science what incarnation is to art.

If science perpetuates things in us, art perpetuates us in things and causes us to survive therein.

If by science man makes himself preëminent in subjugating the things of this world, by art he renders them supernatural by impressing upon them the living characters of his being and of his soul.

Art is an act by which life lives again in that which in itself has no life.

Art should move the secret springs of life, convince the mind and persuade the heart.

* * * * *

Beauty purifies the sense, Truth illuminates the mind, Virtue sanctifies the soul.

* * * * *

The more lofty the intellect, the more simple the speech. (So in art.)

* * * * *

Accent is the modulation of the soul.

* * * * *

The artist who does not love, is by that fact rendered sterile.

* * * * *

Art is a regenerating or delighting power.

* * * * *

Routine is the most formidable thing I know.

* * * * *

If you would move others, put your heart in the place of your larynx; let your voice become a mysterious hand to caress the hearer.

* * * * *

Nothing is more deplorable than a gesture without a motive.

Perhaps the best gesture is that which is least apparent.

* * * * *

There is always voice enough to an attentive listener.

* * * * *

Persuade yourself that there are blind men and deaf men in your audience whom you must _move_, _interest_ and _persuade!_ Your inflection must become pantomime to the blind, and your pantomime, inflection to the deaf.

* * * * *

The mouth plays a part in everything evil which we would express, by a grimace which consists of protruding the lips and lowering the corners. If the grimace translates a concentric sentiment, it should be made by compressing the lips.

* * * * *

Conscious menace--that of a master to his subordinate--is expressed by a movement of the head carried from above downward.

Impotent menace requires the head to be moved from below upward.

* * * * *

Any interrogation made with crossed arms must partake of the character of a threat.

* * * * *

When two limbs follow the same direction, they cannot be simultaneous without an injury to the law of opposition. Therefore, direct movements should be successive, and opposite movements should be simultaneous.

* * * * *

There are three great articular centres: the _shoulder, elbow_ and _wrist_. Passional expression passes from the shoulder, where it is in the emotional state, to the elbow, where it is presented in the affectional state; then to the wrist and the thumb, where it is presented in the susceptive and volitional state.

* * * * *

Three centres in the arm: the _shoulder_ for pathetic actions; the _elbow_, which approaches the body by reason of humility, and reciprocally (that is, inversely) for pride; lastly, the _hand_ for fine, spiritual and delicate actions.

* * * * *

The initial forms of movements should be--in virtue of the zones whence they proceed--the only explicit, and consequently the only truly expressive ones.

* * * * *

Bad actors exert themselves in vain to be moved and to afford a spectacle to themselves. On the other hand, true artists never let their gestures reveal more than a tenth part of the secret emotion that they apparently feel and would hide from the audience to spare their sensibility. Thus they succeed in stirring all spectators.

* * * * *

No, art is not an imitation of nature: art is better than nature. It is nature illuminated.

* * * * *

There are two kinds of loud voices: the vocally loud, which is the vulgar voice; and the dynamically loud, which is the powerful voice. A voice, however powerful it may be, should be inferior to the power which animates it.

* * * * *

Every object of agreeable or disagreeable aspect which surprises us, makes the body recoil. The degree of reaction should be proportionate to the degree of emotion caused by the sight of the object.

* * * * *

Without abnegation, no truth for the artist. We should not preoccupy the audience with our own personality. There is no true, simple or expressive singing without self-denial. We must often leave people in ignorance of our own good qualities.

* * * * *

To use expression at random on our own authority, expression _at all hazards_, is absurd.

* * * * *

The mouth is a vital thermometer, the nose a moral thermometer.

* * * * *

Dynamic wealth depends upon the number of articulations brought into play; the fewer articulations an actor uses, the more closely he approaches the puppet.

* * * * *

A portion of a whole cannot be seriously appreciated by any one ignorant of the constitution of that whole.

* * * * *

An abstract having been made of the modes of execution which the artist should learn before handling a subject, two things are first of all requisite:

1. To know what he is to seek in that subject itself;

2. To know how to find what he seeks.

* * * * *

Is not the essential principle of art the union of truth, beauty and good? Are its action and aim anything but a tendency toward the realization of these three terms?

* * * * *

We have a right to ask a work of art by what methods it claims to move us, by which side of our character it intends to interest and convince us.

* * * * *

Speech is external, and visible thought is the ambassadress of the intellect.

* * * * *

How should the invisible be visible when the visible is so little so!

* * * * *

One cannot be too careful of his articulation. The initial consonant should be articulated distinctly; the spirit of the word is contained in it.

* * * * *

Two things to be observed in the consonant: its explosion and its preparation. The _t, d, p,_ etc., keep us waiting; the _ch, v, j,_ prepare themselves, as: "_vvvenez_." The vocals _ne, me, re_ are muffled.

* * * * *

_Rhythm_ is that which asserts; it is the form of movement.

_Melody_ is that which distinguishes.

_Harmony_ is that which conjoins.

* * * * *

Let your attitude, gesture and face foretell what you would make felt.

* * * * *

Be wary of the tremolo which many singers mistake for vibration.

* * * * *

If you cannot conquer your defect, make it beloved.

* * * * *

A movement should never be mixed with a facial twist.

* * * * *

Things that are said quietly should sing themselves in the utterance.

Part Sixth.

Lecture and Lessons Given by Mme. Géraldy (Delsarte's Daughter) in America.

Lecture

_Delivered by Mme. Géraldy at the Berkeley Lyceum, New York, February 6, 1892_.

Ladies:

When I made up my mind to come to this country it was not with the object of exhibiting _myself_, but to speak to you of my father. In your country my father is much talked of. In my country, unfortunately, he is forgotten. My father did not write anything--that is a terrible thing! He expected to do so some day, but he always put it off. At last he decided to do so during the war--our unfortunate war! He did not have many lessons to give at that time, for nobody thought of taking any. This gave him leisure to write. His work was to have borne the title, "My Revelatory Episodes." He had only written five chapters when he died. It was to bring to you these five chapters that I came to America. But as soon as I began to speak of them I was stopped. "Why do you tell us this?" they said; "we know all this already." I then discovered that the books written on my father by the Abbé Delaumosne and by Mme. Angélique Arnaud had been translated and published in this country. Mme. Arnaud's book is the better of the two, but it is not practical--not at all practical.

I have gathered together what I remember in the form of lectures, which I offer to you. I have been asked for examples; I shall give you examples. I will begin, however, by giving you a little biographical sketch of my father, and by telling you how he happened to make his discovery. He was the son of a country doctor, a man poor but original. My father was still a very little boy when his father sent him and his younger brother to Paris. There they were apprenticed to a jeweler and made bands of gold. Soon the little brother died, and my father was the only one to follow him to the cemetery. On his way back, after the burial, he fell fainting on the plain. When he regained consciousness he heard music in the distance, and, not knowing whence it came, thought it was the music of the angels. Since then he dreamed of nothing but music; he wanted to hear all he could; he longed to study it. One day he heard two little urchins singing in the street. He asked them: "Do you know music?" The urchins replied: "Yes!" "Will you teach it to me?" "Yes, certainly," and they sang a scale for him. "Is that all there is of music?" "Why, yes."

Not long after, he made the acquaintance of an old musician, who became interested in him, gave him a few lessons, and entered him at the Conservatoire. There he attended the elocution classes, and a role was given to him to learn in which he had to say: "How do you do, Papa Dugrand!" He had no success with this sentence. Each of his four professors told him a different way of saying it, and he wondered: "How is this? Are there, then, no principles to go by?" One day a cousin of his arrived unexpectedly from the country. "How do you do, my dear cousin!" And immediately after this warm greeting he ran away from his cousin, crying, excitedly, "I have it! I have it!" and did not stop until he got to his room and in front of a looking-glass. What he had was the right attitude and way to say, "How do you do, Papa Dugrand!" and this way was diametrically opposed to the instruction his professors had given him on the subject.

My father spent forty-five years in observing. He was the king of observers. What remains to us is but one-quarter of all his observations. My father's method is comprehensive; it can be applied to the arts, to the sciences. His pupils were orators, painters, sculptors, comedians, lawyers, doctors, society amateurs.

My father had read in the first chapter of Genesis that God made man in His image. God is Trinity. Trinity is the criterion of my father.

Raymond Brucker was an old friend of my father's. "What is this method of your friend Delsarte?" was a question often put to him. "Delsarte's method," he would reply, "is an orthopedic machine to straighten crippled intellects."

My father considered man as the principle of all arts. He used three terms to express man: Life, mind and soul. He would compare man to a carriage occupied by a traveler. In front sits a coachman, who drives the horse. The carriage is the body of man; the horse that makes it move is life; the coachman who drives the horse is the mind; the occupant of the carriage, who gives orders to the coachman, is the soul. Man feels, thinks and loves.

My father made use of three terms to express three states: Concentric, normal and excentric. These he would combine with each other. I will show you, for example, the three concentric attitudes of the hand: The concentro-concentric, expressing struggle; the concentro-normal, meaning power; the concentro-excentric, showing convulsion. [_Illustrates._] In the same way we have the combinations of the eyes and eyebrows, and, again, those of the head. The head is concentro-concentric when the eyes look in the same direction as that toward which the head inclines; this expresses veneration. Notice how different the words, "I love him!" sound when said first with the head inclined from and then inclined toward the object.

An interesting series of movements for the arms that my father used to give is the following: "It is impossible;" "It is not so;" "It is improbable;" "Maybe;" "It is so;" "It is evident;" "There is no doubt whatever about it." [_Illustrates._] This series is equally applicable to affirmation and to negation. For example, you can begin by, "It is impossible that it is not true!" and continue with that meaning.

I have been requested to give the attitudes of the feet. I do not like to give them because they are not feminine, and I abhor all that is not feminine. However, as I have been asked for them, and as I wish to prove that my father had also given his attention to their study, here they are: (1) The attitude of little children and of old men, expressing weakness; (2) that of absolute repose; (3) vehemence; (4) prostration; (5) transitory attitude, preparatory to (6) reverential walk; (7) vertigo, intoxication, which is an ignoble vertigo, or familiarity; (8) the alternative between the positions of offensive and defensive; (9) defiance. [_Applause_.] Oh! I beg of you! [_Deprecatingly_.] It is horribly ugly in me; but in a man it is all right.

I shall now speak of the interesting role that the shoulder plays in the expression of emotions. My father called the shoulder "the thermometer of passion." Indeed, the shoulders rise with every strong emotion. If I say, "Oh! how angry I am!" without raising the shoulders, it sounds if not false at least weak; but listen, when I raise my shoulders: "Oh! how angry I am!" Again, if I say, "How I love you!" the words are cold; but, with shoulders raised, listen, "How I love you!" Thus we see actors every day who portray different passions, but whose shoulders remain "cold;" they do not move us.

There is a very pretty observation to make about the elbow. My father called it the "thermometer of pride and humility," and used to call our attention to the different ways the soldiers carry their elbows. You know we have a great many soldiers in France and we have a good, chance to observe them. A corporal--that is, nothing at all--carries his elbows like this [_elbows turned outward_]. A sergeant, whose rank is a little higher than that of a corporal, carries them this way [_elbows slightly drawn in_]. By the time he becomes lieutenant he is used to authority, and does not have to show it off so much [_elbows drawn in still more_]. As for a general, one whose rank is the highest in the army, he walks with his arms hanging naturally at his sides.

Now let me tell you about the thumb. My father being the son and the nephew of doctors, was interested enough in the science to enter, at one time, the school of medicine. Here, while dissecting, he noticed that the thumb of a dead man falls inward toward the palm. This led him to study the attitude of the thumb in life. He would pass days in the garden of the Tuileries watching the nurses and the mammas carrying their babes, noting how their thumbs spread out to clasp the precious burden, and how the mothers' hands spread wider open than those of hired servants; so he called the thumb "the thermometer of life."

My father always used to say to his pupils: "Be warm outwardly, cold inwardly." He wanted them to pass suddenly from one great emotion to another. All great actors do so. He would point to a portrait of Garrick, representing the great actor with one-half of his face laughing, the other half weeping. He himself, in his lessons, after having given expression to some pathetic sentiment, would become immediately his own kind self again. He insisted on self-possession. Often when I was a little girl, and would slip into the room during his lessons, for I loved to listen to them, and would find him portraying some terrible passion, he would stop suddenly, seeing the expression of horror on my face, and would burst out laughing and catch me in his arms, saying: "Poor little one, are you frightened?"

"The artist," said my father, "must move, interest and convince." Gesture is the agent of the heart. Gesture must always precede speech. "Make me feel in advance," he used to say; "if it is something frightful, let me read it on your face before you tell me of it." To illustrate the practice of gesture before speech, I will now recite the fable of "The Cock, the Cat and the Mouse." [Here followed the recitation of the fable.]

My father once held his whole audience under a spell, showing them, through the medium of a little girl of eight, a hundred different ways of saying, "That dog is pretty." I will show you one or two ways If I really think the dog is pretty, I will say it in this tone, "That dog is pretty." If the dog's coat is soiled, I will say in a different tone, "That dog is pretty." And if the dog has rubbed against my dress, there will be a vexed tone, "That dog is pretty!"

My father used to divide orators into "artists in words and artists in gesture." Those who are simply artists in words are those who do not move you. Lamartine said of my father, "He is art itself." Théophile Gautier said of him that he "took possession" of his public.

In 1848 the National Guard was appointed to guard the public monuments. My father, who was a member of the Guard, had his station near an archbishopric. A poor fellow was arrested one day who looked suspicious; he was searched and a chaplet was found on him. The cry arose immediately that he should be drowned. The poor man was being hustled off when my father stopped them, saying that he claimed his part of the punishment, and he drew from his own pocket a chaplet and showed it to them. Oh! my father was kind. He was goodness itself. He was often asked to give lectures at the court, but he would answer: "I do not sell my talent, I give it." He was especially fond of his poor pupils, those who did not pay him; he would often invite them to dine with him.

And now let me show you a series of lines which my father called the inflective medallion. Imagine a circle [_describing a circle in the air with her hand_]. Within this circle a vertical line, a horizontal line, and two oblique lines, all intersecting each other. At both ends of the vertical and horizontal lines are small curved lines, the whole forming the medallion. This medallion contains all necessary gestures. If the vertical line is made from on high downward [Illustration: down arrow], it means affirmation; if made from below upward [Illustration: up arrow], it means hope. The horizontal line means negation. One oblique line means simple rejection [Illustration: top right to bottom left arrow]; the other [Illustration: bottom left to top right arrow] means rejection with scorn, as in a line from Lafontaine's fable, "The Lion's Court:" "The monarch, vexed, sent him to Pluto." The little curve at the top of the vertical line [Illustration: upward-facing curve] expresses ease, repose; it has the form of a hammock. The opposite curve [Illustration: downward-facing curve] means secrecy and mystery. This curve ( means amplitude. The other one, when made in this direction [Illustration] expresses admiration for physical beauty, and in the other direction [Illustration], admiration for moral beauty. The entire circle O expresses glorification. These gestures can be made with the whole arm, with the forearm only, or simply with the waving hand; the degree of expression varies accordingly.

Lastly, I will speak about the law of opposition. The arm and the head should move in inverse directions [_illustrating_]; also the arm and the hand. The statue of the Gladiator is a beautiful example of this law of opposition. He is what we French call "well based;" you cannot overthrow him. In contrast to him, my father used to cite Punchinello, the children's toy, an object of ridicule. Punchinello, when the string is pulled, raises his right arm and his right leg at the same time.

Notice the different ways in which people scold. The schoolmaster moves his head from above downward; the boy threatens back, tossing his head upward.

And now, ladies, I hope that what I have said will move you to take a deeper interest in my father's work, and enable you to understand his methods better than heretofore. I shall then feel, when I return to my country, that I have not crossed the Atlantic in vain.

The Course of Lessons Given in America By Mme. Géraldy

Mme. Géraldy prefaced her course of lessons with the following remarks:

God is Trinity. Man, created in the image of God, bears the seal of the Trinity. In these lessons we shall analyze our whole person. We shall dwell upon three terms: Concentric, normal, excentric. We find them everywhere.

1, excentric; 2, concentric; 3, normal.

|--------------------------------| | | | | | | | 2 2 | | | | | | | | c. c. | | | | | |--------------------------------| | | | | | | 3 3 | | | | | | | | n. n. | | | | | | |--------------------------------| | | | | | 1 1 | | | | | | | | cx. cx. | | | | | | | |--------------------------------|

We will begin with the eye--it is the most difficult.

Lesson I.

The Eye and the Eyebrow.

Concentric Closed. The Eye. Normal Open, without expression. Excentric Wide open.

Concentric Lowered. The Eyebrow. Normal Without expression. Excentric Raised.

Combinations of the Eye and Eyebrow.

Eye. Eyebrow. Expression. Concentric Concentric In tenseness of thought. Concentric Normal Heaviness, or somnolency. Concentric Excentric Disdain.

Normal Concentric Moroseness. Normal Normal Without expression. Normal Excentric Indifference.

Excentric Concentric Firmness. Excentric Normal Stupor. Excentric Excentric Astonishment.

The expressions of stupor and of astonishment are greatly increased when preceded by a quivering of the eyelid (blinking). This should be very rapid and very energetic. Delsarte always insisted on this blinking.

Anxiety calls for a double movement of the eyebrows: First, contract them; secondly, raise them.

Vitality is expressed by raising the outer part of the eyebrows. This accomplishment is very rare; but, then, it is not necessary.

Contraction of the lower eyelid expresses sensitiveness.

Lesson II.

The Head.

Concentric Bent forward. The Head. Normal Upright. Excentric Bent backward.

Combinations of Head-movements.

Concentro-concentric Bent forward and inclined to one side (toward the person): Veneration.

Concentro-normal Bent forward: Examination.

Concentro-excentric Bent forward and inclined to the other side (from the person): Suspicion.

Normo-concentric Inclined toward the person: Tenderness.

Normo-normal Upright: Without expression.

Normo-excentric Inclined from the person: Sensuality.

Excentro-concentric Bent backward and inclined to one side (toward the person): Abandon.

Excentro-normal Bent backward, straight: Exaltation, vehemence.

Excentro-excentric Bent backward and inclined to the other side (from the person): Pride.

It is the position of the eye that determines the expression of the head, for it is the direction of the eye that tells us on which side the object of veneration, suspicion, etc., is supposed to be. The shoulders should be observed here. They are the thermometer of passion; the stronger the emotion, the higher they should be raised.

Lesson III.

The Hand.

Concentric.......... Closed. The Hand. Normal.............. Open. Excentric .......... Wide open.

Combinations of Hand-Movements.

Concentro-concentric Fist closed tight, thumb pressing against the knuckles: Struggle.

Concentro-normal Hand closed, thumb resting lightly against the side of the index finger: Power, authority.

Concentro-excentric Hand open, fingers contracted: Convulsion.

Normo-concentric Limp, fingers turned slightly inward: Prostration.[A]

Normo-normal Limp: Abandon.

Normo-excentric Open, fingers straight: Expansion.

Excentro-concentric Wide open, fingers stretched apart and contracted: Execration.

Excentro-normal Fingers stretched apart and straight: Exaltation.

Excentro-excentric Fingers stretched wide apart and backward: Exasperation.

Lesson IV.

The Arms.

Let the arms swing backward from their natural position, with the palm of the hands turned toward the front; head raised. Say: "It is impossible!"

There is no doubt whatever about it.

Arms at the side in their natural position, palms toward the front; head straight, Say: "It is not so."

Arms slightly forward; head very slightly bent. Say: "It is improbable."

Forearms slightly raised. Say: "Maybe."

Forearms still higher. Say: "It is probable."

Forearms at right angles with upper arms, palms always upward; head bent. Say: "It is so."

Forearms higher. Say: "It is certain."

Forearms still higher (upper arms follow); head bent forward. Say: "It is evident!"

Forearms still higher (by this time the upper arms are horizontal); head bent way forward. Say: "There is no doubt whatever!"

As will be noticed, the head moves in the opposite direction from the arms. The face must express what the words say. The movements of the arms alone, without the expression of the face, do not mean anything.

Lesson V.

Inflections of the Hand.--Combinations of the Arm and Hand.

1. _Acceptance_. Put the arm out naturally, palm upward.

2. _Caress_. Raise the shoulder; bend the head, keep the elbow close to the side; raise the hand as high as the face and, with palm outward, bring it slowly down again as if stroking an object, at the same time raising the head.

3. _Negation_. Draw a horizontal line in the air, the movement finishing in an outward direction.

4. _Self-control_. Arm hanging at the side, hand in the concentro-normal condition, denoting authority, power over one's self.

5. _Authority_. Extend the arm and raise it in front a little higher than the level of the shoulder; then raise the hand, which should be in the concentro-normal state, from the wrist and let it fall again with decision.

6. _Menace_. The arm is kept in the same position, the fist clenched (hand concentro-concentric).

7. _Execration_. Arm extended from the previous position sideward; hand excentro-concentric, palm toward the back; head turned in opposite direction,

8. _Horror_. Arm outstretched in front; hand excentric, palm outward; head thrown back.

9. _Desire_. Arm in same position; hand assumes the normal condition and turns its palm upward; head still thrown back.

These movements should blend one into the other, and should be executed without any affectation. The law of opposition should be observed here; for example: In the ascending movement of the arm the hand falls from the wrist; when the arm descends, the hand points upward.

Lesson VI.

Basic Attitudes.

1. _Weakness_. Feet close together, weight of body on both. This attitude is that of childhood and old age.

2. _Perfect calm and repose._ Rest weight on one foot (settling at the hip), bend the knee of the other leg and advance the foot.

3. _Vehemence_. Move the body forward so that the weight rests on the foot that is in front; the heel of the foot that is behind is thus raised.

4. _Prostration_. Throw one foot far behind the other, with the knee bent and the weight of the body upon it. This attitude, when properly taken, leads to the kneeling position.

5. _Transitive position._ In walking, stop midway between two steps and you have the 5th attitude or transitive position. It is the one that leads to all kinds of walks, and especially to the reverential or oblique walk.

_6. Reverential walk_. Let the foot which is behind take a step forward in this manner: With the toe describe on the ground a semi-circle that bends inward toward you; this will cause the heel to pass over the instep of the other foot. The other foot now takes a straight step forward, and you pause in a respectful attitude before the personage of importance whom you wish to salute. Several steps may be taken in succession before the final pause. The ceremonious step is always taken with the foot you begin with (the one toward the person you salute); the other foot always takes natural steps. This walk is only meant for men, and only on grand occasions.

7. _Intoxication, vertigo_. The feet are planted on the ground and apart. This attitude expresses familiarity.

8. _The alternative_. One foot in a straight line behind the other, the weight of the body on both. This attitude is offensive and defensive.

9. _Defiance_. The weight of the body on the foot that is behind, the other foot diagonally forward; head thrown back.

Delsarte never classed the basic attitudes under the heads of concentric, normal or excentric, any more than he so classed gestures. He simply gave them in the above sequence.

Lesson VII.

The Medallion of Inflection.

"_The Key to all Gestures_"

"'How could I when I was not born?' replied the Lamb [gentle voice]. 'I am still a suckling babe.'

"'If it was not you, then it was your brother' [gruff voice].

"'I have none.'

"'Then it was some member of your family, for--you do not spare me, you, your shepherds and your dogs. [There is no pause after the conjunction _and_ here, as it simply joins together words in a list.] I have been told so [impatiently; the wolf is tired of parleying so long]. I must revenge myself.'

"'Thereupon [lower the voice to fix the attention] the Wolf carried him into the depths of the forest and--ate him [deplore the fact] without further trial'" [voice low].

The Cat, the Weasel and the Little Rabbit.

The palace of a young Rabbit was taken possession of, one fine morning, by Dame Weasel; she is a sly one. The master being absent, it was an easy thing for her to do. She carried her belongings there one day when he had gone to do homage to Aurora, amid the thyme and the dew. After having nibbled, and trotted, and made all his rounds, Bunny Rabbit returned to his subterranean dwelling. Mrs. Weasel was looking out of the window.

"Hospitable gods! what do I see!" exclaimed the animal, who had been shut out from his ancestors' home. "Hello there, Madam Weasel, come out without delay, or I shall notify all the rats in the country."

The lady with the pointed nose replied that land belonged to the first occupant; that a lodging which he himself could enter only on his stomach was a fine subject for war. "And even if it were a kingdom, I should like to know why," said she, "it should belong forever to John, son or nephew of Peter or William, more than to Paul, more than to me?"

Bunny Rabbit alleged the rights of use and custom. "It is these laws," said he, "that have made me lord and master of this dwelling; passing from father to son, it was transmitted from Peter to Simon and then to me, John. Is the right of the first occupant a wiser law?"

"Oh! well, instead of disputing any more," said she, "let us have the matter settled by Raminagrobis Grippeminaud."

The latter was a cat who lived as a devout hermit; a cat whose ways and words were smooth; a pious cat, warmly clothed and fat and comfortable; an umpire, expert in all cases. Bunny Rabbit accepted him as judge, and they both went before his furred Majesty.

Said Grippeminaud to them: "Come nearer, my children, come nearer; I am deaf; it is the result of old age."

They both drew nearer, suspecting nothing. As soon as he saw the contestants within reach, Grippeminaud, the sly fellow, throwing out his paws on both sides at once, caused the two suitors to be of one mind by eating them both up.

Lesson Given By Mme. Géraldy.

[Begin slowly, making frequent pauses] "The palace--of a young Rabbit [a nice little animal]--was taken possession of, one fine morning, by Dame Weasel [a personage with nose and manners sharp]; she is a sly one. The master being absent, it was an easy thing for her to do. She carried her belongings there [without asking by your leave!] one day when he had gone to do homage to Aurora, amid the thyme and the dew. [I do not know if you see the poetry here, but we French people consider this last line one of the loveliest bits of Lafontaine.] After having nibbled, and trotted, and made all his rounds, Bunny Rabbit returned to his subterranean dwelling. Mrs. Weasel was looking out of the window. [Start back in surprise, raise the arms and shoulders high, eyes wide open with astonishment, excentro-excentric; see Lesson I.]

"'Hospitable gods! what do I see!' exclaimed the animal who had been shut out from his ancestors' home. 'Hello there, Madam Weasel [with one arm raised, beckon to her to come down], come out without delay, or--I shall notify all the rats in the country.'"

"The lady with the pointed nose replied that land belonged to the first occupant; that a lodging which he himself could enter only [scornfully; eyes concentro-excentric, see Lesson I.] on his stomach was a fine subject for war! 'And even if it were a kingdom [the weasel talks very fast], I should like to know why,' said she, 'it should belong forever to John, son or nephew of Peter or William [talk very fast, with a great many gesticulations], more than to Paul, more than to me? '

"Bunny Rabbit alleged the rights of use and custom. 'It is these laws,' said he [the rabbit talks slowly], 'that have made me lord and master of this dwelling; passing from father to son [count on your fingers], it was transmitted from Peter to Simon, and then--to me, John, Is the right of the first occupant a wiser law?'"

"'Oh! well! instead of disputing any more,' said she [it is the weasel who disputes; she talks in a high key and very fast] 'let us have the matter settled by Raminagrobis Grippeminaud.'"

The latter was a cat who lived as a devout hermit; a cat whose ways and words were smooth; a pious cat [assert the fact], warmly clothed and fat and comfortable [said with the gesture expressive of plenitude made with both arms [Illustration]; see Lesson VII.]; an umpire, expert in all cases. Bunny Rabbit accepted him as judge, and--they both went before his furred Majesty.

"Said Grippeminaud [the concentric state; take the attitude of one who is wrapped up in himself, head bent, shoulders warped, hands holding each other; hardly unclasp to make the sign of beckoning] to them: 'Come nearer, my children, come nearer; [point to the ears] I am deaf; it is the result of old age.'

"They both drew nearer, suspecting nothing. As soon as he saw the contestants within reach, [prepare the claws] Grippeminaud, the sly fellow [act the following] throwing out his paws on both sides at once, caused the two suitors to be of one mind by eating them both up."

Delsarte's Daughter In America.

By Adèle M. Woodward.

Mme. Géraldy being asked, during her recent visit to this country, what she thought of the system of gymnastics called "Delsarte," said (to translate literally the expressive French): "It makes me jump! And yet you have my father's method," she continued, showing two of the principal works on the subject published in this country.[9] "All that is correct (pointing to some of the charts); what more do you want?"

The trouble lies here: Americans wanted more. They added, they devised, they evolved from the few gestures given by the French master a whole system of movements which they called by his name, and which has become very popular in young ladies' seminaries and young ladies' clubs. The name of Delsarte has been so strongly associated with this system, that to most people the word "Delsarte" without the word "gymnastics" would not mean anything.

Mme. Géraldy came to our country to tell us what the name of Delsarte means. Delsarte never taught gymnastics. His whole life was devoted to the study of the laws that govern expression. His pupils were men of all professions, ministerial and legal orators, actors, singers, etc. "The first half of his lesson," said she, "was always devoted to theory, the second to practice."

Mme. Géraldy is a tall, dark-haired, middle-aged woman, with an interesting face and a charming French manner. She wears mourning for her mother, who died in 1891.

"My mother," she said, "was a remarkable woman; she ought to be as well known as my father is. I would rather my father were not known at all," she continued, "than to be known as he is in your country, that is, as a professor of gymnastics."

She said she had heard of the American "Delsarte gymnastics" while in Paris (Americans passing through the city had often come to her and asked questions), but she had no idea, until she came here, that they were pushed so far. She was quite amused at having dumb-bells given her at one of her lectures in a town in Pennsylvania. "In a gymnasium, as usual," she said, smiling. Anybody who had ever been through the Delsarte gymnastics and afterward followed the course of lessons that Mme. Géraldy gave to a class while in New York, would have been struck by the beauty and simplicity of her father's method, and her clear and direct exposition of it. Here was no affectation. "I abhor all that is affected," she said. There were no intricate convolutions, no flourishes, and, above all, no "decomposing exercises."

An interesting fact to note is that Mme. Géraldy began by teaching her pupils the expressions of the eyes, and when she gave them attitudes or gestures, she always called for the facial expression to accompany them. A woman, well-known in her profession throughout the country, is said to have made the remark that Mme. Géraldy was wrong in beginning with the eyes; she should begin with the feet. Only after showing the possibilities of expression by face, head, hands, arms and shoulders, did Mme. Géraldy give the basic attitudes. She was very patient and painstaking with her pupils, and showed herself interested in every one. She would often pause, while showing some expressive gestures, and say, smiling: "But you Americans do not express yourselves in gestures. You do not 'move' as much as we do." And again, when insisting on the expressiveness of the shoulders when raised ("the shoulders are the thermometer of passion," said Delsarte) she would conclude: "But all this is not American; you Americans do not shrug your shoulders."

In giving the gesture of caress, she quoted her father as saying that the attitude of the hands in prayer is a certain form of caress. In our desire to have the thing we pray for, we clasp our hands together and press them to our bosom as if we already held it.[10]

She was sometimes amused at the numerous questions that were asked her during the lessons. "What searching minds you Americans have!" she would remark, admiringly. "You must know the why and the wherefore of everything. We French people are of much lighter mind and take things more for granted."

During the lesson on basic attitudes, the following question was put: "In the attitude of repose is the mind in a passive state, and in the attitude expressive of vehemence is the mind in an active state?" The simple answer was: "It is the mind that governs the feet and not the feet that govern the mind."

Mme. Géraldy always insisted on the law of opposition in movements, nature's and her father's great law. She gave, for example, an interesting series of gestures, which might be called the ascending scale from doubt to conviction, in which the head moves simultaneously with the arms and in an inverse direction. The figure on page 547* represents the angles made by the arms and shoulders and, at the same time, those made by the head and shoulders to express the accompanying ideas.

Delsarte used to say: "When I am speaking, stop me in the moment of my greatest exaltation, and I defy you to find me, from my head to my feet, in a position contrary to my method."

"Voice-culture for the speaking-voice is not an art that is cultivated in France," Mme. Géraldy said, "What can you do to change your voice? It was given to you by nature; you cannot change your vocal cords."

Mme. Géraldy returned to France, bearing with her the hope that her efforts have not been altogether unsuccessful in making the great work of her father's life better known to Americans, better understood and appreciated by them.

Part Seventh.

Addenda.

Trueness in Singing.

Notes of a Lecture by Delsarte, Taken by His Pupil A. Giraudet, of The National Academy of Music, Paris.

By a most reasonable deduction derived from his admirable principles, Delsarte reckoned three modes or degrees of correct singing:

1. Absolute trueness;

2. Temperate trueness;

3. Passional trueness.

Absolute trueness is that adopted by theorists, who divide the gamut into five notes and two semi-notes; the note into nine commas, or shades of tone; the chromatic semi-tone into five, and the diatonic semi-tone into four.

Thus from C to C# they count five shades of tone; whereas from C to Db they count but four. Likewise, from D to Db they count five shades of tone, and from D to C# but four.

The difference of a comma between the D flat and the C sharp, seemingly a very slight difference, is, nevertheless, most important in singing, as we shall see later on. But performers, to simplify our musical system, have divided this comma into two, making synonymous notes of D flat and C sharp; that is to say, notes having the same sound. The note is, therefore, practically divided into two semitones of four commas and a half. This is what is known as moderation or temperate trueness.

Temperate trueness is defective from many points of view. This is the universal opinion, but we are forced to accept this method by the absolute impossibility of any improvement, especially with the key-board instruments now in vogue; and it must be accepted until some new invention shall revolutionize the piano by modulating its tones, a transformation which would give that instrument not only the musical design, but also the color and warmth which it now lacks.

Let us pass to passional trueness, leaving science to enter the domain of art. "Passional trueness," said Delsarte, "consists in giving each semitone three, four, five, six, or even seven commas, according to its tendency." As we see, the precept is daring, and an inattentive scholar would only have to forget the last words of the definition to make people say that the great master of lyric art taught his pupils to sing false.

Every rule has its reason and its consequences. St. Augustine, who knew the Beautiful, of which art is only the expression, and who could explain it well, has given us a brief but admirable definition of music: "Music is a succession of sounds each calling forth the other." Simple yet profound words! The sounds call each other forth, desire and mutually attract each other, and in every age this attraction has been so clearly evident, that the seventh note in the scale, when it meets the others each of which has its particular name relating to its particular function, tonic, dominant, etc., is simply called the sensitive note, from its tendency to pass into the atonic.

Passional trueness is based upon this tendency of the notes to pass into those which succeed them, and upon this reciprocal attraction of sounds. Thus, notes, which have a tendency toward the acute or shrill, may be raised two commas or more above temperate trueness. Notes which have a tendency toward the grave may be lowered in the same proportion. (Example, taken from "The Prophet," by Meyerbeer.)

Ex. No. 1. [Music] Ah! mon fils

Ex. No. 2 [Music] il re-nia ta me-re

Here, the B may be but two commas distant from the C; and in the second example given, the A flat may also be but two commas removed from the G, and this change far from producing a disagreeable effect upon the ear, will make a most striking impression and the accent will be far more dramatic than before. Try the reverse, that is, divide the interval B sharp-C into seven commas on the semitones A flat-G; it will be unendurable. Whence we may deduce the fact that to sing false is to sing above or below a note in the inverse direction to its attraction.

Delsarte, in his definition, speaks only of the semitone, and we ourselves give examples of that sort of attraction only; but it does not follow that the other intervals are not equally subject to the same law. Their attraction may not be shown by the same effects.

The master added, in speaking of trueness in singing: "The triad is the breathing-place of the tonality; the notes composing it should be absolutely true. They are the singer's invariable and necessary law. They characterize repose. Their office is that of attraction, and they can only be attracted mutually, with the exception of the tonic, which is the centre of attraction not only for various notes, but for the phrase and the entire composition."

Delsarte was very severe in regard to those who sang false; but to sing true was not, to his thinking, a good quality. He said, on this point, that no one would compliment an architect because he had built a house in accordance with geometrical rules. Whence he concluded that trueness is the least of good qualities, and the lack of it the greatest of vices, and he added in regard to style: "The most important quality is expression, and a lack of expression is the least of vices."

Let us add that the application of passional trueness depends upon a thousand conditions of rhythm and harmony, to analyze which would lead us much too far. The artist must make use of it according to his aptitudes and his tendencies, for he must preserve his individuality. He must learn by observation and the study of his own faculties to apply theoretical rules founded upon natural laws.

Practical trueness, while it allows us to depart from legitimate trueness, has strong analogies with the _tempo rubato_. The _tempo rubato_, which Delsarte employed in a remarkable and striking way in dramatic passages, actually permits the musician, in certain cases and in the desired proportion, to change the value of the notes while respecting the principle of time, which is invariable. But the application of these rules is subject to the emotional intensity; it is, therefore, impossible to determine theoretically and absolutely its various bearings.

Delsarte.

[From the _Atlantic Monthly_ for May, 1871, by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.]

By Francis A. Durivage.

It was not until last summer, and then under peculiarly impressive circumstances, that I saw, for the first time, a remarkable man whose name is indissolubly associated with French art--François Delsarte, of Paris. My curiosity had been deeply excited by what I had heard of him. I was told that, after long years of patient toil and profound thought, his genius had discovered and developed a scientific basis for histrionic art, that he had substituted law for empiricism in the domain of the most potential of the fine arts; and when the names of Rachel and Macready were quoted in his list of pupils, I was eager to behold the master and to learn something of the system which has yielded such fruits to the modern stage.

The kindness of a friend procured me the rare privilege of admission to the last session of Delsarte's course, which closed in July. It was on one of those weary summer days when the hush of expectation, following the fierce excitement caused by the declaration of war, had eclipsed the gayety of Paris.

The notes of the Marseillaise had ceased to stir the blood like the sound of a trumpet. The glare and glitter of French chivalry, which had masked the feebleness of the Imperial military system, had vanished. The superb Cent Gardes, the brilliant lancers, the savage Turcos, and the dashing Spahis had been replaced by the coarsely clad troops of the line. It was "grim-visaged war" and not its pageantry that we beheld; heavy guns rumbling slowly across the Place de la Concorde; dark masses of men moving like shadows on their funeral march to the perilous edge of battle. It was a relief to exchange these sad scenes for that quiet interior of the Boulevard de Courcelles, where a little group of persons devoted to æsthetic culture were gathered around their teacher, perhaps for the last time.

The personal appearance of Delsarte is impressive. Years have not deprived his massive form of its vigor, nor dimmed the fire of his eye. His head is cast in a Roman mould; indeed, the fine medallion likeness executed by his daughter might well pass for an antique in the eyes of a stranger. In his personal bearing there is nothing of that self-assertion, that posing, which is a common defect of his distinguished countrymen.

The pupils whom I met were ladies, with the single exception of a young American, Mr. James S. MacKaye, to whom, as his favorite disciple and one designated to succeed him in his profession, Delsarte has imparted all the minutiae of his science. To this gentleman was assigned the honor of opening the _séance_ by a brief exposition of the system, and of closing it by reciting in French a brilliant tragic monologue, the effect of which, in spite of the absence of appropriate costume and scenic illusion, electrified the audience. In this scene, "Les Terreurs de Thoas," those rapidly changing expressions of the features, those statuesque attitudes melting into each other, which we all remember in Rachel, indicated a common origin. It needed not the added eloquence of words and the sombre music of the voice to tell the tragic story of the victim of the Eumenides. After listening to the recitation, I was not surprised to learn that the young student was to appear, under the auspices of his teacher, at the Théâtre Français, during the approaching winter,--an honor never before conceded to any foreigner. The large American colony in Paris was looking forward to this _début_ with a natural pride, and Delsarte with the calm assurance of his favorite's triumph. Alas! we all reckoned without taking King William, the Crown Prince, the Fed Prince, von Moltke, and von Bismarck into our account. We never fancied, on that bright July morning, that Krupp of Essen's cannon and the needle-gun were soon to give laws to Paris. But _inter arma silent artes_ as well as _leges_. Nearer and deadlier tragedies than those of Corneille and Racine were soon to be enacted; and the poor players were summoned to perform their parts upon no mimic stage. However, "what though the field be lost? all is not lost." The _venue_, to borrow a legal phrase, has been changed, but the cause has not been abandoned. Our young countryman has returned to his native land, bringing with him the fruits of his long studies, to appeal to an American audience, and it is quite possible that his teacher may be induced to transfer his school of art to the United States.

Although at this _séance_ Delsarte appeared disposed to efface himself in favor of his brilliant representative, he kindly consented to speak a few words (and what a charming French lesson was his _causerie_!) and to present a specimen of his pantomimic powers. The latter exhibition was really surprising. He depicted the various passions and emotions of the human soul, by means of expression and gesture only, without uttering a single syllable; moving the spectators to tears, exciting them to enthusiasm, or thrilling them with terror at his will; in a word, completely magnetizing them. Not a discord in his diatonic scale. You were forced to admit that every gesture, every movement of a facial muscle, had a true purpose, a _raison d'être_. It was a triumphant demonstration.

The life of this great master and teacher, hereafter to be known as the founder of the Science of Dramatic Art, crowded with strange vicissitudes and romantic episodes, forms a record full of interest.

François Delsarte was born at Solesmes, Department of the North, France, in 1811. His father was a physician, and his mother a woman of rare abilities, who taught herself to speak and write several languages.

Shortly after the battle of Waterloo a detachment of the allied troops was passing through Solesmes, in the midst of a dead and sullen silence, when the commandant's quick ear caught the sound of a childish voice crying, "Vive l'Em-pe-weur! Vive Na-po-lé-on!" Every one smiled at the juvenile speaker's audacity, except the stern officer whose name has, unfortunately, escaped the infamous celebrity it deserved. By his orders, a platoon of soldiers sought out the child's home and burned it to the ground; and thus little François Delsarte became the innocent cause of the ruin of his family.

The atrocities committed during the White Terror, of which this incident is an example, though passed over by history, are not forgotten by the survivors of that cruel period. The leaders in the second terror could not plead the ignorance of Robespierre's followers in excuse of their excesses, for they were nobles, magistrates, priests and officers of rank.

Delsarte's early years were passed in the midst of cruel privations and domestic troubles, for even love forsook a home blighted by poverty. His father, naturally proud and imperious, irritated by straitened circumstances, out of which there seemed no issue, crushed by the weight of obligations to others, lost heart and hope, became morose, sceptical and bitter, and treated his wife and family with such harshness and injustice, that Delsarte's mother was finally compelled to abandon her husband. She fled with her two boys to Paris, hoping there to make her talents available. All her efforts, however, were fruitless, and she found herself on the verge of starvation.

One evening, as she sat with her two boys in her wretched room, tortured by their questions after their father, she could not suppress her tears. François, the eldest, then nine years of age, tried to console her. He told her that he was almost a man, able to earn his food and to take care of her and his little brother. She listened to his prattle with a sad smile, kissed him and embraced him.

During all of the sleepless night which followed, François was revolving his hidden projects of independence, and at gray dawn, confiding his purpose only to his brother, and bidding him tell his mother, when she awoke, that he would soon be back with money to buy bread for them, the child stole forth to seek his fortune in the great dreary world of Paris.

He wandered about all day, and at night, hungry and weary, entered a jeweler's shop in the Palais Royal, kept by an old woman, to whom he appealed for employment--vainly at first. Finally, however, she consented to engage him as a drudge and errand boy, allowed him to sleep in an _armoire_ over the door, and gave him four pounds of bread a week in lieu of wages. Four pounds of bread a week! The allowance appeared munificent, and he accepted the offer with gratitude. A brief experience dispelled his illusions. He was always weary and always hungry. After a few weeks' trial, he left his first benefactress and secured some kind of employment at five sous a day, out of which he contrived to save two. In two weeks he had saved nearly a franc and a half for his dear mother. One day, while executing a commission for his employer, he found his little brother alone in the street crying bitterly.

"How is dear mamma?" was his first question.

"Dead, and carried away by ugly men."

The winter of 1821 was unusually severe for Paris. One night Delsarte and his brother fell asleep in each other's arms in the wretched loft they occupied; but when the former opened his eyes to the morning's light he was holding a corpse to his heart. The little boy had perished of cold and starvation. Almost mad with terror and grief, the survivor rushed into the streets to summon the neighbors.

The next day a little hatless boy, in rags and nearly barefooted, followed two men bearing a small pine coffin which they deposited in the _fosse commune_ of _Pére la Chaise_.

After seeing the grave covered, Delsarte left the cemetery and wandered wearily through the snow, now utterly alone in the world, across the plain of St. Denis. Overcome by cold, hunger, and grief, he sank to the ground, and then, before he lost consciousness, a strain of music, real or imaginary, met his ear and charmed him to a forgetfulness of misery, bereavement, all the evils that environed him. It was the first awakening of his artist soul, and to this day Delsarte believes that it was no earthly music that he heard.

Rousing himself from a sort of stupor into which he had fallen, he saw a _chiffonnier_ bending over him. The man had for a moment mistaken the prostrate form for a bundle of rags; but taking pity on the half-frozen lad, he placed him in his basket and carried him to his miserable home. And so the future artist commenced his professional career as a Parisian rag-picker.

While wandering about the great city in the interest of his employer, his only solace was to listen to the songs of itinerant vocalists and the occasional music of a military band. Music became his passion. From some of the gamins he learned the seven notes of the scale, and, to preserve the melodies that delighted him, he invented a system of musical notation. On a certain holiday, when he was twelve years old, while listening to the delightful music in the garden of the Tuileries, the little _chiffonnier_ busied himself with drawing figures in the dust. An old man of eccentric appearance, noticing his earnest diligence, accosted him.

"What are you doing there, boy?" he asked.

Terrified at first, but reassured by the kind manner of the stranger, Delsarte replied: "Writing down the music, sir."

"Do you mean to say those marks have any significance? That you can read them?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Let me hear you."

Encouraged by the interest manifested in him, the lad sang in a sweet and pure but sad voice the strains just played by the military band. The old man was amazed.

"Who taught you this process?"

"Nobody, sir; found it out myself."

Bambini--for it was the then distinguished, but now almost forgotten, professor--offered to take the boy home with him; and he who had entered the garden of the Tuileries a rag-picker, left it a recognized musician. In the dust of Paris were first written the elements of a system destined to regenerate art. Bambini taught his protégé all he knew, but the pupil soon surpassed the master and became his instructor in turn; for if the one had talent, the other possessed genius.

Bambini predicted the future of Delsarte. One day when they were walking arm-in-arm in the Avenue des Champs-Elysées, the former said: "Do you see all those people in carriages, with their fine liveries and magnificent clothes? Well, the day will come when they will only be too happy to listen to you, proud of your presence in their _salons_, envying your fame as a great artist."

Bambini's death left Delsarte poor and friendless. At fourteen, however, he managed to get admitted into the Conservatoire, where, though he labored hard, he met with harsh treatment and discouragement. The professors disliked him for his reflective nature and persistent questionings which brought to light the superficiality of their acquirements; his fellow-pupils, for his exclusive devotion to study and his reserve, the result of diffidence rather than of _hauteur_. His professors were dictators, who, while differing from each other as teachers, were yet united in frowning upon any attempt on the part of their pupil to emancipate himself from the thraldom of conventionalism and routine. Genius was a heresy for which they had no mercy.

Thrown upon his own resources, he soon developed, by careful observation of nature and a constant study of cause and effect, a system and a style radically differing from those of the professors and their servile imitators.

One day, after having sung in his own style at one of the public exhibitions--applauded, however, only by a single auditor,--he was walking sadly and slowly in the court-yard of the Conservatoire, when a lady and a gentleman approached him.

"Courage, my friend," said the lady. "Your singing has given me the highest pleasure. You will be a great artist."

So spake Marie Malibran, the queen of song.

"My friend," said her companion, "It was I who applauded you just now. In my opinion, you are a singer _hors de ligne_. When my children are ready to learn music, you, above all others, shall be their professor."

These were the words of Adolphe Nourrit. The praises of Malibran and Nourrit gave Delsarte courage, revived his hopes, and decided him to follow implicitly the promptings of his genius. His extreme poverty compelled him at last to apply to the Conservatoire for a diploma which would enable him to secure a situation at one of the lyric theatres. It was refused.

The autumn of 1829 found him a shabby, almost ragged applicant for employment at the stage-door of the Opéra Comique. Repeated rebuffs failed to baffle his desperate pertinacity.

One day the director, hearing of the annoyance to which his subordinates were subjected by Delsarte, determined to abate the nuisance by one of those cruel _coups-de-main_ of which Frenchmen are pre-eminently capable. The next night, during the performance, when Delsarte called, he was, to his surprise and delight, shown into the great man's presence.

"Well, sir, what do you want?"

"Pardon, Monsieur, I came to seek a place at your theatre."

"There is but one vacant, and you don't seem capable of filling that. I want only a call-boy."

"Sir, I am prepared to fill the position of a _premier sujet_ among your singers."

"_Imbécile!_"

"Monsieur, if my clothes are poor, my art is genuine."

"Well, sir, if you will sing for me, I will hear you shortly."

He left Delsarte alone, overjoyed at having secured the manager's ear. In a few moments a surly fellow told him he was wanted below, and he soon found himself with the manager upon the stage behind the green curtain.

"You are to sing here," said the director. "There is your piano. In one moment the curtain will be rung up. I am tired of your importunities. I give you one chance to show the stuff you're made of. If you discard this opportunity, the next time you show your face at my door you shall be arrested and imprisoned as a vagrant."

The indignation excited in Delsarte by this cruel trick instantly gave way before the reflection that success was a matter of life and death with him, and that perhaps his last chance lay within his grasp. He forgot his rags; every nerve became iron; and when the curtain was rung up, a beggar with the bearing of a prince advanced to the foot-lights, was received with derisive laughter by some, with glances of surprise and indignation by others, and, with a sad and patient smile on his countenance, gracefully saluted the brilliant audience. The courtliness of his manner disarmed hostility; but when he sat down to the piano, ran his fingers over the keys, and sang a few bars, the exquisite voice found its way to every heart. With every moment his voice became more powerful. Each gradation of emotion was rendered with an ease, an art, an expression, that made every heartstring vibrate. Then he suddenly stopped, bowed, and retired. The house rang with bravos. The dress-circle forgot its reticence and joined in the tumult of applause. He was recalled. This time he sang a grand lyric composition with the full volume of his voice, aided in effect by those imperial gestures of which he had already discovered the secret. The audience were electrified. They declared that Talma was resuscitated. But when he was a second time recalled, his tragic mood had melted; there were "tears in his voice" as well as on his cheeks.

After the fall of the curtain the director grasped his hand, loaded him with compliments, and offered him an engagement for a year at a salary of ten thousand francs. He went home to occupy his wretched attic for the last time, and falling on his knees poured forth his soul in prayer.

The next day Delsarte, neatly dressed, paid a visit to the directors of the Conservatoire.

"Gentlemen," said he, "_you_ would not give me a recommendation as a _chorister_; the _public_ have accorded me _this_." And he displayed his commission as _Comédien du Roi_.

Delsarte remained upon the lyric stage until 1834, when the failure of his voice, which had been strained at the Conservatoire, compelled him to retire. He continued, however, the study of music, and his productions, particularly a "Dies Irae," placed him in the front rank of composers. At this period of his life, meditation and study resulted in a firm religious faith, which never wavered afterward.

He now applied himself to the task of establishing a scientific basis for lyric and dramatic art, and after years of patient labor perfected a system on which probably his fame will ultimately rest. His _cours_ for instruction in the principles of art was first opened in 1839. From the outset he was appreciated by the highly cultivated few, nor was it long before the circle extended and the new master won a European reputation. Some of his pupils were destined for a professional career; but many, men and women of rank and fortune, sought to learn from him the means of rendering their brilliant _salons_ yet more attractive. Members of most of the reigning families of Europe were numbered among his pupils, and his apartments in Paris were filled, when I saw them, with pictures, photographs, and other souvenirs of esteem and friendship, from the highest dignitaries of Europe. When he consented, on one occasion, to appear at a _soirée_ at the Tuileries, Louis Philippe received him at the foot of the grand staircase, as if he had been his peer, and bestowed on him during the evening the same attentions he would have accorded to a fellow-sovereign. The citizen king recognized the royalty of art. And it may be noted that Delsarte would not have appeared on this occasion, except on the condition that no remuneration should be offered to him for the exercise of his talents.

Malibran, whose kind word in the courtyard of the Conservatoire had revived Delsarte's fainting hopes, attended his early course of lectures. I have already mentioned Rachel and Macready as his pupils. I now recall the names of Sontag, of the gifted Madeleine Brohan, of Carvalho, Barbot, Pasca (who owed everything to Delsarte), and Pajol. He was the instructor in pulpit oratory of Père Lacordaire, Père Hyacinthe, and the present abbé of Nôtre Dame.

Notwithstanding the labor exacted by his great specialty, he has done much good work in various other directions. Among his mechanical inventions are a sonotype, a tuning instrument by means of which any one can tune a piano accurately, an improved level, theodolite and sextant, a scale for measuring the differences in the solidity of fluids, etc.

Of the conscientiousness with which he works, it may be mentioned that he devoted five years to the study of anatomy and physiology, to obtain a perfect knowledge of all the muscles, their uses and capabilities,--a knowledge of which he has utilized with remarkable success.

It is now time to give some idea of his system, which can be done most satisfactorily, perhaps, through the medium of an article which appeared in the _Gazette Musicale_, from the authoritative pen of A. Guéroult. After having analyzed the maestro's theory of vocal art, he says:

"The study of gesture and its agents has been subjected by M. Delsarte to an analysis no less profound. Thus he recognizes in the human body three principal agents of expression, the head, the torso and the limbs, which perform each a distinct part in the economy of a character. Gesture, sometimes expressive, sometimes excentric, and sometimes compressive, assumes in each case special forms, which have been classified and described by M. Delsarte with a care and perspicuity which make his labors on this subject entirely new, and for which I know no equivalent anywhere. Permit me to explain more fully the utility of this study, to cite an application, for examples are always more eloquent than generalities. In the play of the physiognomy every portion of the face performs a separate part. Thus, for instance, it is not useless to know what function nature has assigned to the eye, the nose, the mouth, in the expression of certain emotions of the soul. True passion, which never errs, has no need of recurring to such studies; but they are indispensable to the feigned passion of the actor. How useful would it not be to the actor who wishes to represent madness or wrath, to know that the eye never expresses the sentiment experienced, but simply indicates the object of this sentiment! Cover the lower part of your face with your hand, and impart to your look all the energy of which it is susceptible, still it will be impossible for the most sagacious observer to discover whether your look expresses anger or attention. On the other hand, uncover the lower part of the face, and if the nostrils are dilated, if the contracted lips are drawn up, there is no doubt that anger is written on your countenance. An observation which confirms the purely indicative part performed by the eye is, that among raving madmen the lower part of the face is violently contracted, while the vague and uncertain look shows clearly that their fury has no object. It is easy to conceive what a wonderful interest the actor, painter, or sculptor must find in the study of the human body thus analysed from head to foot in its innumerable ways of expression. Hence, the eloquent secrets of pantomime, those imperceptible movements of great actors which produce such powerful impressions, are decomposed and subjected to laws whose evidence and simplicity are a twofold source of admiration.

"Finally, in what concerns articulate language M. Delsarte has assumed a yet more novel task. We all know the power of certain inflections; we know that a phrase which accented in a certain way is null, accented in another way produces irresistible effects upon the stage. It is the property of great artists to discover this preëminent accentuation; but never, to my knowledge, did anyone think of referring these happy inspirations of genius to positive laws. Yet, whence comes it that a certain inflection, a certain word placed in relief, affects us? How shall we explain this emotion, if not by a certain relation existing between the laws of our organization, the laws of general grammar, and those of musical inflection? There is always, in a phrase loudly enunciated, one word which sustains the passionate accent. But how shall we detach and recognize it in the midst of the phrase? How distribute the forces of accentuation on all the words of which it is composed? How classify and arrange them in relation to that sympathetic inflection, without which the most energetic thought halts at our intelligence without reaching our heart? M. Delsarte has had recourse to the same method which guided him in the study of gesture. He did not study declamation on the stage, but in real life, where unpremeditated inflections spring directly from feeling; then, fortified by innumerable observations, he rearranged grammar and rhetoric from this special point of view, and has obtained results as simple in their principles as they are fertile in their application.

"If I wished to classify the nature and value of M. Delsarte's labors in relation to what has been spoken or written up to this time on the art of singing or acting, I should say that the numerous precepts which have been formulated on dramatic art have had hardly any object other than the manner in which each character ought to be conceived. Ingenious and multiplied observations have been employed to bring forth the delicacies of the part and its unpcrceived features. The intellectual strength of the actor or vocalist has been directed to the author's conception. He has been told to be pathetic here, menacing there; here to assume a slight tinge of irony transpiercing apparent politeness, or, again, to make his gesture a seeming contradiction of his words. Such an analysis of the poet's work is certainly imperative, but how far from adequate! And what an immense distance there is from the intelligence which comprehends to the gesture which translates, from the song which moves to the inflection which interprets! It is with the new purpose which M. Delsarte has embraced that, without neglecting an understanding of the author, he says to the actor: 'This is what you must express. Now, how will you do it? What will you do with your arms, with your head, with your voice? Do you know the laws of your organization? Do you know how to go to work to be pathetic, dignified, comic, or familiar, to represent the clemency of Augustus or the drunkenness of a coachman?' In a word, he teaches the vocalist or actor the laws of this language, of this eloquence which nature places in our eyes, in our gestures, in the suppressed or expansive tones of our voice, in the accent of speech. He teaches the actor, or, to speak more properly, the man, to know himself, to manage artistically that inimitable instrument which is man himself, all of whose parts contribute to a harmonious unity. Hence, aware of the gravity of such an assertion, I do not hesitate to proclaim here that I believe M. Delsarte's work will remain among the fundamental bases; I believe that his labors are destined to give a solid foundation to theatric art, to elevate and to ennoble it; I believe that there is no actor, no singer, however eminent, who cannot derive from the acquirements and luminous studies of M. Delsarte, positive germs of development and progress. I believe that whoever makes the external interpretation of the sentiments of the human soul his business and profession, whether painter, sculptor, orator, or actor, that all men of taste who support them will applaud this attempt to create the _science of expressive man_; a science from which antiquity seems to have lifted the veil, and what appears willing to revive in our days, in the hands of a man worthy by his patient and conscientious efforts to discover some of its most precious secrets."

* * * * *

Delsarte has sought neither fame nor wealth. He could easily have secured both by remaining on the stage as an actor, after he had lost his power as a vocalist. He preferred to surrender himself in comparative retirement to the study of science and art, and the instruction of those who sought his aid in mastering the principles of the latter. To the needy this instruction was imparted gratuitously, and more than one successful actress has been raised from penury to fortune by the benevolence of her teacher.

It would be easy to cite many illustrations of the goodness and tenderness of this man. Religious fervor has largely influenced his life and is the key-note of his character; but his faith is not hampered by bigotry. Like all minds of high rank, he holds that science and art are the handmaids of religion.

I have said that this remarkable man did not seek fame; it has come to him unsought. Pages might be filled with voluntary tributes to his genius from the foremost minds of France,--Jules Janin, Théophile Gautier, Mme. Emile de Girardin. Lamartine pronounced him "a sublime orator." Fiorentino, the keen, delicate, and calm critic, spoke of him as "this master, whose feeling is so true, whose style is so elevated, whose passion is so profound, that there is nothing in art so beautiful and so perfect."

If we hazarded an intrusion into the domestic circle of Delsarte, we should find one of those pure and happy family groups, fortunately for France by no means rare even in her capital; one of those French homes the existence of which nearly all Englishmen and many Americans deny. We should find a bond of sympathy and a community of talent uniting father and mother, two fair daughters, and three brave sons. Or, rather, we should have found this happy gathering, for the iron hand of war has broken the charmed ring. The dear old home on the Boulevard de Courcelles is deserted. Father, mother, and daughters were compelled to seek refuge in the North of France, the sons to march against the Prussians. Let us trust that long ere this they have reached home unwounded, and that the grand old maestro has no further ills in store for his declining years.

Delsarte's Method for Tuning Stringed Instruments Without the Aid of The Ear.[11]

By Hector Berlioz.

Do you hear, you pianists, guitarists, violinists, violoncellists, contra-bassists, harpists, tuners, and you, too, conductors of orchestras--without the aid of the ear! What a vast, incomparable, nay, priceless discovery, especially for the rest of us wretched listeners to pianos out of tune, to violins and 'cellos out of tune, to harps out of tune, to whole orchestras out of tune! Delsarte's invention will now make it your positive duty to cease torturing us, to cease making us sweat with agony, to cease driving us to suicide.

Not only is the ear of no use in tuning instruments, but it is even dangerous to consult it; it must by no possible chance be consulted. What an advantage for those who have no ear! Hitherto, it has been just the opposite, and we forgave you the torments that you inflicted on us. But in future, if your instruments be out of tune, you will have no excuse, and we shall hand you over to public vengeance. Without the aid of the ear, mark you--aid so often useless and deceptive.

Delsarte's discovery holds good only for stringed instruments, but this is much; this is an enormous gain. Hence, it follows that in orchestras directed and tuned without the aid of the ear, there will be no more discords, save between the flutes, hautboys, clarionets, bassoons, horns, cornets, trumpets, trombones, kettle-drums and bass drums. The triangle might, at a pinch, be tuned by the new method; but it is generally acknowledged that this is not necessary, just as with bells, a discord between the triangle and the other instruments is a good thing; it is popular in all lyric theatres.

And the singers, whom you do not mention, someone may ask, will it be possible to make them sing true, to put them in tune? Two or three of them are naturally in tune. Some few, by great care and exactness, may be brought very nearly into tune. But all the others were not, are not, and will not be in tune, either individually, or with each other, or with the instruments, or with the leader of the orchestra, or with the rhythm, or with the harmony, or with the accent, or with the expression, or with the pitch, or with the language, or with anything resembling precision and good sense.

Delsarte has made it especially easy to tune the piano, by means of an instrument that he calls the phonopticon, which it would take too long to describe here. Suffice it to say, that it contains an index-hand that marks the exact instant when two or more strings are in perfect unison. It may be added that the invariable result is so absolutely correct, no matter who may try it or under what conditions, that the most practiced ear could not possibly attain to similar perfection. Acousticians should not fail to examine this invention at once, the use of which cannot be long in becoming universal.

Index.

A.

Abdominal centre, the, life, Accent, Accord of nine, the, Actors, bad, Adjective, the, Adverb, the, Æsthetic division, chart of, Æsthetic fact of first rank, Æsthetics, course of, applied, lay of, Alto voice, the, Anatomy, Angelo, Michael, Angels, the, Anger, Animals do not laugh, Ankylosed limbs, Apollo, the, Appoggiatura, Aquinas, St. Thomas, Archimedean lever, Architecture, application of the law to, Aristocrats lie, Aristotle, Arms, movements of the, five million movements of the agents of the, division of, three centres in the, Art, the true aim of, all, has the same principle, definition of, how Delsarte considered, religious sentiment in, the death of, elements of, the plastic, the grand, the supreme, dramatic, lyric and oratorical, best conditions for a work of, object of, sources of fine, not imitation of nature, Article, the, Articulate language, weakness of, origin and organic apparatus of, elements of, Articulation, in the service of thought, Articulations, the, Artificial breath, Artistic personages, classification of, Artist, the proclivities necessary to an, Art-writings of the Greeks, Attraction, Attractive centres, Attribute, the, Attributes of reason, the, Audience, an, different from an individual--the greater the numbers the less the intelligence,

B.

Bacchus, the, Balzac, Bambini, Father, Barbier, Barbot, Mme., Bass voice, the, Baudelaire, Charles, Baxile, M., Beautiful, the, Beauty exists only in fragments, moral and intellectual, Belot, Adolphe, Béranger, Berlioz, Bizet, George, Blanchecotte, Mme., Blangini, Body, the, divisions of the, retroactive movement of, Boileau, Bonnat, Breathing Brohan, Madeleine, Brucker, Raymond, Buccal (cheek) zone, the, machinery (articulate speech), the language of the mind,

C.

Calculation and artifice, if detected, quicksands to the orator, Canova, Captain Renard, fable of, Captivating an audience, secret of, Caress, the, Carvalho, Mme., Charts classifying celestial spirits, Charts list of, Chastity, concave, Chaudesaigues, Mlle., Chest, the, the three attitudes of, divisions of, Chest, a passive agent Chest-voice, the the expression of the sensitive life should be little used the eccentric voice Chevé, M. and Mme. Children, why are they graceful? Chopin Chorography Chorre, Mother Cicero Circle, the, for exalting and caressing Colin Colors, symbolism of the primitive the three that symbolize the life, soul and mind Color charts, the Concentric state, the Conjunction, the the soul of the discourse Consonants, musical are gestures the initial variation in the value of beat time for the pronunciation of every first, is strong two things to be observed in Contemplation and retroaction Corneille Costal breathing Courier, Paul Louis Cousin, Victor Cries Cros, Antoine Czartoriska, Princess

D.

Dailly, Dr. Darcier Davout, Marshal Death, the sign language of De Bammeville, July De Blocqueville, Mme. De Chimay, Princess Degrees, theory of D'Haussonville, Countess Déjazet De Lamartine, Mme. De la Madelène, Jules Delaunay, Charles Delivery, a hasty De Leomenil, Mme. Laure Delsarte, biographical sketch of criterion of method of took much time in educating a pupil was he a philosopher? lectures of teachings of the press on the discoverer of the law can never be reproduced birth, death, name, early history of how he learned music enters the conservatory theatre and school of becomes a teacher of singing and elocution history of the voice of dramatic career of recitations of sings at the Court marriage and family of religion of friends of the "Talma of music" anecdotes of scholars of "Stanzas to Eternity" of "dear and last pupil" of musical compositions of an instance of the singing of shapeless coat of imitating defects singing during lessons inventions of Berlioz's treatment of before the Philotechnic Association and the four professors last years of a concert of character and merit of "Episodes of a Revelator" of America's offer to return to Paris of last letter to the King of Hanover of struggles with his teachers visit to the dissecting room a pensioner of the conservatory mystical or religious musings of the way of making his discovery is grateful because he had not written his book not spontaneous on trueness in singing Delsarte, Mme., maiden name of beauty and talent of Delsarte, Gustave De Meyendorf, Mme. Demosthenes De Musset, Alfred De Riancey, Henry Desbarolles Descartes Deshayes, M. De Staël, Mme. Devotion Diaphragmatic breathing Dictation exercises Discovery, dawn of Delsarte's Dissecting room, Delsarte's visit to the Divine Majesty, reflection of the Divine reason Donoso-Cortes, M. Donot Dramatic singing Dugrand, Delsarte's struggles with papa Dupré Duprez Dynamic apparatus, its composition harmony wealth

E.

Ear, the most delicate sense Eccentric state, the E flat Elbow, the thermometer of the relative life sign of humility, pride, etc. Ellipsis Eloquence holds first rank among the arts to be taught and learned is composed of three languages does not always accompany intellect Emotions, tender, expressed by high notes Emphasis, example of E mute before a consonant before a vowel Epic, the Epicondyle, the eye of the arm Epigastric centre, the, soul Epiglottis, contracting the Epilogue Episodes of a Revelator Episode I Episode II Episode III Episode IV Episode V Episode VI Episode VII Equilibrium, the laws of Error must rest upon some truth Etruscans, the Evolutions, passional Expiration, the sign of Exclamations Expression, very difficult the whole secret of Expressive centres Eye, the tolerance of Eyes, the the nine expressions of parallelism between the voice and the chart of the Eyebrow, the the thermometer of the mind

F.

Fables, recitation of Face, divided into three zones Fact, the value of a Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Fingers, the Florentine Force and interest consist in suspension Form, the vestment of substance definition of Fourier, Charles Free-thinkers, blindness of French prosody French versification Fright Frontal (forehead) zone, the

G.

Galen Garrick Gautier, Théophile Genal (chin) zone, the Géraldon Gesture, in general is for sentiments its services to humanity reveals the inner man the direct agent of the heart the interpreter of speech the interpreter of emotion an elliptical language division of harmony and dissonance of origin and oratorical value of superior to the other languages is magnetic the laws of must always precede speech retroaction joy and fright require backward movement equilibrium the great law of the hirmonic law of parallelism of numbers of lack of intelligence indicated by many duration of the rhythm of importance of the laws of the semeiotic or reason of the types that characterize its modifying apparatus the inflections of delineation of spheroidal form of the sense of the heart the spirit of the inflection of the deaf a series of, for exercises the static the life of the semeiotic the spirit and rationale of the series of, applied to the sentiments oftenest expressed the, of interpellation the, of thanks, affectionate and ceremonious the, of attraction the, of surprise and assurance the, of devotion the, of interrogative surprise the, of reiterated interrogation the, of anger the, of menace the, of an order for leaving the, of reiteration the, of fright three important rules for how produced dilatory difficulty in object of definition of without a motive Giraudet, Alfred report of Delsarte's lecture Gluck God, the spirit of, in all things how He reveals things a pretext for every Utopia the archetype Good, the Gospel, the, directs investigation Gounod Grace Great movements for exaltation of sentiment Greeks, the, had no school of æsthetics Groans Guéroult, Adolphe Guide-accord, the, of Delsarte Gymnastics, the grand law of organic the practice of

H.

Habit Halévy Hand, the, another expression of the face expressions of the its three presentations criterion of the chart of the digital face the back and the palmar face the three rhythmic actions the, in natural surprise the, in death attitudes of the in affirmation the nine physiognomies of Handel Harmony Harmony, born of contrasts is in opposition Head, the, movements of the occipital, parietal and temporal zones the primary agent of movement action of, in surprise which side is for the soul and which for the senses? attitudes of Head voice, the how produced interprets mental phenomena the concentric voice Heart, when to carry the hand to the Hegel Hervet High head, small brain Hippias Hoffman Horace Hugo Humanity is crippled Human reason Human science, the alpha and omega of Human triplicity, the Human word composed of three languages

I.

Ideal, the Imitation, the melody of the eye uselessness of Immanences, the Impressionalism Impressions and sensations Individual type, how formed Infant, the, has neither speech nor gesture Infinitesimal quantities Inflection, a modification of sound their importance illustrations of rules of must not be multiplied special life revealed through four millions of the melody of the ear the gesture of the blind differentiating the high life of speech medallion of Ingres Inspiration, when allowable the sign of Interjection, the Interpellation Interrogative surprise Intonations, caressing Italian, no two equal sounds in

J.

Jacob, Mlle. Jacotot Jesus of Nazareth Joncières Joy, the greatest in sorrow Joys, keen

K.

Kant King of Hanover Delsarte's last letter to the King Louis Philippe Kreutzer

L.

Lablache Laboring men, the ways of Lachrymose tone disgusting Lacordaire La Fontaine La Harpe Lamaitre, Frederick Lamartine Lamentation Language Laocoon, the Larynx, the coloring of lowering the the thermometer of the sensitive life Larynxes, artificial Latin prosody Laugh, signification of the its composition Law, definition of application of the, to various arts Legouvé Legs, the, and their attitudes Leibnitz Leroux, Pierre Liars do not elevate their shoulders Life, the sensitive state principal elements of the phenomena of Light Lind, Jenny Literary remains of Delsarte Literature, the law applied to Littré's Dictionary Logic often in default Longus Louvre, false pictures in the Love gives more than it receives Lovers, the gaze of Loyson, Father Lucht, Auguste Lully Lungs, the Lyric art

M.

Malherbe Malibran Man the three phases of either painter, poet, scientist, or mystic three types in the object of art a triplicity of persons the agent of Æsthetics when a man shrinks unfamiliar to himself Marcello Marie, Franck Mars Martellato Massenet Materialism Measure in oratorical diction Medallion of inflection Mediocrity Medium voice, the expression of moral emotions the normal voice Melody Menace, the head and hand Mengs Mental or reflective state Mercié Mind, the intellectual state Mode simpliste Modest people turn out the elbow Mohere Monsabre, Father Moral or affective state Mother, the voice of the Mother vowel, the Motion, distinction and vulgarity of Mouth, the no contraction of back part openings of, for various vowels a vital thermometer Movements from various centres flexor, rotary, and abductory initial forms of Mucous membrane, transmitter of sound Muscular machinery (gesture), the language of emotion Music, the seven notes of a succession of sounds Musset

N.

Napoleon III Nasal cavities, the Naturalism Ninefold accord, the Normal state, the Nose, a complex and important agent nine divisions of Nose, a moral thermometer Notes, high, for tender emotions Nourrit, Adolph Number

O.

Occipital zone, the life Ontology Opposition of agents Orator, the, should be a man of worth Oratorical sessions Oratory, definition of the science of, not yet taught the essentials the fundamental laws of the criterion of the student of, should not be a servile copyist three important rules for the student of symbolism of colors applied to perseverance and work necessary to the student of Order for leaving, an Organic chart

P.

Painter, how a, examines his work Painting, application of the law to Palate, the Pantomime, secrets of Parietal zone, the soul Particle, the Pasca, Mme. Passion of signs Passive attitude, the type of energetic natures Pasta, Mme. People, vulgar and uncultured Pergolesi Phenomena, natural, contain lessons Phidias Philotechnic Association Physiology Plato Poe, Edgar A. Poets are born, orators are made Poise lack of, in body Powers, the Praxiteles Preacher, a, must not be an actor Preposition, the Pricette, Father Principiants and principiates Processional relations, theory of reversal of Professors, Delsarte and the four Progressions Pronoun, the Pronunciation Proudhon Pythagoras

Q.

Quintilian

R.

R, cure of the faulty Rachel Racine Rainbow, the the colors of Rameau Random notes Raphael's picture of Moses, a fault in Ravignan Reaction Realism Reason a blind faculty an act of faith the attributes of Reber Reboul Recitative Reiterated interrogation Reiteration Respect, a sort of weakness Respiration suppressing the and silence three movements of multiplied to facilitate vocal, logical, passional Respiratory acts, their signification Retroaction Reverence, the sign of Reynaud, Jean Rhythmus Romagnesi Rossini Roulade Routine Royer, Mme., Clémence

S.

St. Augustine St. Saens St.-Simonism St. Thomas Salutation, the sign of Sand, George Schiller Science, bases of the and art Scientists, cause of the failure of Sculptor, aims of the Sculpture, application of the law to Semeiotics of the shoulder Senses, the Sensibility, thermometer of Sensitive nature betrayed by voice Sensitive or vital state Sensualism, convex Sensuality Sentiment Shades and inflections Shakespeare Shoulder, the thermometer of love the sensitive life the sign of passion action of, in surprise thermometer of emotions semeiotics of in the aristocratic world Sigh, the Signs of passion Silence, the father of speech the speech of God the rule of Simplisme Sincerity intolerable Singing Sob, the Societies, meeting of the learned Socrates Sontag, Mme. Soprano voice, the Sorbonne, the Soul, the moral state Souhe, Frederic Sound, the first language of man revelation of the sensitive life is painting should be homogeneous every sound is a song the sense of the life reflection of divine image Souvestre, Emile Speech the omnipotence of inferior to gesture anticipated by gesture the sense of the intelligence the three agents of oratorical value of soul of visible thought Spontini Standard, value of a Subject, the Subjectivity in Æsthetics Substantive, the Sue, Eugene Sully-Prudhomme Surprise and assurance System

T.

Talma Teachers, ignorance of the Tears, accessory matters to be shed only at home Temporal region, the mind Tenderness Tenor voice, the Thanks, affectionate and ceremonious Thermometers, the three the articular arm centres called Thermometric system of the shoulder Theresa Thoracic centre, the mind Threatening with the shoulder Thumb, the thermometer of the will has much expression the sign of life the, in death living mimetics of the thermometer of life and death Thyrcis Tone, position of Tones, the lowest, best understood prologation of Torso, the, divisions of chart of "Treatise on Reason" Tremolo, the Trinitarians, the Trinity, the the holy, recovered in sound True, the Trueness in singing Truth, men are divided in regard to Types, the, in man Typical arrangements phrases

U.

Uchard, Mario Ugly, the Uprightness, perpendicular Uvula, raising the

V.

Values, the law of resume of the degrees of Verb, the Verdi Véron, Eugene Vertebrae, three sorts of Vice, hideousness of Vicious arrangements Violent emotion, in, the voice stifled Virtues, the Vision, three sorts of Vital breath Vocal cords, fatiguing the Vocal music Vocal organ, the Vocal shades, law of Vocal tube, the, must not vary for a loud tone Voice, the charms of organic apparatus of a mysterious hand the kinds of the registers of meaning of the high and deep the language of the sensitive life the chest, the medium, the head the white dimensions and intensity of how to obtain a stronger three modes of developing method of diminishing the less the emotion, the stronger the how to gain resonance a tearful, a defect the tremulous, of the aged the rhythm of its tones must not be jerky inflections of great affinity between the arms and the exercises for the mixed tenuity and acuteness of shades of definition of the shading of the pathetic effects in the tearing of the two kinds of loud Voltaire Volubility, too much Vowels correspond to the moral state length of the initial

W.

Wartel Weight "What I Propose" Will, the Winkelmann Wisdom Wolf and the lamb, the fable of the Words, the value of, in phrases dwelling on the final Worlds, three, presented Wrist, the thermometer of the physical life Writing, a dead letter

Z.

Zaccone, Pierre Zeuxis Zola, M.

Footnotes

[1] The sensitive is also called the vital, the mental, the reflective, and the moral the affective state. The vital sustains, the mental guides, the moral impels.--TRANSLATOR.

[2] The registers here given undoubtedly refer to the singing voice, as the range of notes in the speaking voice is very much more limited. Very frequently voices are found whose range in singing is very much greater than that which the author has given here; however, on the other hand, many are found with even a more limited range.--TRANSLATOR.

[3] The sounds here given are those of the French vowels.

_A_ has two sounds, heard in _mat_ and _far_. _E_ with the acute accent (é) is like _a_ in _fate_, _E_ with the grave accent (è) is like _e_ in _there_. _I_ has two sounds--the first like _ee_ in _reed_, the second like _ee_ in _feel_. _O_ has a sound between that of _o_ in _rob_ and _robe_. _O_ with the circumflex (ô) is sounded like _o_ in _no_. The exact sound of _u_ is not found in English. _Ou_ is sounded like _oo_ in _cool_. The nasal sound _an_ is pronounced nearly like _an_ in _want_. The nasal _in_ is pronounced somewhat like _an_ in _crank_. The nasal _on_ is pronounced nearly like _on_ in _song_. The nasal _un_is pronounced nearly like _un_ in _wrung_.

Consult some work on French pronunciation, or, as is far preferable, learn these sounds from the living voice of the teacher--Translator.

[4] From [Greek: geneiou], the chin.

[5] Many of these papers were entrusted by the family to a former pupil of Delsarte, who took them to America.

[6] Notes taken by his pupils, during the latter years of his lessons prove that the master touched upon this question. I do not copy them because, being somewhat confused, they might give rise to misunderstandings; neither do they in any way contradict anything that I have said above; they confirm, on the contrary, what remains in my memory of the interpretation of Delsarte, who never belied himself.

[7] The existence of the persons of the Trinity, the one in the other. These charts and diagrams are given in Part Fifth.

[8] For a fuller report of this lecture, see "Delsarte System of Expression," by Genevieve Stebbins, second edition, $2. Edgar S. Werner, Publisher, 48 University Place, New York.

[9] "Delsarte System of Oratory" and "Delsarte System of Expression."

[10] See page 549 for complete lesson.

[11] This extract shows that Delsarte was not unknown to Berlioz. Mme. Arnaud refers to the coldness with which Berlioz treated Delsarte. The article given here has been translated so as to preserve as nearly as possible the quaint, half sarcastic style of the author.--PUBLISHER.