"You sleep!" said the master.
"Come, lady fair!" exclaimed another singer.
"If you call her in that voice, you may believe that she will never come!"
"Don't make a public-crier of your Achilles," said the master to some one with a rich organ, given over to its own uncultivated power.
All three smiled. The one tried to die more fitly; the other to call his lady fair in more seductive accents. The petulant outburst of the master taught them more than many a long dissertation.
Delsarte made great use of his power of imitating a defect; he even exaggerated it so that the scholar, seeing it reflected as in a magnifying-glass, more readily perceived his insufficiency or his exaggeration.
If this mode of procedure was somewhat trying to sensitive vanity, it was easy to see its advantages. The master's censure, moreover, was of that inoffensive and kindly character which is its own justification. It was a criticism governed by gaiety. Delsarte laughed at himself quite as readily as at the ridiculous performances which he caricatured, if opportunity offered. And if by chance any pupil less hardened to these assaults was intimidated or distressed, consolation was quick to follow.
I remember that a young girl gave rise to one of these striking imitations. Delsarte put such an irresistible comedy into it, that the audience was seized with an uncontrolable fit of mirth. The master's mimicry had far more to do with this than the poor girl's awkwardness. But she did not understand this. Her heart sank at this harsh merriment and tears rushed to her eyes.
"What is the matter," asked Delsarte; "why are you so disturbed? Among the persons whose laughter you hear, I do not think there is one who sings as well as you do! I exaggerated your mistake to make you aware of it; but you did your work in a way that was very satisfactory to all but your teacher."
Speaking of this irony tempered by mercy, I recollect that Delsarte, after a great success, was once complimented by the singer P., whose popularity far exceeded that of the "lyric Talma."