There was a shout: "The fourth! the fourth!"
"Well, gentlemen, the fourth, like the other three, claimed that his was the only correct style: I made no distinction between verse and prose, thus following the false method recently established by the Théâtre-Français. To his mind the cadence of the verse and the euphonic charm should outweigh every other interest. The pauses which I made destroyed its measure. I had no idea of caesura, my gestures destroyed its harmony, etc., etc. His pedagogic manner had nothing in common with that of his brethren."
This episode was not a mere witticism on Delsarte's part; he intended it to prove his constant assertion--and with persistent right,--that previous to his discovery, art, destitute of law and of science, had had none but chance successes.
Delsarte closed this session by a summary of the law and the science which I have set forth in this book; but I must say it was at this moment especially that he seemed anxious that his religious convictions should profit by his artistic wealth; all outside the sphere of rational demonstration is treated from a lofty standpoint, it is true, and is freed from the commonplaceness of the letter, but we can recognize none but a poetic and literary merit in it.
It is to this latter period of his existence that many will doubtless try to fasten the synthesis of this great personality; but if any one wishes to gain an idea of François Delsarte, of his ability, the extent of his views, the power of his reason, the graces of his mind, his artistic perfection, it is in his law, in his science, in the memories which his lectures and his concerts left in the press of the time, that such an one must seek to understand him.
Chapter XIX.
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: