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."