“Why?

“Because life and mind are one and the same soul; soul and mind are one and the same life; life and soul are one and the same mind.”

Chapter IV.

Course of Applied AEsthetics.

Meeting of the Circle of Learned Societies.

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

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

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

Theory of the Degrees.

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

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

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