In any event, be persevering.  Novitiate and apprenticeship in any profession, are difficult.  In every state the bitterness of trial is to be expected.  To arrive at initiation has its joys, to arrive at perfection is a joy supreme.  Beneath the rind of this mechanism, this play of organs, dwells a vivifying spirit.  Beneath these tangible forms of art, the Divine lies hidden, and will be revealed.  And the soul that has once known the Divine, feels pain no longer, but is overwhelmed with joy.

Art is the richest gift of heaven to earth.  The true artist does not grow old; he is never too old to feel the charm of divine beauty.  The more a soul has been deceived, the more it has been chastened by suffering, the more susceptible it is to the benefits of art.  This is why music soothes our sorrows and doubles our joys.  Song is the treasure of the poor.

Return, then, with renewed enthusiasm to your work!  The end is worth the pains.  The human organism is a marvelous instrument which God has given for our use.  It is a harmonious lyre, with nine chords, each rendering various sounds.  These three chords for the voice, and three for both gesture and speech, have their thousand resonances at the service of the life, the soul and the mind.  As these chords vibrate beneath your fingers, they will give voice to the emotions of the life, to the jubilations of the heart and the raptures of the mind.  This delightful concert will lend enchantment to your passing years, throwing around them all the attractions of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

We may well salute the three Graces and the nine Muses as gracious emblems, but it is far better to discern in art, the reflected image of the triple celestial hierarchy with its nine angel choruses.

Honor, then, to the fine arts!  Glory to eloquence!  Praise to the good man who knows how to speak well!  Blessed be the great orator!  Like our tutelary angel, he will show us the path that conducts or leads back to God.

Part Fourth.

Arnaud on Delsarte.

The Delsarte System.

By

Angelique Arnaud, (Pupil of Delsarte).

Translated by Abby L. Alger.

Chapter I.

The Bases of the Science.

Delsarte published no book upon art.  The bases of the science which he created are contained in a synthetical table.  Other tables develop each branch of it considered separately.

Starting from an undeniable law—­that which regulates the constitution of man,—­Delsarte applies it to aesthetics; he designates man as “the object of art,” and groups in series the organic agents that co-operate in the manifestation of human thought, sentiment and passion; declaring the purpose of these manifestations, now become artistic, to be the amelioration of our being by throwing into relief and light the splendors of moral beauty and the horrors of vice.