I give also some statements from the Journal des Debats (May 10, 1859).  Though in the following the word “law” does not appear, it bears interestingly upon the relations of the ideas and expressions under consideration.  The quotation is:—­

“The audience was charmed and instructed.  It applauded the new definitions.  It divined the essence of each art, and comprehended that the various manifestations of art are classified according to the classifications of the human faculties.  It knows why each passion produces each accent:  ’because the accent is the modulation of the soul,’ and why a given emotion produces a given expression of the face, gesture and attitude of the body.”

When we allow that “the classifications of the manifestations of art are made according to those of the human faculties,” do we not also allow that they are derived from one law?

Thus the fiat lux ("let there be light”) is pronounced.  Art departs from chaos, escapes from anarchy; it acts no longer only for the so-called artist, but also for the actor and singer, whom we are now to consider.  Art has to do with the pose of the body, a graceful carriage, distinct pronunciation and an unconscious command of dramatic effects.  For a tenor to phrase agreeably, vocalize skilfully, giving us resonant chest-tones, no longer suffices to gain for him the title of great singer.

The followers of art should be able, before and above all, to portray humanity in its essential truth, and according to the original tendency of each type.  Mannerism and affectation should forever be proscribed—­unless they are imitated as an exercise—­but all the excellence that chance has produced up to the present time should be incorporated in the new science.

Moreover, by referring to a law the occasional successes which come to one, it becomes possible to reproduce them at will.

The essential point is to get back to the truth, to express the passions and emotions as nature manifests them, and not to repeat mechanically a series of conventional proceedings which are violations of the natural law.  “Effects should be the echoes of a situation clearly comprehended and completely felt,”—­such was the import of this teaching.

One of the great benefits arising from the discoveries of Delsarte is the reconciliation of freedom and restraint.  If it bind the artist by determinate rules, it is in order to free him from routine, to recall him to the general law of being and of his own individuality.  It is in order that he may study himself, in the place of submitting to arbitrary prescriptions.  In such study every marked personality will find itself in its native element.

As for those who have no vocation, and in whom the “ego” distinguishes itself so little from the multitude that it remains lost in it, it is best that they should withdraw, since they are not called.  They have in view only vanity or speculation, and must always be intruders in the sacred temple of art.