wledge which Delsarte has left us, to
classify artistic personages as physical, intellectual and moral or
sentimental types; and, in the same category, to differentiate those
belonging to the concentric state from those falling more particularly
into the eccentric or normal states: the Don Juans, Othellos, Counts
Ory, etc. Delsarte, in practice, excelled in characterizing these shades
of difference.

These prolegomena would not perhaps alone suffice to give this teacher a
claim to the title of creator of a science. Although they give the
theory of the system, they are far from containing all its developments.
But Delsarte did not stop here.

In appropriate language--wherein new words are not lacking for the new
science--he takes apart each of the agents of the organism, enumerated
above; he examines them in their details, and assigns them their part in
the sensitive, moral, or intellectual transmission with which they are
charged. Thus gesture--the interpreter of sentiment--is produced by
means of the head, torso and limbs; and in the functions of the head are
comprised the physiognomic movements, also classified and described,
with their proper significance, such as anger, hate, contemplation,
etc.,--and the same with the other agents.

Each part observed gives rise to a special chart, where we see, for
instance, what should be the position of the eye in exaltation,
aversion, intense application of the mind, astonishment, etc. The same
labor is given to the arms, the hands and the attitudes of the body,
with the mark, borrowed from nature, of the slightest movement, partial
or total, corresponding to the sensation, the sentiment, the thought
that the artist wishes to express.

I hope that these works may yet be recovered entire, for the master was
lavish of them, and that they may be given to the public.[5]

An exact science at first sight appears contradictory to art. Will it
not diminish its limits, * * * trammel its transports? Will it not prove
hostile to its liberty at every point? * * * Will it not check the
flights of its graceful fancy, its adorable caprice?

No, indeed! as I said in regard to the ideal, the theories of Delsarte,
far from hampering the free expansion of art, do but enlarge its
horizons, and prepare a broader field for its harmonies. They leave
freedom to the opinions most difficult of seizure, the most unforeseen
creations; because, responding to every faculty of being, this science,
whi