vice.
To his mind, all misers were not the same miser, nor all seducers the
same seducer. In singing particularly, with what art Delsarte used the
inflection!

_On Vocal Music._

In regard to lyric art especially, Delsarte had his peculiar and
personal theories. Singing was not to him merely a means of displaying
the singer's voice or person; it was a superior language, charged with
the rendition, in its individual charm, of all the greatest creations of
literature and poetry; all the sweet, tender, or cruel sentiments
possible to humanity.

This exceptional singer attained his effects partly by means of certain
modifications of the rhythm, which caused inattentive critics to say:
"Delsarte does not observe the measure." What they themselves failed to
note, was that the first beat was always given firmly; and that it was
in the divisions of one measure, and by subtle compensations, that he
made the difference. Far from having cause for complaint, the composer
gained thereby, a more clear expression of his thought, a more
persuasive expansion of his sentiment, and the respiration appeared more
easy. It was something similar--with a greater value--to that personal
punctuation with which skilful readers often divide the text which they
translate.

It was particularly in recitative, the style, moreover, least subject to
precise laws, that Delsarte used this license; and it was in this style
that he especially excelled.

And is it not in what remains unwritten that the singer's true greatness
is revealed? What dilettante has not felt the power of a more incisive
attack of the note; of that prolongation of the note, held
imperceptibly, which, having captured it, holds the attention of the
listener?

But, to hear these things, it is not necessary, as the saying is, "to
bestride _technique_." In so far as the training of the voice is
concerned, Delsarte gave himself a scientific basis. He was the first to
think that it would be well to know the mechanism of the organ, that it
might be used to the best advantage, both by avoiding injurious methods
of exercising it, and by aiding the development of the tone by
appropriate work.

In his rooms were to be seen imitations of the larynx--in pasteboard--of
various sizes. His pupils, it seems to me, could profit but little by
these far from pleasing sights. At the utmost it increased their
confidence in the man who desired an intimate acquaintance with
everything relat