was as follows: When a silent syllable is
immediately followed by a word beginning with another vowel, the E mute
(by a prolongation of the sound of the penultimate) is suppressed with
the next letter. Thus in the aria of _Joseph_ (opera by Mehu):

"_Loin de vous a langui ma jeune.. sexilee;_" and in _Count Ory: "Salut,
o venera ... blermite._"

In these cases, by an unfortunate spirit of compensation, the abettors
of the innovation, suppressing the grammatical elision, sing thus:

"_Loin de vous a langui ma jeune ... ess'exilee."
"Salut, o venrera ... abl'erm ... it!_"

Littre's Dictionary gives us the same pronunciation as Delsarte; and his
written demonstration is even more positive. We find _favorables
auspices, arbres abattus_, written in this way:
"_fa-vo-ra-ble-z-auspices, arbre-z-abattus._"

It is, however, very difficult to express these differences exactly, in
type: what Littre expresses _radically_ by typographic characters, is
blended with most natural delicacy by the voice of a singer.

Thus, according to Delsarte, the E mute of a final syllable should be
suppressed before a vowel, on condition of a prolongation of the sound,
in harmony with the penultimate syllable.

According to Delsarte again, according to Voltaire, according to Littre,
the E mute is weakened, more or less, but never completely suppressed,
before a consonant.

Finally Legouve, whose voice is preponderant in these matters, whose
books are in the hands of the whole world, has never entered into this
_lettricidal_ conspiracy.

I hope to be pardoned this long digression, thinking it my duty to
protest against such a ludicrous method of treating French prosody; I do
so both in the name of aesthetics and as a part of my task as biographer
of Delsarte.[6]

Chapter III.

Was Delsarte a Philosopher?

If we consider philosophy in the light of all the questions upon which
it touches, the subjects which it embraces, we must answer "No;" but if
we concentrate the word within the limits of aesthetics, we may reply in
the affirmative. Did not Delsarte point out the origin of art, its
object and its aim?

Not that this master never exceeded the limits of his science and his
method. He had sketched out a "Treatise on Reason," and had begun to
classify the faculties of being, entering into the subject more
profoundly than the categories of Kant; but all this only exists in mere
outline, in a technology whose terms have