practice these valuable precepts--the
criterion to establish their truth, the touchstone which may distinguish
the pure gold--does not appear! In default of these means of certitude,
each may, according to his instinct or his pride, insist that he has
fulfilled the conditions prescribed by the author of the _Lutrin_, and
judge his rivals by the sole authority of his prejudices.

La Harpe and his followers have distributed praise and blame, and at the
same time said _what_ should be done, but they have given no _how_.

More grievous still are the meanderings of the critics of our public
journals. They wander without compass and without rudder, approving or
condemning according to their friendships and antipathies; save those
_connoisseurs emerites_, whose fine, sure taste and exceptional
erudition are rarely able to supply a law and state a reason for their
judgment.

Among us, as among the Greeks, may be found artists who have given
proofs of the existence of the supreme theory of which I now write.
Talma and Malibran--in another order, Dejazet, and Frederick Lemaitre,
even Theresa herself, have, in a greater or less degree, exemplified
this law imprescriptable. These artists, marked by nature with the seal
of their vocation, possessed that force of truth which produces sudden
bursts of eloquence, great dramatic effects; in a word, as before
expressed, "the happy strokes of genius."

Yes, before and after Delsarte, there were and shall be beings
conforming by _instinct_ to his _law_. But with him alone shall rest the
honor of its discovery and first teaching, and of the establishment of
the science upon strong foundations.

It remains for me to examine the relations between the workings of
Delsarte and those who have treated the same questions concerning the
terms (according to him, accessory), the True, the Good and the
Beautiful; and also to consider the value of each branch of aesthetics in
the entirety of the system.

Chapter VII.

The Elements Of Art.

_The True, the Good, the Beautiful._

Though Delsarte be acknowledged the discoverer of the law of aesthetics,
he may have held points in common with many who before him had had
presentiments of its coming and had instinctively experienced its force.
Premonitions precede the discovery as complements should follow.

The True, the Good, the Beautiful, constituent elements of aesthetics,
have been diversely interpreted. From his intellectual obs