made where there is
such mutual good will. They had faith in each other: the child, because
he saw that his master really loved his art; the old musician, because
he realized that his scholar had a genuine vocation and would be a great
artist.

One evening they were walking together in the Champs Elysees. Carriages
rolled by filled with fashionable people. The humble pedestrians were
surrounded by luxury. Suddenly Father Bambini turned toward his scholar:

"You see," said he, "all these people who have their carriages, their
liveried lackeys and their fine clothes; well, the day will come when
they will be only too glad to hear you, and they will envy you because
you are so great a singer."

The child was deeply moved; not by this promise of future glory; not by
the thought, that by fame he should gain wealth; but he seemed to see
his dream realized in a remote future. That dream was the complete
mastery of his art; it was his ideal attained, or closely approached.
This mode of feeling already justified the prediction.

Delsarte retained a grateful memory of another teacher. M. Deshayes, he
said, spurred him on to scientific discovery, as Bambini directed his
attention and his taste to the works of the great masters.

One day, as the young man was studying a certain role, M. Deshayes,
busily talking with some one else and not even glancing toward his
pupil, exclaimed:

"Your gesture is incorrect!"

When they were alone Delsarte expressed his astonishment.

"You said my gesture was incorrect," he exclaimed, "and you could not
see me."

"I knew it by your mode of singing."

This explanation set the young disciple's brain in a whirl. Were there,
then, affinities, a necessary concordance between the gesture and the
inflections of the voice? And, from this slight landmark, he set to
work, searching, comparing, verifying the principle by the effects, and
_vice versa_.

He gave himself with such vigor to the task that, from this hint, he
succeeded little by little in establishing the basis of his system of
aesthetics and its complete development.

After these beginnings, which Delsarte considered as a favorable
initiation, Father Bambini--his faithful patron--thought that he
required a more thorough musical education, and chose the Conservatory
school. There, that broad and impulsive spirit in its independence ran
counter to classic paths, to rigid processes; there, that exceptional
nature, that potent personal