if
addressing an audience. This he really did, and some of the manuscripts
are headings or draughts of his lectures before learned societies or of
talks at his own private sessions._

_These writings are given to the public in the same fragmentary
condition that Delsarte left them in. They were written upon sheets of
paper, scraps of paper, doors, chairs, window casements and other
objects. A literal translation has been made, without a word of comment,
and without any attempt at editing them. The aim has been to let
Delsarte speak for himself, believing that the reader would rather have
Delsarte's own words even in this disjointed, incomplete form--mere
rough notes--than to have them supplemented, annotated, interpreted and
very likely perverted by another person._

_Edgar S. Werner._

[Illustration: Francois Delsarte.]

Extract from the Last Letter to the King of Hanover

I am at this moment meditating a book, singular for more than one
reason, whose form will be no less novel than its contents. Your majesty
will read it, I hope, with interest.

The title of this book is to be: "My Revelatory Episodes, or the History
of an Idea Pursued for Forty Years."

It will be my task to connect and condense into a single narrative all
the circumstances of my life which had as logical consequences the
numerous discoveries which it has been granted me to follow up,
discoveries which my daily occupations left me neither time nor ability
to set forth as a whole.

I know not what fate is reserved for this book. I know not whether I
shall succeed in seeing it in print during my lifetime. The minds of men
are, in these evil days, so little disposed to serious ideas, that it
seems to me difficult to find a publisher disposed to publish things so
far removed from the productions of the century.

But, however it may be, if I succeed in getting at least some part of my
work printed, I crave, sire, your majesty's permission to offer the
dedication to you. This favor I entreat not only as an honor, but also
as an opportunity to pay public homage to all the kindnesses which your
majesty has never ceased to lavish upon me.

Francois Delsarte.

Episode I.

The subject in question was a scene in the play of the _Maris-Garcons_.
The young officer, whose part I was studying, met his former landlord
after an absence of several years, and as he owed him some money, he
desired to show himself cordial.

"Ah!