Thus the
first notes of the piano, announcing that the time for action had come,
always caused a repressed murmur of satisfaction and pleasure.
Sometimes, after the lecture, a discussion followed, for Delsarte often
left room for a controversy which was essentially incorrect and caused
many misunderstandings. This was because the innovator sometimes blended
with the clear hues of his art-principles certain tints of religious
mysticism which had no necessary relation with the synthesis of his
aesthetics.
It was one of the peculiarities of his character, amiable and benevolent
as it was, to take delight in the conflict of ideas. If he saw, in the
course of his lecture, a man whom he took for a philosopher or anything
like it, he never failed to direct some piquant phrase, some aggressive
sentence or some irritating thought that way--it was the gauntlet which
he flung for the final combat.
Nor were women exempt from these humorous sallies.
Although the master loved all grandeur--the artistic sense with which he
was so largely endowed inclining him that way--he had democratic, I
might almost say plebeian, instincts. The poetry of simple, humble,
small existences sometimes swayed him.
Thus, if among his hearers, a bright violet or an audacious scarlet gown
annoyed his taste; if the reflection of a ruby or a diamond vexed his
eye, he would choose that instant to improvise a rustic idyl or to
intone a hymn to poverty.
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