There has been
a confusion, in regard to Delsarte, of two very distinct things: his
practical devotion and his philosophy of art, which does indeed assume a
religious character. He himself helped on this confusion. I am desirous
of doing my best to put an end to it. I hope that, truth and sincerity
aiding, I shall not find the task too great for me.
I must first grapple with those ill-informed persons who have denied the
master his high intellectual faculties, and even his scientific
discoveries, for the sole reason of the mystical side of his beliefs. I
must also expose the error of those who supposed that to this mysticism
were attributable the miracles accomplished by Delsarte in his career as
artist and scholar.
I was the better able to understand these two opposing
elements--religiousness and strength of understanding--because, if I
gave in my entire adhesion to the innovator in the arts, he did not find
me equally docile in what concerned the theosophic part of his doctrine.
Hence, discussions which illustrated the subject. I speak in presence of
his memory as I did before him, with perfect frankness and simplicity
of heart; taking care not to offend the objects of his veneration, but
examining without regard to his memory, as without prejudice, the
influence which his convictions exerted upon his intellectual
conceptions, his ideas, his character, his talent--in a word, his life,
in so far as it may concern a sketch which lays no claim to be a
complete biography.
Pages:
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268