His face, his form, his bearing resumed their usual
appearance. The artist disappeared, and the professor quietly resumed
his place, without seeming to notice that the audience--still shaken by
the emotions they had felt--blamed him for this too prompt
metamorphosis.
Yet Delsarte was as agreeable a teacher as he was a marvelous artist.
His instruction was enlivened by countless unexpected flashes; his
sallies were as quick as gunpowder.
"_I die!_" languidly sang a tenor.
"You sleep!" said the master.
"_Come, lady fair!_" exclaimed another singer.
"If you call her in that voice, you may believe that she will never
come!"
"Don't make a public-crier of your Achilles," said the master to some
one with a rich organ, given over to its own uncultivated power.
All three smiled. The one tried to die more fitly; the other to call his
lady fair in more seductive accents. The petulant outburst of the master
taught them more than many a long dissertation.
Delsarte made great use of his power of imitating a defect; he even
exaggerated it so that the scholar, seeing it reflected as in a
magnifying-glass, more readily perceived his insufficiency or his
exaggeration.
If this mode of procedure was somewhat trying to sensitive vanity, it
was easy to see its advantages. The master's censure, moreover, was of
that inoffensive and kindly character which is its own justification. It
was a criticism governed by gaiety.
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