the secret of
heart-tortures and soul-aspirations! The _charcoal-burner's faith_ would
never have taught him that captivating grace, that supreme elegance of
gesture and attitude, which made him matchless. Nor did theology and
dogma teach him the moving effects which made people declare that he
performed miracles, and led several writers (Henry de Riancey, Hervet)
to say: "That man is not an artist, he is art itself!" And Fiorentino, a
critic usually severe and exacting, wrote: "This master's sentiment is
so true, his style so lofty, his passion so profound, that there is
nothing in art so beautiful or so perfect!"

_Profound passion, lofty style, art itself_, these are not learned from
any catechism. That chosen organism bore within its own breast the
fountains of beauty. An artist, he derived thence an inward
illumination, and, as it were, a clear vision of the Ideal. If religion
was blended with it, it was that which speaks directly to the heart of
all beings endowed with poetry, to those who are capable of vowing their
love to the worship of sublime things.

What I have just said will become more comprehensible if I apply to
Delsarte those more especially Christian words: _The spirit and the
letter_.

Yes, in him there was the spiritual man and the literal man; and if
either compromised the other, it was not in the eyes of persons who
attended, regularly enough to understand them, the lectures and lessons
of the brilliant professor.

This I have already said, and I shall dwell upon this point, hoping to
establish some harmony between those who taxed Delsarte with madness on
account of his _positivism_ in the matter of faith, and those who
strove to connect with his devotional habits everything exceptional
which that great figure realized in his passage through this world.

In fact, it is only by separating the Delsarte of _the spirit_ from him
of _the letter_, that we can form any true idea of him.

And the letter, once again--was it not art and poetry that made worship
so dear to him? The shadowy light of the churches, the stern majesty of
the vaulted roof, contrasting with the radiant circle of light within
which reposed the sacred wafer,--all this pomp, of heathen origin,
warmed for him the severe simplicity and cold austerity of Christian
sentiment; the chants and prayers uttered in common also stimulated the
fervid impulses of his heart.

The spirit of proselytism took possession of him later in life.