ing but the Delsarte System; but the fact is, they include much from other systems that were in vogue before Delsarte was born, and label it Delsarte, and loudly decry all who honestly say that they teach methods not included in the original Delsarte System. Still others ignore the term Delsarte as meaningless, but, at the same time, teach many of the principles laid down therein. Many a disciple of Delsarte is ignorant of the terms, " hand prone, supine," etc., and turns the lip in scorn if asked to explain their similarity or difference as related to Delsarte. Such persons are unwilling to show pupils that the so-called gesture of "support" is given with what is known in the English system as "the hand supine," or that the gesture of denial is made with prone hand. Those who teach Delsarte too often are unwilling to admit the harmony that exists between it and the "English system." Others ignore the term, "quality of voice," and say, "I do not teach it." But if these very persons get desperately angry in expressing themselves, they will use the harsh, discordant tone known in common phrase as "guttural.” What matters it, then, if we label such a tone "guttural" until some better and more fitting term shall be invented? So in all technical terms used in any and all systems, let us not be afraid to call them by their right names, and to know all the synonyms of these terms.

As the first great essential in the development of the science of the harmonics of elocution, let me urge the Committee on Terminology to hasten their work, and prepare a dictionary of elocution that shall be as authentic and authoritative in our profession as are dictionaries of law or medicine in their respective lines. Let us cease firing at other systems until we are sure we have something of our own that is truly and radically

different from and better than the others, and are able to make it clear to all just what that difference or superiority is.

But

Human nature is ever the same the world over, and ever will be. All people will ever continue to express the emotions of anger, joy, and sorrow by much the same general style of voice and action, despite all the inventions of the elocutionist. there is this fact to be considered, that as man advances in culture, civilization, and refinement, he becomes less violent in his voice and action. We to-day send telegraph messages from the moving trains without the battery being connected with the parallel wires along the road. It is a well-established fact that telegraphy between mind and mind at great distances is possible. How much easier, then, must it be for minds in close proximity to be made. conscious of the thoughts and feelings of each other without word or act! Hence, we look for the highest expression of our art in appropriate reserve of voice or action; but this is only less of the same thing, and not any radical difference in method.

When Burns wrote, "Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us," he should have added, "to hear ourselves as others hear us.' A great majority of people seem to be absolutely unable to hear or see themselves as others hear and see them; hence, comes much that is inharmonious

and in bad taste. A person with frowzled hair, ill-fitting and grotesque dress, will lecture before an audience of refined and elegant people about dress reform, correct personal appearance, etc. Another will expatiate upon purity of tone, melody of voice, etc., in a harsh, nasal quality that at first fills the house, but empties it long before the address closes.

The cause of this defect in human

nature we leave for the psychologist to elaborate, We must, however, give more attention to this training of the eye and ear and to just selfcriticism, before we can expect harmonious results. This, in fact, is the greatest of all problems that confront the teacher of to-day, and the one from which so many shrink. Why? Because we are all intensely human, and like the archbishop in the Gil Blas story, or the Scotch minister in the story of Sandy McDonald's signal and the foxes' tails, we find it hard to accept kindly the pricks of just criticism. Any teacher who ventures to do his whole duty in this direction is liable to do so at the expense of the good-will of his best. pupil, or perhaps the loss of several pupils, who may leave to go to a teacher who is more politic and deals more liberally in sugar-coated criticism.

It is for our profession to teach the harmonies and proprieties of every-day life. We see SO many well-meaning persons forever doing or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Mind and body do not act in unison. A gallant young man, with hand upraised, was about to throw a stick at an intruding cow in the street, when a charming lady passed. He inadvertently lifted his hat to the cow, and then threw the stick at the lady. Neither the lady nor the animal appreciated his efforts.

The common salutation "How do you do?" is often so inharmoniously given by intelligent, well-meaning people, that we would urge a special practice upon this little sentence with every elocution class. A young man gives a fine rendition of "Cataline's Defiance," and the next moment meets you on the street with a defiant "How do you do?" A young lady gives an excellent impersonation of Dickens's child-wife Dora, and then greets you with a childish "How do you do?" Many never modify

their style of voice or action to suit different occasions; whether at a funeral or a wedding they are ever the same, and unconscious of their inharmonious appearance.

In matters of dress there should be a careful study in the blending of colors with each other and with the individual. A lady in very costly apparel may be far less pleasing than one in simple garb, with color and style suited to the complexion and figure. The best success of the members of our profession and of every other profession, as well as of those of no profession, depends largely upon the observance of the eternal fitness of things in every-day life. This is true eloquence, true harmony, and should be made the basis of our work.

Let us strive for that harmony of mind, heart and soul that will lift us into a higher atmosphere of unselfishness, where it shall be our aim to elevate our God-given art, rather than to try to elevate ourselves by trampling upon our fraternal associates and their methods.

Now, is it not possible and desirable that the members of this convention shall clasp glad hands and say, "We will henceforth think less of self, more of one another, and still more of our art, till harmonics of elocution shall become more than a mere name; till the world will no longer have cause to say that we do not believe in one another or in what we teach?" One victory toward this longed-for end was gained when, at its birth, this Association, in spite of much strife about the name, was christened the National Association of Elocutionists. May that name ever stand upon our banners, a beacon star, calling all disciples of this, the noblest earthly art, to that unity of effort which shall finally lift all mankind toward Heaven, which is but another name for true har

mony.

Henry M. Soper.

IN

N Europe Delsarte is always spoken of as a musician. Even his friends seem to know little of his artphilosophy as taught to-day; they speak only of his personal art. was educated for the opera, and sang in Paris for two years before his voice gave way through the bad method of his early training and the hardships of his youth. He then turned his attention to the study of the principles of art, which resulted in his science of expressive man; but this was developed only in the latter part of his life, and indeed it is to the labors of his son that we chiefly owe the system as now taught.

During Delsarte's years of investigation and formulative study, he supported himself by the art of which he was master-music-and many great musicians and singers became his pupils. Charles Gounod was one of these. It is said that Delsarte's wonderful knowledge of dramatic expression helped to give "Faust" its marvelous truth in character-delineation, a height of dramatic power and sublimity never again reached by Gounod.

Many pupils of Delsarte have spoken of the walls of his music-room as being covered with strange charts and symbolic drawings; but they knew him as a teacher of voiceculture and expression in song, and paid no attention to his private craze for philosophic study.

The elder Garcia has said: "Delsarte was the greatest singer I ever heard; he had no voice at all, but his effects were unsurpassed;" and Sir Frederic Leighton once, when Delsarte was mentioned, said: "Yes, what an exquisite singer, and no more voice than the squeak of my door!"

Lord Lytton (Owen Meredith) was a most enthusiastic friend of Delsarte, but spoke only of his personal art, and, when his philosophy of expression was mentioned, asked, "What philosophy?" Everywhere it was the same. Delsarte's lifework was, to the public, that of musician, and his system, which has become such an art-influence in America, is even now almost unknown in Europe. Richard Wagner knew Delsarte well, and was much influenced by him, and Massenet, too, shows the teachings of Delsarte in his impersonations of character; or, rather, the style of Delsarte's musical compositions foreshadows the modern French school resembling that of Massenet.

Delsarte enjoyed his greatest prestige during the reign of Louis Philippe, who paid him most distinguished honors. He had many royal pupils, and his bronze wreath in Père la Chaise was placed there by the Queen of Hanover. Delsarte was the last who received the Cross of the Legion of Honor from royal hands.

He must have possessed almost hypnotic power. His first work in an address or recitation was to gradually attract the eye of everyone in the audience until he held that audience together as one man. His work was always very strongly felt emotionally, and one of his greatest effects, after gaining this power over his hearers, was to carry them to a high pitch of feeling, then to lower them a little, and then suddenly, with an ascending gesture, to sweep them up to a higher plane until they sprang to their feet.

This peculiar mesmeric or hypnotic power was in great measure possessed by Mme. Arnaud. Mme. Arnaud more fully apprehended the philos

ophy of the system (as it was intended to be taught by Delsarte) than many of the present day Delsartians I have known. None have systematized her methods of harmonious expression, or those sequences in the art of acting which form an "art" that becomes "nature with the non-essentials left out."

Whether or not Delsarte taught the art of dress, as insisted upon by Mme. Arnaud in her suggestions for operatic and dramatic effects, it is now impossible to learn; but so conscientious an instructor as Delsarte must have cautioned his pupils against anachronisms, while the art of thoroughly harmonizing the three primary colors, so as to gain correct effects, shows much of this master's system of unity from trinity, a system which he also carried into a peculiar musical formula.

In the attributes of tone Delsarte found the trinity of force, pitch and quality. Crude singers make their effects by force. For studies in pitch we might take the modern technical school with its Eiffel-Tower notes and cultured execution. But few singers possess a gamut of quality; even those who have good quality are contented with the delight of singing one pure tone. Expression of passion and emotion by variation of tone is almost unknown to our artists, although it is acknowledged that this variation of tone-quality was possessed by the dramatic singers of the olden school.

Carl Formes once said that Patti had the most perfect quality of tone of all the singers in his long range of experience, but she had no variation. of that quality. Bernhardt, with the most beautiful voice on the stage, has only two qualities of tone, the perfect coo of her love-making and the tiger-cat snarl with which she expresses passion. Clara Morris was past mistress in the broken tone of agony, and on the modern stage the

elder Salvini has the finest control of tone-passion.

When we come to musical compositions, we again find our trinityrelation in time, melody, and harmony. Time, the understructure on which our music is built, is the physical element; melody, which tells the story, the mental; and harmony the moral the moral (or harmonic), which blends time and melody into chords to touch our emotions.

All crude or savage instruments, and those which accompany physical activity, beat time,-the physical element. The chief quality of all savage music accompanying march or dance is time. This we find in its highest form in the march or waltz; it is more prominent than the air (the mental element). Take, for example, the march of the priests in "Aïda," with its perfectly-accented tempo, and the Blue Danube waltzes of Strauss, built on the three-time beat.

When music begins to tell a story, we find the melody. Take, as example, "I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls;" there is a childish physical beat underneath the childish melody that tells the story.

The effects of chord-harmony, left chiefly to instrumental music, find their highest expression in the works of Wagner. In this trinity of musical composition we find the key to the difference between the Italian and the Wagnerian schools. Wagner was the greatest master of the expressive chord that has ever been known. In him we find nothing of the 1, 2, 3, 4 prelude of Donizetti or Bellini; a single chord at the opening of the Swan Song in "Lohengrin" contains the spirit of the song. To gain this effect, Wagner often sacrificed the voice, which to him was but one note in his chord; while in the Italian opera, melody being the leading effect, the voice which told the story was everything and

the orchestra merely the accompaniment. The dramatic soprano had to get the tears in her voice, while the tenor supplied the tone lacking in the orchestra; Wagner put the tears in his chord, and gave the tenor tone to the instrumentation.

Even in the melodies of Wagner we feel constantly that his effects are in the orchestral harmonies rather than in harmonies of vocal quality. Take, for illustration, Wagner's "Abendstern" in "Tannhäuser;" there is in the accompaniment a feeling of a 'cello singing the opening phrase.

The Italians were masters of toneharmonies in vocal production, for the older Italians looked upon the voice as their orchestra, the instruments merely as accompaniment.

No stronger illustration can be found than in the earlier and the later works of Verdi. "Il Trovatore" was essentially a hand-organ opera, all its dramatic power being

built chiefly on variations of vocal force, and rhythmic time beats. Turn now from "Di Quella Pira" in "Trovatore" to Verdi's later tenor aria, "Celeste Aïda," and you will find the study of the intervals much more harmonic.

When the instrumentation becomes passional or dramatic, we find the emphasis of time; when it becomes descriptive or lyric, the emphasis of melody; and when it becomes emotional, the emphasis of harmony. With the voice the passional effects are made by degrees of force; the melody, or story, is told by variations of pitch; and the state of being, or emotion, is expressed by variations of harmony. Verdi's "Aïda" has beautiful variation in quality of tone for the soprano; Amneris has passionate force; but there is no rhythmic time-beat in the tomb-song of the tenor. "Celeste Aïda" is purely spiritual.-Octavia Hensel, in N. Y. Home Journal.

W1

HAT shall we choose as affording a splendid example wherewith to illustrate clearly and vividly all the principles we have been talking about? Suppose we take the Trial Scene from Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice." This will answer every requisite.

The first thing to be done is to find out what the author felt and meant when he wrote the lines you are about to interpret. Necessary to this, in many cases, is a knowledge of the author and his time. Even the great Shakespeare, who of all writers least peers out from his works, shows, of necessity, in his language and scenes, the influence of those things that he observed and

experienced during the course of his life. So, as a rule, the more you know about your author and his time, the better. But first make sure that there is something to know; otherwise, you waste time. Thus, of Shakespeare we know but little. The facts are extraordinarily few, the surmises extraordinarily numerous. Ignore the surmises; you have not time for them.

Having mastered the few facts in regard to Shakespeare's life, fill yourself to the brim with the manners and customs and doings of the Elizabethan period, for Shakespeare is ever drawing upon these, sometimes slyly, sometimes boldly. Then take a good copy of "The Merchant