He would come in with some story of frightful throat trouble to justify his chronic lack of voice, and, then, without any voice at all but by a kind of magic, would put shudders into the tones of Orpheus or Eurydice.

I often played his accompaniments and he always demanded _pianissimo_.
"But," I would say, "the author has indicated _forte_." "That is true," he would answer, "but in those days the harpsichord had little depth of tone." It would have been easy to answer that the accompaniment was written for the orchestra and not for the harpsichord.
Delsarte's execution, on account of the insufficiency of his vocal powers, was often entirely different from what the author intended.
Furthermore, he was absolutely ignorant of the correct way to interpret the appogiatures and other marks which are not used to-day.

As a result his interpretation of the older works was inexact.

But that did not matter, for even if masterpieces are presented badly, there is always something left.

Besides, both the singer and his hearers had Faith.