Chapter XIX: Delsarte's Last Years (2)

This proposition at first seems inexplicable, but its reason is readily understood by those who know the sway of falsehood over a society perverted in its opinions as in its tastes; to those who know the deplorable facility with which error is spread and the tenacity with which it clings to our poor mind. Error, moreover, owes to our abasement which it flatters and crushes, the privilege of freedom from contradiction, and it is only in regard to truth that the minds of men are divided and contend.

On retracing in my memory the walks I had taken in the Tuileries, I was struck by an important fact amidst the phenomena called up: the voice of the nurse or mother, when she caressed her child, invariably assumed the double character of tenuity and acuteness. It was in a voice equally sweet and high-pitched that she uttered such words as these: "How lovely he is!" ... "Smile a little bit for mamma!" Now this caressing intonation, impressed by nature upon the upper notes of all these voices, forms a strange contrast to the direction which all singing-teachers agree in formulating; a direction which consists in augmenting the intensity of the sound in direct ratio to its acuteness. Thus, to them, strange to say, the entire law of vocal shades would consist in augmenting progressively the sound of the ascending phrase or scale, and diminishing in the same proportion for a descending scale. Now, nature, by a thousand irrefutable examples, directs us to do the contrary, that is, she prescribes a decrease of intensity (in music, _decrescendo_) proportionate to the ascensional force of the sounds.

Another blow, I thought, for my masters, or rather I receive it for them, for they, poor fellows, do not feel it. But how can these phenomena of nature have escaped them, and by what indescribable aberration can they direct, under the name of law, a process absolutely contrary to that so plainly followed by those same phenomena? However, I added, every supreme error under penalty of being self-evident, must, to endure, necessarily rest upon some truth or other. Now, on what truth do so many masters claim to base so manifest an error? This is what we must discover.

I was now convinced that caressing, tender and gentle emotions find their normal expression in _high_ notes. This is beyond all doubt. Thus, according to the foregoing examples, if we propose to say to a child in a caressing tone that he is a darling, it would clearly be very bad taste to bellow the words at him on the pretext that, according to singing-teachers, the intensity of the sound is augmented in direct ratio to its acuteness.

But my memory, as if to confirm this principle, and to show its contrast with the custom admitted by those gentlemen, suggests to me other instances derived from the same source. Let a mother be _angry_ with her child and threaten him with punishment; she instantly assumes a grave tone which she strives to render powerful and intense. Here, then, on the one hand (and nature proclaims it), the voice decreases in intensity in proportion as it rises higher; and, on the other hand, it increases in proportion as it sinks. This double fact, undeniably established, constitutes an unanswerable argument against the system in question. But it is not, therefore, necessarily its radical and absolute refutation. No, doubtless, whatever may be the significance and the number of the facts opposed to the directions of those gentlemen, these facts do not seem to exclude exceptions upon which they may be founded. In fact, I find in my memory many examples favorable to those masters. Thus, I have seen many nurses lose their temper and still use the higher tones of their voice; and, on the other hand, I also remark (and the remark is important) a certain form, the appellative form, where all the characters agree without exception in producing the greatest intensity possible upon the high notes.

The professors of singing triumph, for they find in this appellative form, always and necessarily sharp and boisterous at the same time, a striking confirmation of their system. Here I seem to stray far from the solution which I thought I already grasped! Far from it; the light is breaking. Hitherto the examples evoked had only increased my obscurity by their multiplicity, and I saw nothing in all these remarks but a series of contradictions whence it seemed impossible to deduce anything but confusion, into which I found myself plunged.

But was this confusion really in the facts which I examined, or was it not rather the creation of my own mind? Now, in the matter of principle, the weakness of individual reason has been too often proved to me to allow of my attaching any other cause to the contradictions which block my path and force me to confess my ignorance. I will not, then, here cry _mea culpa_ for myself or for others to justify that ignorance or excuse its confession. It must be acknowledged that God knows what He does, and His omnipotence is assuredly guiltless of the divagations which an impotent mind finds it convenient to attribute to it.

Now, let others in the blindness of proud reason, forget this truth, which they contest even by opposing to it the quibbles for which free-thinkers are never at a loss, and to escape the confusion which they inevitably derive from the ill-studied work of the Supreme Artist. Let them venture to attribute to it their own darkness. For my part, I shall not thereby lose my conviction that all which seems to me disordered or contradictory in the expression of the facts which I question, is only apparent and only exist in my own brain.

The profound obscurity into which light plunges us does not prevent the light from being; and the chaos of ideas which, most generally, results from our examination of things, proves nothing against the harmonies of their constitution.

The pebble virtually contains the spark, but we must know how to produce it. Thus the phenomena of nature contain luminous lessons, but we must know how to make them speak; and, what is more, understand their language. Now, I would add, the spirit of God is inherent in all things; and this spirit should, at a given moment, flash its splendors in the eyes of an intellect alike submissive, attentive, patient and suppliant.

Moreover, does not the Gospel show us the way to fertilize investigations such as those to which I have given my life? Does it not say: "Knock and it shall be opened, ask and it shall be given?" Then what must I do to find my way out of the maze in which my reason wanders? What must I do in presence of the contradictions which nevertheless must needs contain a fecund principle? Finally, what must I do in order to see light break from the very heart of those obscurities wherein light is lost?

I will seek anew, night and day, if needful; I will knock incessantly at the door of the facts which I desire to examine. I will descend into the secret depths of their organism; there I will patiently question every phenomenon, every organ, and I will entreat their Author to divulge to me their purpose, their relations and their very object.

Well! It is thus that those men, proud of their vain knowledge, were made dizzy by the splendor of that same light which they thought that they could subject to their investigations, and the blindness which has fallen upon them is the punishment which God is content to inflict upon them in this world.

Having said this, where was I in my investigations? Ah! it was here.

The memory of the high inflections invariably affected by the women whom I had seen on the previous day, caressing their infants, struck me with the more force that I had learned from my masters that law which had hitherto ruled uncontested, and now underwent a refutation which demonstrated the falsity of its applications with a clearness and minuteness which left no room for doubt.

The examples in virtue of which I saw the errors of my masters, unanimously proclaimed the tenuity of the voice to be in proportion to its acuteness.

Now this formula is, in letter as in spirit, the reverse of the prescription upon which, by a caprice whose cause I have just explained, all the masters of art agree.

I then perceived that my first affirmations were no better founded than those of the masters, whose theories I had attacked. The truth of the matter is that ascending progressions may arise from opposite shades of meaning. "Therefore," said I to myself, "it is equally inadmissible to exclude either affirmation."

The law is necessarily complex: let us bring together, that we may seize them as a whole, both the contrary expressions and the circumstances which produce them.

Vulgar and uncultured people, as well as children, seem to act in regard to an ascensional vocal progression in an inverse sense to well-educated, or, at any rate, affectionate persons, such as mothers, fond nurses, etc.

No example has, to my knowledge, contradicted this remark.

But why this difference? What are its motive causes?

"Ha!" I cried, as if struck by lightning, "I've found the law! As with the movements of the head, _sensuality_ and _tenderness_, these shades of the voice may be traced back to two distinct sources: _sentiment_ and _passion_. It is sentiment which I have seen revealed in mothers; it is passion which we find in uncultured persons."

Sentiment and passion, then, proceed in an inverse way. Passion strengthens the voice in proportion as it rises, and sentiment, on the contrary, softens it in due ratio to its intensity. It was the confusion of these different sources which caused a momentary obscurity in my understanding.

Let us now formulate boldly the law of vocal proportions.

Given a rising form, such as the ascending scale, there will be intensitive progression when this form should express passion (whether impulse, excitement or vehemence).

There will be, on the other hand, a diminution of intensity where this same form should express sentiment.

This law even seems regulated by a quantitative expression, the form of which appeared to me like a flash of light. This is the formula:

Under the influence of sentiment the smallest and most insignificant things that we may wish to represent proportion themselves to the degree of acuteness of the sounds, which become softened in proportion as they rise.

Under the influence of passion, on the contrary, the voice rises, with a corresponding brilliancy, in proportion to the magnitude of the thing it would express, and becomes lowered to express smallness or meanness. Thus an ascending scale being given, it must be considered as a double scale of proportion, agreeing alternately with an increasing or decreasing intensitive progression, increasing under the influence of passion and decreasing under the influence of sentiment.

Thus we would not use the same tones for the words: "Oh, what a pretty little girl!" "What a lovely little flower!" and: "See that nice, fat peasant woman!" "What a comfortable great house!"

By such formulæ as these I was able to sum up, in clear and didactic form, the multifarious examples suggested by my memory, startled at first by their contradiction and then delighted at the light thrown upon them by these very formulæ, due, not to my own merit, but to the favor of Him who holds in His hand the source of all truth.

Thus, I feel and readily acknowledge, that the discovery upon which I am at work is not my own work; and, therefore, I pray for it as for a signal favor. Nor can it be otherwise with any man. It is, therefore, always an impertinence for any man to attribute to his personal genius, vast as he may suppose it to be, the discovery of any law. God alone discloses His treasures, and, as I have experienced, He only reveals them to the eye of reason raised by humility to contemplation.

Man seeks that which he desires to know with attention and patience proportioned to the ardor of his desire. The attention of which his mind is capable and the constancy of will brought to bear in pursuit of his research, constitute his only mark of distinction. Herein lies all the merit to which he can lay just claim. But at a moment absolutely unforeseen, God reveals to him that which he seeks, I should say that for which he does not seek, and for his due edification it is generally the opposite of what he seeks which is revealed to him. This is not to be contested. Thus the things discovered to him cause him such surprise that he never fails to beat his brow when he sees them, as if to prove that he is not the author of their discovery, and that he was far from foreseeing anything like what has been shown to him; and that there may be no possible mistake in the interpretation of the gesture, he invariably accompanies it by the phrase: "What a fool I am!" All will admit that if a man really believed himself the author of his discovery, he takes a very inopportune time to declare his impotence and his stupidity so distinctly. But taking none too kindly his avowal which, moreover, is but the proclamation of an indisputable truth, let us rather say that this act of humility is forced from him by the greatness of his surprise.

Happy, very happy is the man whose pride does not instantly react against the humble and truthful confession of his folly.

Ever since I made these remarks I have asked myself the cause of the sterility of the learned bodies, and I do not hesitate to say to-day, that it is because scientists refuse to declare themselves fools, and it is to this lack of sincerity that they doubtless owe the punishment that paralyzes their genius.

How can these men fail to take seriously the little knowledge to which they cling and their fortune and renown; how can these wise men, to whom the world pays incessant homage, consent meekly to confess the infirmity of their reason? They feign, on the contrary, even when crushed beneath the Divine splendor, an air of great importance; and when the Omnipotent in His mercy deigns to bend to their low level, to lay open to them the treasures of His sovereign thought, do you think that in token of the sacred and respectful admiration which they owe in return for such goodness, they will prostrate themselves like the Seraphim whose knowledge assuredly equals the few notions which they adorn with that title? Ah! far from it. You little know these scientists, when you impute to them an act which they would qualify as contemptible and would declare unworthy of a free-thinker! They stand erect, on the contrary, with head held high, insolently laying claim, by virtue of I know not what conquest of the human mind, to judge the eternal and immovable light of the Divine Reason.

Episode IV.

My retrospective journey from this point of departure seemed destined to be even more full of observations than that which preceded it. My day had been so full of work, so fruitful in unexpected discoveries, that it was absolutely necessary for me to stop at this first station.

After a few days of rest I naturally resumed my walk, toward the garden of the Tuileries, whither I was led by an instinct full of promise. There, in fact, fresh re-appearances were not long in adding light to that with which I was still dazzled!

I remember that I had been vaguely struck by the contemplative attitude of a mother toward her child. The reason why this attitude struck me even in the midst of my absorption in search of notes relative to the thumb, was, first, because this attitude was a contrast to that assumed by most of the nurses under the action of the same feeling; and, in the next place, it seemed to deny the contemplative forms which I had deduced from my first discovery, and which rested upon such motives as the following: That a painter admires his work by throwing back his head. Hitherto it had seemed to me clearly proven that admiring contemplation entailed this retroaction. I considered this, it will be remembered, the characteristic feature of a law, and that for the reasons which I had previously given. Well! were all these reasons, plausible as they appeared, to be contradicted by a single fact still present to my memory, in spite of the observations in the midst of which it arose, and which, moreover, should have been more than enough to efface it? Strange to say, this fact vaguely noted amidst preöccupations to which it seemed absolutely foreign, had remained persistently in my mind! Now this fact, becoming by a reflex act the object of serious thought, resulted from this observation:

That a woman, as she contemplated her child, bent her head toward it.

Searching in my memory, I found several similar instances completely confirming this principle, opposed to my observations, that contemplation tends to push the head toward the object contemplated.

And yet this example does not affect those to which I had at first paid exclusive heed. Here, as in the preceding remarks, the law is complex, and it must first be recognized that contemplation or simple admiration is produced alike by the retreat or advance of the head. This double action being admitted, it remained to decide how far they might be mingled in a single situation; that is to say, to what point these two inverse inclinations might be produced indifferently; and if, as I must _a priori_ suppose, these inclinations recognized two distinct causes. If so, what were those reasons? The question was not easy of solution, and yet it must be decided definitely. I could enjoy no peace until I had answered it. The doubt instilled into my mind by this new contradiction was intolerable. I set boldly to work, determined not to pause until I had found a final solution. I called to mind all my memories having any bearing on this double phenomenon. These memories were far more numerous and far more striking than I had dared to hope. What a magnificent thing are those mysterious reservoirs whence, at a given moment, flow thousands of pictures which until then we knew not that we possessed? A whole world of prostrate believers adoringly turning their heads toward the object of their worship, appeared before me to support the example afforded me by the mother lovingly bending her head toward the child at which she gazed.

Among other instances, I saw a venerable master affectionately bending his head toward the being to whom he thus seemed with touching predilection to give luminous instructions.

I saw lovers gazing at their loved one with this attractive pose of the head, their tenderness seeming thus to be eloquently affirmed. But, side by side with these examples, I saw others totally opposite; thus, other lovers presented themselves to my mind's eye with very different aspect, and their number seemed far greater than that of the other. These lovers delighted to gaze at their sweetheart as painters study their work, with head thrown back. I saw mothers and many nurses gazing at children with this same retroactive movement which stamped their gaze with a certain expression of satisfied pride, generally to be noted in those who carried a nursling distinguished for its beauty or the elegance of its clothes.

Two words, as important as they are opposite in the sense that they determine, are disengaged: _sensuality_ and _tenderness_.

Such are the sources to which we must refer the attitudes assumed by the head on sight of the object considered.

Between these inverse attitudes a third should naturally be placed. It was easy for me to characterize this latter: I called it _colorless_ or _indifferent_.

It is entirely natural that the man who considers an object from the point of view of the mere examination which his mind makes of it, should simply look it in the face until that object had aroused the innermost movements of the soul or of the life.

Whence it invariably follows that from the incitement of these movements, the head is bent to the side of the soul or to the side of the senses.

"Which is, then, for the head, the side of the soul," you will ask me, "and which the side of the senses?"

I will reply simply, to cut short the useless description of the many drawbacks that preceded the clear demonstration that I finally established, that the side of the heart is the objective side that occupies the interlocutor, and that the side of the senses is the subjective, personal side toward which the head retroacts; that is to say, the side opposed to the object under examination. Thus, when the head moves in an inverse direction from the object that it examines, it is from a selfish standpoint; and when the examiner bends toward the object it is in contempt of self that the object is viewed.

These are the two related looks that I have named Sensuality and Tenderness, for these reasons:

The former of these glances is addressed exclusively to the form of its object; it caresses the periphery of it, and, the better to appreciate its totality, moves away from it. This is what occurs in the retroactive attitude of the head.

The other look, on the contrary, aims at the heart of things without pausing on the surface, disdaining all that is external. It strives to penetrate the object to its very essence, as if to unite itself more closely within it; it has the expression of confidence, of faith--in a word, the giving up of self.

Thus, when a man presses a woman's hand, we may affirm one of three things from the attitude which his head assumes:

1. That he does not love her, if his head remains straight or simply bent in facing her.

2. That he loves her tenderly, if he bows his head obliquely toward her.

3. Finally, that he loves her sensually--that is to say, solely for her physical qualities--if, on looking at her, he moves his head toward the shoulder which is opposite her.

Such are, in brief, the three attitudes of the head and the eyes, which I have named _colorless, affectional, sensual_.

Henceforth I possessed completely the law of the inclinations of the head, a law which derives from its very complexity the fertility of its applications.

Episode V.

Semeiotics of The Shoulder.

When I found myself the possessor of this law whose triple formula is of a nature to defy every objection, I sought to appropriate to myself, before the mirror, all its applications.

But there arose yet another difficulty that I had not foreseen.

I, indeed, reproduced, and at the proper time, the movements of the head already described, but they remained awkward and lifeless.

What was the cause of this awkwardness and coldness of which I was well aware, but which I could not help? I strove unceasingly to reproduce the examples that lived so vividly in my memory, but all these laborious reproductions, these efforts from memory, were futile. The stubbornness of an indomitable will, however, led only to a negative result. I was vexed at an awkwardness the reason of which I could not find.

One day, almost discouraged by the lack of success in my researches, I sorrowfully said to myself: "What shall I do? Alas! the more I labor, the less clearly I see; am I incapable of reproducing nature--is the difficulty that holds me back invincible?"

As I uttered the preceding words, I noticed that, under the sway of the grief which dictated them, my shoulders were strangely lifted up, and, as then I found myself in the attitude which I had previously tried to render natural, the unexpected movement of my shoulders, joined to that attitude, suddenly impressed it with an expression of life so just, so true, so surprising, that I was overwhelmed.

Thus I gained possession of an æsthetic fact of the first rank, and I was as amazed at my discovery as I was surprised that I had not observed sooner a self-evident movement, whose powerful and expressive character seems fundamentally connected with the actions of the head. "How stupid I am," I thought, "not to have remarked so evident an action of an agent which leads the head itself. How could I let this movement of the shoulder escape me!" And I revelled in the pleasurable triumph of reproducing and contemplating expressions which I could not have rendered previously without dishonoring them. Thenceforth I understood without a doubt all the importance of this latest discovery. But this importance, clearly proven as it was, was not yet fully explained to me.

Thus, I knew henceforth the necessity for movements of the shoulder, but I was still ignorant of their motive cause; and I was reluctant to be longer ignorant. I foresaw a concomitance of relations between this movement of the shoulder and the expression of the head.

The shoulder, then, became, in its turn, the chief object of my studies, and I gained therefrom clear and indisputable principles.

In this way I managed to form the bases of my discovery. The mothers whom I had seen bending their heads over the children on whom they gazed, thus revealed something unreserved and touching; and in my ignorance the important part which the shoulder played in the attitude had escaped me. It was indeed from the action of the shoulder, even more than from the inclination of the head, that this expression of tenderness, so touching to behold, proceeded.

The head, in such a case, accordingly receives its greatest sum of expression from the shoulder. That is a fact to be noted.

For instance, let a head--however loving we may suppose it to be intrinsically--bend toward the object of its contemplation, and let the shoulder not be lifted, that head will plainly lack an air of vitality and warm sincerity without which it cannot persuade us. It will lack that irresistible character of intensity which, in itself, supposes love; in brief, it will be lacking in love.

"Then," I said, "I have found in the shoulder the agent, the centre of the manifestations of love."

Yes, if in pressing a friend's hand I raise my shoulders, I shall thereby eloquently demonstrate all the affection with which he inspires me.

If in looking at a woman I clasp my hands and at the same time raise my shoulders, there is no longer any doubt as to the feeling that attaches me to her, and instinctively every one will say: "He loves her truly;" but if, preserving the same attitude in the same situation, the same facial expression, the same movement of the head, I happen to withhold the action of the shoulder, instantly all love will disappear from my expression and nothing will be left to that attitude but a sentiment vague and cold as falsehood.

Once more, then, the inclinations of the head whose law I have previously determined, seem, to owe to the shoulder alone the affectionate meaning that they express; but the head--as I have said,--in its double inclination, characterizes two kinds of love (or rather two sources of love) which are not to be confounded: _sensuality_ and _tenderness_.

What part, then, does the shoulder play in regard to this distinction? It will be curious to determine this point. Let us see!

The part played by the shoulder is considerable in tenderness; that is not to be doubted. But its role seems to be less in sensuality. Thus the shoulder generally rises less when the head retroacts than when it advances toward the object of its contemplation. Why is this? Is it because sensuality pertains less to love than tenderness? Has it not the same title to rank as one of the aspects of love? In a word, why is less demand made upon the shoulder in one instance than in the other?

If I do not mistake, the reason is this: love gives more than it lays claim to receive, while sensuality asks continually and seeks merely the possession of its object. Love understands and loves sacrifice; it pervades the whole being; it inspires it to bestow its entire self, and that gift admits of no reserve.

Sensuality, on the contrary, is essentially selfish; far from giving itself, it pretends to appropriate and absorb in itself the object of its desires. Sensuality is, so to speak, but a distorted, narrow and localized love; the body is the object of its contemplation, and it [sensuality] sees nothing beyond the possession of the object.

But love does not stop at the body--that would be its tomb; it crosses the limits of it, to rise to the soul in which it is utterly absorbed. Thus love transfigures the being by consuming its personality, whence it comes that he who loves, no longer lives his own life, but the life of the being whom he contemplates.

Let the vulgar continually confound these two things in their manifestations; let lovers themselves fail to distinguish accurately between tenderness and sensuality; for me this confusion is henceforth forbidden, and I can from the first glance boldly separate them, thanks to the lessons taught me by the inflections of the head.

But let us return to the shoulder. Am I not right in saying that in this agent I possess the organic criterion of love? Yes, I maintain it. But let us follow the action of this organ in its various manifestations.

One thing at first amazed me, in view of the part which I felt I must assign to the shoulder. Whence comes, if the designation of that role be in conformity with truth,--whence comes the activity so apparent, so vehement indeed, which the shoulder displays in a movement of anger or of mere impatience? Whence comes its perfect concomitance or relations with moral or physical pain? Lastly, whence comes that universal application which I just now perceived clearly and which, until now, I had confined to such narrow limits? But if the elevation of the shoulder is not the criterion of love, if, on the contrary, that movement is met with again just as correctly associated with the most contradictory impressions, what can it mean?

Here I was, once again, thrown far back from the discovery that I was so sure I possessed.

It is very fortunate that I have been neither an author nor a journalist, and I bless to-day that distrust of self which has saved me from the mania of writing. I highly congratulate myself on the spirit of prudence that has invariably made me reply to whoever pressed me to publish: "When I am old."

Age has come, and it has found me even less disposed to publicity than ever. This work owes its existence solely to the earnest and continual solicitations, the sometimes severe demands of deep friendship and devotion, which it was impossible for me to refuse. This book is not, then, a spontaneous enterprise on my part; it is the work of friendship. And if this book has any measure of success, if it accomplishes any good, it may be traced back to and acknowledged as rising from the never-failing encouragement of my old friend Brucker.

Let us return, now, to where I was in my researches.

It remains, then, for me to specify the true meaning of the shoulders in the expression of the passions. Their intervention in all forms of emotion being proven to me, it would seem that the very frequency of that intervention should exclude the possibility of assigning any particular role to this agent.

Fancy my perplexity, placed face to face with an organ infinitely expressive, but whose physiognomy is mingled promiscuously with every sentiment and every passion!

How, then, are we to characterize the shoulder? What name shall we give to its dominant rôle? How specify that supreme power outside of which all expression ceases to exist? Is it allowable for me to call it _neutral?_ And if the universal application of that agent apparently authorizes that appellation up to a certain point, whence comes its importance? Whence the empire that it exerts over the aspect of its congeners? Is it admissible for a neutral agent to exert so much action upon the totality of the forces to which it is allied?

Assuredly not! The word _neutral_, moreover, excludes the idea of action, and even more strongly that of predominant action which belongs surpassingly to the shoulder. Truly, here was a treasure-house for me. It was, as they say, "to give speech to the dogs."

This new difficulty only increased the determination with which I had pursued my researches; and with the confidence arising from the fact that no obstacle had yet conquered me, I said to myself that the solution of this problem would be due to my perseverance. I could not, in view of the importance of its expression, consider the shoulder as a neutral agent. After spending a long time in vain study, I was on the point of giving up as insoluble the problem that I had set myself. Let us see by what simple means I obtained the solution. How much trouble and pains one will sometimes give himself in looking for spectacles that are on his nose!

The shoulder, in every man who is moved or agitated, rises sensibly, his will playing no part in the ascension; the successive developments of this involuntary act are in absolute proportion to the passional intensity whose numeric measure they form; the shoulder may, therefore, be fitly called _the thermometer of the sensibility_.

"Thermometer," I cried, "there is an excellent word, strikingly correct. But have I not, in pronouncing it, simply and naturally characterized the rôle that I am striving to define?

"Thermometer of the sensibility! Is not that the solution of the enigma? Thermometer; yes, that is it! That is the very expression to give to my researches, an expression without which nothing could be explained. That, indeed, answers to everything, and makes the difficulties against which my reason struggled disappear."

The shoulder is, in fact, precisely the thermometer of passion as well as of sensibility; it is the measure of their vehemence; it determines their degree of heat and intensity. However, it does not specify their nature, and it is certainly in an analogous sense that the instrument known by the name of thermometer marks the degrees of heat and cold without specifying the nature of the weather--a specification belonging to another instrument, the complement of the thermometer--the barometer. The parallel is absolute, perfect.

Let us examine this point:

The shoulder, in rising, is not called upon to teach us whether the source of the heat or vehemence which mark it, arise from love or hate. This specification does not lie within its province; it belongs entirely to the face, which is to the shoulder what the barometer is to the thermometer. And it is thus that the shoulder and the face enter into harmonious relations to complete the passional sense which they have to determine mutually and by distinct paths.

Now, the shoulder is limited, in its proper domain, to proving, first, that the emotion expressed by the face _is_ or _is not_ true. Then, afterward, to marking, with mathematical rigor, the degree of intensity to which that emotion rises.

After having finished the formulation of this principle I exultingly exclaimed:

"God be praised! I now possess the semeiotics of the shoulder, and thereby I hold the criterion of the passional or sensitive powers--a criterion outside of which no truth can be demonstrated in the sphere of sentiment or feeling."

Thus, a word suggested by chance became my Archimedean lever. The word, like a flash of light, flooded my mind with radiance which suddenly revealed to me the numerous and fertile applications of a principle hitherto unknown. Yes, I henceforth possessed an æsthetic principle of the utmost value, the consequences of which, I could readily see, were as novel as they were profound.

Episode VI.

First Objection to the Thermometric System of the Shoulder.

The innate æsthetic principle of the semeiotics of the shoulder was at last clearly demonstrated to me, and no more doubt or uncertainty upon that point seemed to me possible. I might safely formulate the following rule:

When a man says to you in interjective form: "I love, I suffer, I am delighted," etc., do not believe him if his shoulder remains in a normal attitude. Do not believe him, no matter what expression his face may assume. Do not believe him--he lies; his shoulder denies his words. That negative form betrays his thoughts; and, if he expresses ardent passion, you have merely to consult the thermometer which, all unwittingly, he himself offers to your inspection. See, it marks zero! therefore he lies; doubt it not, he lies! but his shoulder does not lie. He amiably puts it at your disposal--read, read at your ease; it bears inscribed in living letters his deceit and craft. It can never cheat you, and when the gentleman accosts you with such words as: "Dear friend! how charmed I am to see you!" say to yourself as you look at his thermometer: "Traitor, your delight as well as your friendship is below zero! You try to deceive me, but in vain; henceforth you have no secrets from me, clumsy forger! You do not see, as with one hand you proffer the false jewel which you would sell me, that the other at the same instant gives me the touch-stone which reveals your tricks; your right hand thus incessantly exposing to me the secrets of your left hand!"

What an admirable thing is this mechanism of the body working in the service of the soul! With what precision it reveals the least movements of its master! What magnificent things it lays bare! Voluntarily or involuntarily, everything leads to truth under the action of the translucid light which breaks forth in the working of each of our organs!

And yet, well founded as the preceding theory may be, solid as are the bases upon which it rests, is it free from any and all objection? May not some oppose to it, for instance, the impassibility of men and women of the world, among whom it would be difficult to find the movements of the shoulder, which such people deem so ungraceful in others as to deprive them of all desire to imitate them? Now what conclusions are we to draw from the absence of this movement in those who are known as aristocrats? Must we tax them all indiscriminately with falsehood?

Here I might, and without hesitation, answer by the affirmation, Yes, all aristocrats lie! The medium which they constitute and which is called _the world_ is nothing but a perpetual lie. Civility itself rests upon a lie. Nay, more, it insists upon deceit as a duty. Heavens, what would become of the world if truth were a necessity! Quarter of an hour of sincerity would be intolerable; ... the inhabitants would slay each other!

In the world people display their feelings, even the most avowable, with great reserve; this prudence, which paralyzes the very springs of sensitive life, seems as if it needs must neutralize the role which I attribute to the shoulder; and yet, in spite of contrary appearances, I deny that the thermometric action of the shoulder undergoes the least alteration in the aristocratic world; I deny explicitly that this agent proves less expressive and, above all, less truthful there than in the street; and that for the following reasons:

In the first place, we cannot reasonably suppose very ardent passions in men who are enervated by the perpetual influence of an artificial society. Now, here the stationary condition of the thermometer is explained: it proves absolutely nothing against the truth of the reports; it remains at zero to mark a colorless medium totally destitute of vitality. The shoulder would violate its law if it were to rise under such circumstances. It is, therefore, perfectly in character here; it should be, _a priori_, impassive in a negative society.

But is the shoulder really impassive in that medium which we call society?

_Yes_, in the eyes of people who are not of it, and who, from that very fact, cannot understand the value of certain expressions which are almost imperceptible; _no_, to those who constitute that special world of relations called superior.

How many things, in fact, the shoulder reveals by those slight changes unseen by ignorant persons, and expressing particularly the delicate and exquisite charm of spiritual relations! It is the law of infinitesimal quantities, of those scarcely perceptible movements or sensations that characterize the finer relations of people of culture, of eloquence, of grace, and of refined tastes.

It should be borne in mind, as I have already shown, that the manifestations of the shoulder in the street by no means accord with those of people ruled by the fashions of society. There is very little harmony or relation between the exquisite joints of a refined nature, the swift and flexible movements of an elegant organism, and the evolutions clumsily executed by torpid limbs, ankylosed, as it were, by labor at once hard and constant

This observation logically led me to an important conclusion, namely, that the value or importance of a standard is deduced expressly from the nature of the being, or the object to which it is applied. Of what value, for instance, could a millimeter be when added to the stature of a man? That same millimeter, however, would acquire a colossal value when added to the proportions of a flea. It would form a striking monstrosity.

An imperceptible fraction may, in certain cases, constitute an enormity. Again, the value of a standard, not the specific or numerical value which is an invariable basis, but the relative or moral value, must be deduced from the importance of the medium to which it applies. For instance: Five hundred men constitute a very good army in the midst of a peaceful population; and this handful of soldiers exerts, indeed, more moral power than the multitudes restrained under their government. A smile coming from the lips of a sovereign leaves in the soul that it penetrates a far deeper trace than all the demonstrations of a common or vulgar crowd. The traveler, detained by the winter in the polar regions, finds that he is warm and takes pleasure in the discovery, though at the time the thermometer marks 10 degrees below zero.

The atmosphere of a cave that we find warm in winter seems to us, without being modified in the least, of an icy coldness in summer.

The large quantity of alcohol that laboring people consume would ruin the health of less strongly constituted persons.

To conclude, then, these examples prove beyond dispute that one can only appreciate the importance of an act when he takes into account the nature of its agents, and that without these considerations he will be obliged to give up immediately all serious estimation of these manifestations.

Here I touch, it seems to me, a law of harmony, a curious law that I wish to examine incidentally. I shall, then, occupy myself with the objections that may, perhaps, be opposed even yet to the thermometric system of the shoulder

Episode VII.

The foregoing study has, as it seems, established an important fact, namely, that among the various classes of men which make up society there is no common standard of measure. It, therefore, appears impossible, at first sight, to establish a harmonious scale of relations between so many various circles.

However, if these circles, whatever their differences may be, were specified and sufficiently known; if I could, for example, judge _a priori_ of the style and mode of activity adapted to each class of society; in a word, if it were possible for me to characterize each of its classes dynamically, should I not succeed in ascertaining a proportionate gamut or scale among them, and thereby should I not be enabled securely to apply the principles established above?

Let us say, to begin with, that if each social sphere affects a determinate character in the intensity of its passional evolutions, it has, in consequence, its special gamut; then, as many spheres as there are, so many gamuts must there be. Now, all these gamuts taken together must form a scale of proportion in virtue of which they may be characterized. That is obvious. But the difficulty is to prove the mode or first tonality of these gamuts. How are we to set to work?

I cut short, for the clearness of my demonstrations, the recital of the events through which I have been obliged to pass before realizing even my earliest observations. I shall set forth, plainly and simply, the final result of my studies; and it will be seen, in spite of the many difficulties that may arise, with what absolute certainty the principles I have established can be applied.

What I Propose.

I propose a great, a worthy subject for your study. At those oratorical sessions which are rapidly increasing under the name of conferences, sessions at which so many distinguished men take the floor, you have been told in elegant terms, often in eloquent terms, of the sciences, of their application and of their progress. You have listened to discourses upon art, its primitive purity, its supposed principles, its decadence, its renaissance, its multifarious changes; its masterpieces have been pointed out to you; they have been described to you; you have, in some degree, been made familiar with their origin. You have heard the story of the lives of the great artists. They have been shown to you in their weakness and in their strength. The times and manners amid which they lived have been painted for you in more or less imaginary colors. I propose something better than all this.

I offer you a work superior even to those sciences which have been described to you; superior to all which the genius of a Michael Angelo or a Raphael could conceive; a work in comparison with which all the magnificences of science and of art must pale. I propose that you should contemplate yourselves!

Nothing is so unfamiliar to man as himself. I will, therefore, as I have promised, show you the marvels which God himself has placed within you, in the transluminous obscurities of your being.

Now, if there be more science, more genius in the production of a violet or a worm than is revealed by all the combined powers of science and of art, how much admiration should we not feel at the sight of all the splendors which God has spread broadcast in the privileged work wherein He was pleased to reveal his own image! But a light inaccessible to the vain demonstrations of your sciences constantly removes this mysterious image from your gaze. As light eludes the eye which it illumines, if we would seize and contemplate it, we must have two things: we must have a special and a supernatural object. There must be light within you, and it must pierce the depths wherein that image dwells.

Here there is no question of the light which shines to show us the things of the natural world by which we are surrounded. Nor is it a question of the intellectual light sometimes visible to scholars. I speak of that light which is hidden from those very scholars because their eyes could not bear its lustre, a transluminous light which fills the soul with beatific visions, and of which it is said that God wraps it about Him as a mantle.

Now, three worlds, of the nature of which man partakes, are offered for our contemplation. These three worlds are: The _natural_, the _intellectual_, and the _supernatural_.

Three sorts of vision have been given man to initiate him into these three worlds. These different forms of vision are: _Direct, inward_ and _higher_.

By means of direct vision man is made acquainted with the world of nature; by inward vision he is shown the world of science; and, lastly, by higher vision he sees the world of grace. But as there can be no vision where no light penetrates, it follows that between the three kinds of vision described and the corresponding worlds there must intervene three sorts of light, in order to produce the triple vision necessary for the knowledge of man:

Direct vision--sidereal light--natural world.

Inward vision--the light of tradition--the world of science.

Higher vision--revealed light--supernatural world.

Such are the conditions necessary for the understanding of my demonstrations.

Having prepared your eye for the vision of these three worlds which serve as the bases of art, I shall, then, reveal to you their splendors; happy if, thus, I can help to make you bless the author of so many marvels, and communicate to you those keen joys which perpetuate in the soul a fountain of youth which can never be quenched by the infirmities of the body.

The Beautiful

Beauty is that reason itself which presides at the creation of things. It is the invincible power which attracts and subjugates us in it. The Beautiful admits of three characters, which we distinguish under the titles of _ideal_ beauty, _moral_ beauty, _plastic_ beauty.

Plato defined ideal beauty when he said: "Beauty is the splendor of truth." St. Augustine said of moral beauty that it is the splendor of goodness. I define plastic beauty as the plastic manifestation of truth and goodness.

In so far as it responds to the particular type in accordance with which it is formed, every creature bears the crown of beauty; because in its correspondence with its type it manifests, according to its capacity, the Divine Being who created it.

The Beautiful is an absolute principle; it is the essence of beings, the life of their functions. Beauty is a consequence, an effect, a form of the Beautiful. It results from the attractions of the form. The attraction of the form comes from the nobility of the function. This is why all functions not being equally noble, all do not admit of beauty. The characteristic of beauty is to be amiable; consequently a thing is ugly only in view of the amiable things which we seek in beauty.

Beauty is to the Beautiful what the individual reason is to the Divine reason of things. Human reason is but one ray of a vast orb called the reason of things,--Divine reason. Let us say of beauty what we have said of the individual reason, and we shall understand how the Beautiful is to be distintinguished from it. Beauty is one ray of the Beautiful.

Beauty is the expression of the object for which the thing is.

It is the stamp of its functions. It is the transparency of the aptitudes of the agent and the radiance of the faculties which it governs. It is the order which results from the dynamic disposition of forms operated in view of the function.

Beauty is based on three conditions: Clearness, integrity and due proportion.

Beauty exists in the practical knowledge of the tendencies affected by the form in view of the object for which it is; in view, above all, of the action which it exerts upon the beings with whom it is in relation. Thus a thing is not only beautiful from the transparency of its aptitudes, it is especially so from the beauty of the acts which its use determines abroad. This is the reason why beauty is to all creatures an object of appetency, of desire and of love.

Trinity.

There is a mystery full of deep instruction, a mystery whose divine obscurities surpass all the light whose splendors dazzle us by their supernatural clarity, and which, as a great saint once said, radiates splendid beams and floods with the glory of its fires those spirits who are blind with the blindness of holiness. This mystery, outside of which all is to man dark and incomprehensible, illuminates everything and explains it in the sense that it is the cause, the principle and the end of all things.

This dazzling mystery is the universal criterion of all truth; it is the science of sciences, which is self-defining and whose name is Trinity.

Here we foresee an objection to which we must first reply. Some will be surprised that a system declared to be infallible should rest upon a mystery; they will ask what a mystery can have to do with a purely didactic question. Patience! You shall see that it cannot be otherwise. Nothing is more evident than light, yet light is a mystery, the most obscure of all mysteries. Thus light escapes the eye and it does not see that by means of which it sees. Now, if light is a mystery, why should not mystery be a light? Let us see first what the church teaches us in regard to this mystery.