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 role? 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.
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