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 role 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.
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