Thus I gained possession of an aesthetic 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.