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 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.  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!