novel as they were profound.

Episode VI.

First Objection to the Thermometric System of the Shoulder.

The innate aesthetic 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