endulum, and
the dead man's heart.
But here is a wonderful thing, an actual picture that has lived on,
retaining its ancient imitative sound and form: [Illustration] the
letter N, the drawing of a wave, with the sound of a wave still within
it. One could well imagine the Nile in the winds of the dawn making such
a sound: "NN, N, N," lapping at the reeds upon its banks. Certainly the
glittering water scenes are a dominant part of moving picture Esperanto.
On the white reverse of the symbol, the spiritual meaning of water will
range from the metaphor of the purity of the dew to the sea as a sign of
infinity.
Here is a window with closed shutters: [Illustration] Latin equivalent,
the letter P. It is a reminder of the technical outline of this book. The
Intimate Photoplay, as I have said, is but a window where we open the
shutters and peep into some one's cottage. As to the soul meaning in the
opening or closing of the shutters, it ranges from Noah's opening the
hatches to send forth the dove, to the promises of blessing when the
Windows of Heaven should be opened.
Here is the picture of an angle: [Illustration] Latin equivalent, Q.
This is another reminder of the technical outline. The photoplay
interior, as has been reiterated, is small and three-cornered. Here the
heroine does her plotting, flirting, and primping, etc. I will leave the
spiritual interpretation of the angle to Emerson, Swedenborg, or
Maeterlinck.
Here is the picture of a mouth: [Illustration] Latin equivalent, the
letter R. If we turn from the dictionary to the monuments, we will see
that the Egyptians used all the human features in their pictures. We do
not separate the features as frequently as did that ancient people, but
we conventionalize them as often. Nine-tenths of the actors have faces as
fixed as the masks of the Greek chorus: they have the hero-mask with the
protruding chin, the villain-frown, the comedian-grin, the fixed
innocent-girl simper. These formulas have their place in the broad
effects of Crowd Pictures and in comedies. Then there are sudden
abandonments of the mask. Griffith's pupils, Henry Walthall and Blanche
Sweet, seem to me to be the greatest people in the photoplays: for one
reason their faces are as sensitive to changing emotion as the surfaces
of fair lakes in the wind. There is a passage in Enoch Arden where Annie,
impersonated by Lillian Gish, another pupil of Griffith, is waiting in
suspense for the return of her
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