The Arcades Project - Operi

infancy, the Cyclopean period . ... It is the . .. allegorical expression of the absolute
predominance of brute force over intellectual force . . . . Many estimable
analogists find a marked resemblance between moles, which upturn the soil and
pierce passages of subterranean communication, ... and the monopolizers of railroads
and stage routes . . . . The extreme nervous sensibility of the mole, which
fears the light . .. , admirably characterizes the obstinate obscurantism of those
monopolizers of banking and of transportation, who also fear the light."
A. Toussenel, L'Esprit des hetes: Zoologie passionnelle-Mammiferes de France
(Paris, 1884), pp. 469, 473-474.1•1 [Gll,4]
Animal symbolism in Toussenel: the marmot. '(,The marmot ... loses its hail' at its
work-in allusion to the painful labor of the chimney sweep, who rubs and spoils
his clothes in his occupation." A. Toussenel, L'Esprit des hetes (Paris, 1884),
p. 334Y [Gll,5]
Plant symbolism in Toussenel: the vine. "The vine loves to gossip ... ; it mounts
familiarly to the shoulder of plum tree, olive, or elm, and is intimate with all the
trees." A. Toussenel, L'Esprit des hetes (Paris, 1884), p. 107. [GU,6)
Toussenel expounds the theory of the circle and of the parabola with reference
to the different childhood games of the two sexes. 'Ibis recalls the anthropo­
morphisms of Grandville. "The figures preferred by childhood are invariably
round-the ball, the hoop, the marble; also the fruits which it prefers: the cherry,
the gooseberry, the apple, the jam tart . ... The analogist, who has observed these
games with continued attention, has not failed to remark a characteristic differ­
ence in the choice of amusements, and the favorite exercises, of the children of
the two sexes . ... What then has our observer remarked in the character of the
games of feminine infancy? He has remarked in the character of these games a
decided proclivity toward the ellipse. / I observe among the favorite games of
feminine infancy the shuttlecock and the jump rope . ... Both the rope and the
cord describe parabolic or elliptical curves. Why so? Why, at such an early age,
tlus preference of the minor sex for the elliptical curve, this manifest contempt for
marbles, ball, and top? Because the ellipse is the curve oflove, as the circle is that
of friendship. The ellipse is the figure in which God ... has profiled the form of
His favorite creatures-woman, swan, Arabian horse, dove; the ellipse is the
essentially attractive form . . . . Astronomers were generally iguorant as to why
the planets describe ellipses and not circumferences around their pivot of attraction;
they now know as much about this mystery as I do;' A. Toussenel, L'Esprit
des betes, pp. 89-91. 16 [Glla,!]
'Joussenel posits a symbolism of curves, according to which the circle represents
friendship; the ellipse, love; the parabola, the sense of family; the hyperbola,
ambition. In the paragraph concerrring the hyperbola, there is a passage closely
related to Grandville: "The hyperbola is the curve of ambition. . . . Admire tl,e
determined persistence of the ardent asymptote pursuing the hyperbola in head-