The Arcades Project - Operi

long eagerness: it approaches, always approaches, its goal . .. but never attains
it:' A. Toussenel, L'Esprit des betes (Paris, 1884), p. 92 ," [Glla,2]
Animal symbolism in Toussenel: the hedgehog. "Gluttonous and repulsive, it is
also the portrait of the scurvy slave of the pen, trafficking with all subjects, selling
postmaster's appointments and theater passes, . . . and drawing . . . from his
sorry Christian conscience pledges and apologies at fixed prices . ... It is said that
the hedgehog is the only quadruped of France on which the venom of the viper has
no effect. I should have guessed this exception merely from analogy . . . . For
explain . . . how calumny (the viper) can sting the literary blackguard."
A. Toussenel, L'Esprit des betes (Paris, 1884), 1'1'. 476, 478.18 [Glla,3]
"Lightning is the kiss of' clouds, stormy but faithful. Two lovel's who adore each
other, and who will tell it in spite of all ohstacles, are two clouds animated with
opposite electricities, and swelled with tragedy." A. Toussenel, L'Esprit des bfhes:
Zoologie passionnelle-Mmnmiferes de France, 4th ed. (Paris, 1884), pp. 100-
101." [G12,l]
The first edition of Toussenel 's L 'Esprit des betes appeared in 1847. [G12,2]
"J have vainly questioned the archives of antiquity to find traces of the setter dog.
I have appealed to the memory of the most lucid somnamhulists to ascertain the
epoch when this race appeared. All the information I could procure . .. leads to
this conclusion: the setter dog is a creation of modern times." A. Toussenel, L 'Esprit
des betes (Paris, 1884), p. 159.20 [G12,3]
"'A heautiful young woman is a true voltaic cell, . . in which the captive fluid is
retained by the form of surfaces and the isolating virtue of the hair; so that when
this fluid would escape from its sweet prison, it must make incredihle efforts,
which IH"oduce in turn, by influence on bodies differently animated, fearful ravages
of attraction . . . . The history of the human raee swarms with examples of
intelligent and learned men, intrepid heroes, . .. transfixed merely hy a woman's
eye . ... The holy King David proved that he perfectly understood the condensing
properties of polished elliptical surfaces when he took unto himself the young
Abigail." A. Toussenel, L'Esprit des betes (Paris , 1884), pp. 101_103.21 [G12,4]
Toussenel explains the rotation of the earth as the resultant of a centrifugal force
and a force of attraction. Further on: "The star . .. begins to waltz its frenetic
waltz . ... Everything rustles, stirs, warms up, shines on the surface of the globe,
which only the evening before was entomhed in the frigid silence of night. Marvelous
spectacle for the well-placed observer-change of scene wonderful to behold.
For the revolution took place between two suns and, that very evening, an amethyst
star made its first appearance in our skies" (p. 45). And, alluding to the
volcanism of earlier epochs of the earth: 'We know the effects which the first waltz
usually has on delicate eonstitutions . ... The Earth, too, was rudely awakened by