Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/578

562 fairy tales must be extended a little to include tales in which something "fairy," or extraordinary, like fairies, giants, dwarfs, or speaking animals, occurs; and also to cover tales in which the extraordinary thing is the stupidity of some of the actors. The question of nationality, too, is one to which it is hard to assign limits. Some of the stories were found among the descendants of English immigrants in America, some in Australia, some among the Lowland Scotch; and one of the best was taken down from the mouth of an English gypsy. Some of them exist in the form of ballads. Writing for children, the author has considered it expedient to take a few liberties with the text, translating sometimes from dialect or introducing or changing an incident; but mention of the fact is always made in the notes. He has felt authorized to do this amount of adaptation because he expects on some future occasion to treat the subject of the English folk-lore tale in a critical manner, when the originals will be reproduced with literal accuracy.

author has prepared this treatise in the belief that a work fully and practically illustrated and devoted to a complete account of the muscles of any species of bird is wanting; and that such a work would be of service to persons engaged in the general morphology of vertebrates as well as to special students. Birds are among the most easily procurable subjects for the use of the demonstrator and the student, and of these none are more convenient than those of the raven kind, which represent a numerous and cosmopolitan family, including the crows, jays, orioles, and very many others. As, according to the author, the student's investigations in the myology of birds advance, three lines of improvement in knowledge of their muscular system will force themselves upon him. "In the first place, we still remain very ignorant of the details of this system in a great many important types of birds; secondly, an ever-pressing demand is evident to fix the homologies of muscles in the vcrtebrata, and, consequently, to bring so far-reaching a knowledge of this department of research to our assistance as to be able to give the same name to the same muscles accurately throughout the vertebrate series; and, finally, a simple, scientific, and euphonious nomenclature is very much to be desired. As an index of our present status with respect to our knowledge of the muscles of birds, it is hoped that the volume here offered will faithfully represent it; but its writer trusts that in future works he may lend his assistance to the improvement of all the lines above indicated."

the only aim of this little book had been to serve as a guide in making the body flexible and responsive, one third of the contents might have been omitted with nothing to regret.

The first chapter suggests an excellent drill to gain bodily control. Exercises are given for the fingers, hands, shoulders, head, and trunk; also directions for various movements, including stage-falls. In the closing chapter it is shown how the acquired suppleness may be utilized in representing mental and emotional states. The laws of expression in relation to each organ are defined, and a quotation is made from Duchenne's Human Physiognomy, confirming the method delineated.

The intermediate part of the book is taken up with an outline of the philosophy of Delsarte, which is said to depend upon "the triune nature of man." A trinity is defined as "the union of three things necessarily coexistent in time, copenetrative in space, co-operative in motion." Accordingly, the human organization is split up into ternary combinations, and nothing is allowed to overflow the trinitarian mold. There is the "essential trinity" and the "dynamic trinity"; the "nervous," the "circulatory," and the "visceral trinity."

The triple classification into moral, mental, and vital, differentiates our unoffending members in a remarkable manner. The bones are vital, the skin mental, and the flesh moral. The pupil of the eye expresses intellect, but the iris has a leaning toward righteousness. The tip of the nose is also virtuously distinguished from the nostrils.