WILL DUPLICATE WHAT IS RIDICULOUS PROFESSIONALLY WITH SOMETHING THAT
IS RIDICULOUS PHYSICALLY.

When Brid'oison the judge comes stammering on to the stage, is he
not actually preparing us, by this very stammering, to understand
the phenomenon of intellectual ossification we are about to witness?
What bond of secret relationship can there be between the physical
defect and the moral infirmity? It is difficult to say; yet we feel
that the relationship is there, though we cannot express it in
words. Perhaps the situation required that this judging machine
should also appear before us as a talking machine. However it may
be, no other overtone could more perfectly have completed the
fundamental note.

When Moliere introduces to us the two ridiculous doctors, Bahis and
Macroton, in L'Amour medecin, he makes one of them speak very
slowly, as though scanning his words syllable by syllable, whilst
the other stutters. We find the same contrast between the two
lawyers in Monsieur de Pourceaugnac. In the rhythm of speech is
generally to be found the physical peculiarity that is destined to
complete the element of professional ridicule. When the author has
failed to suggest a defect of this kind, it is seldom the case that
the actor does not instinctively invent one.

Consequently, there is a natural relationship, which we equally
naturally recognise, between the two images we have been comparing
with each other, the mind crystallising in certain grooves, and the
body losing its elasticity through the influence of certain defects.
Whether or not our attention be diverted from the matter to the
manner, or from the moral to the physical, in both cases the same