“I can give you a better example than either of those!” exclaimed Mrs. White. “When the morning paper comes at breakfast-time my husband always offers me the first reading of it.”
An informal vote awarded the last speaker’s husband the medal of heroism.
(812)
DOMINANT ELEMENTS
Every animate or inanimate structure responds to some chord or note of music, called, I believe, the dominant. We have all felt some building vibrate in unison with the pulsation of some note of a musical instrument; we have felt “creepy” shivers run through us as some musical chord is sounded. It is well known that animals are strangely affected by certain harmonies. Some day, when civilization has advanced, I believe that these evidences of psychological structure will be better understood. It will be recognized that vice and virtue are in accord with different harmonies, and yield to the power of different dominants; and, when once the classification is made, and the disclosures of the dominant understood, then the extent and influence of the dominant will be a psychological test to define the character and ruling passions of men’s nature, and to decide the fitness of men for the various pursuits of life, and even for life itself. (Text.)—Arthur Dudley Vinton, American Magazine.
(813)
Dominion of Man—See [Mastery of Nature].
Doors, Opening Human—See [Receptiveness].
DOUBLE MEANINGS, DANGER OF
The last great martyr to the double meaning in our Constitution, mentioned below, was Lincoln. It was a clause that protected the most gigantic evil of history: