The sacred writer understood it, when he spoke of the "bowels of
compassion."
A man utters wiser than he knows, often, when, in a crowd
surrounding some object appealing to the heart, he cries out,--
"Gentlemen, have you no bowels?"
The dear Christ suggests the intimate relations between the soul and
the stomach, when, before appealing to the hearts of the multitude,
he filled their stomachs with good food.
In the Bible there are scores of expressions and phrases which point
to the stomach as the seat of the sympathies.
All the bright ones, with subscription papers in their hands, wait
till after dinner.
If they catch a man with a perfectly satisfied stomach, they are
likely to get a good round sum, even for the Hottentot-red-
flannel-shirt-fund.
The fact that the bumps of the heart are in the upper part of the
brain, matters little, if the condition of the digestive apparatus
controls their action. When I remark that the heart is located in
the stomach, it will, of course, be understood in a practical,
rather than in an anatomical sense.
The condition of the stomach determines the action of the emotions
to an extent which cannot be predicated of the intellectual
faculties. When one is dyspeptic, he may multiply and divide; he may
not disgrace himself even in the role of a logician; but if you
appeal to his sympathies,--to any of his emotions,--you will wake up
a pig, a porcupine, or, possibly, a tiger.
Leaving out the Bible intimations and statements, and the
illustrations which abound in English and German biography, no
observing person will fail to recall numerous illustrations in his
own experience.
THE WAISTS OF JOLLY GRANDMOTHERS.
What sort of a waist has the grandmother who comes in from the
country to take care of you through a typhoid fever?
When nine o'clock comes, she drives the young ladies off to bed. She
may not speak it out, but she thinks, "trash! trash! Oh, do get out
of my way, and lie down carefully on a soft couch, where you can
rest, or I shall soon have you too on my hands."
Has she one of these wasp-waists? No indeed; hers is a jolly one!
Who ever saw a happy, helpful grandmother with an hour-glass waist?
Is a grandmother full of tickle? Can she join with the young people
in laughter and sports? Can she? Then I know, without seeing her,
the style of her form.
You see all the tickle comes from that part of the body.
The conditions of the organs within that part of the body known as
the waist, decide whether you shall be happy or unhappy; jolly or
blue. One condition, and the most important one, is that those vital
organs shall have room to work in. If you squeeze them, you squeeze
and strangle all the jolly in you.
Tie a cord about a child's arms and legs, and then say, "Now, my
dear, you may run and play."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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