Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/352

 MARK TWAIN

lashed to each other and to the neighboring teeth with wires or with silk threads. They were not to eat with, nor to laugh with, because they dropped out when not in repose. You could smile with them, but you had to practise first, or you would overdo it. They were not for business, but just decoration. They filled the bill according to their lights.

This author says &quot;the Flesh of Swine nourishes above all other eatables.&quot; In another place he mentions a number of things, and says &quot;these are very easy to be digested; so is Pork.&quot; This is prob ably a lie. But he is pretty handy in that line; and when he hasn t anything of the sort in stock himself he gives some other expert an opening. For in stance, under the head of &quot;Attractives&quot; he intro duces Paracelsus, who tells of a nameless &quot;Specific&quot; quantity of it not set down which is able to draw a hundred pounds of flesh to itself distance not stated and then proceeds, It happen d in our own Days that an Attractive of this Kind drew a certain Man s Lungs up into his Mouth, by which he had the Misfortune to be suffocated.&quot; This is more than doubtful. In the first place, his Mouth couldn t accommodate his Lungs in fact, his Hat couldn t; secondly, his Heart being more eligibly Situated, it would have got the Start of his Lungs, and, being a lighter Body, it would have Sail d in ahead and Occupied the Premises ; thirdly, you will Take Notice a Man with his Heart in his Mouth hasn t any Room left for his Lungs he has got all he can Attend to; and finally, the Man must have had the Attractive in his Hat, and when he saw what was going to

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