Page:Love and its hidden history.djvu/61

 all connected with it, directly or by the spinal marrow. These nerves, together with their branches and minute ramifications, exceed twenty-two millions in number, forming a "body guard" outnumbering by far the greatest army ever marshalled! The skin is composed of three layers, and varies from one-fourth to one-eighth of an inch in thickness. Its average area in an adult is estimated to be two thousand square inches. The atmospheric pressure being about fourteen pounds to the square inch, a person of medium size is subjected to a pressure of forty thousand pounds. Each square inch of skin contains four thousand seven hundred sweating tubes or perspiratory pores, each of which may be likened to a little drain tile one-fourth of an inch Ions?, making; an aggregate length of the entire surface of the body of three hundred and fifty-eight thousand feet, or a tile-ditch for draining the body almost seventy miles long. Man is made marvellously. Who is eager to investigate the curious, to witness the wonderful works of Omnipotent Wisdom, let him not wander the wide world round to seek them, but examine himself. Now, if this machine gets out of order, as it does unless love keeps it right, how is life to be other than a gloom y vale of bitterness and tears? Can it? Laughter is a good thing. It has credit for adding length to the days of man. This credit is due. Laughter does a good thing for the species. Men are better for it; ditto women. We don't like a person who never laughs; we do like one who does laugh. The chances are that the latter will be ten times as good as the former. The chap that don't laugh — how can you trust him? He may be a saint, but he is a dark and suspicious one. Besides, laughter is a tonic, and everybody needs something of this sort. Moral: cotton to laughers; turn your back severely on those who never open their mouth, except to utter a melancholic moan, or drivel a tomb-like warning. Be sure and have the heart right. All else is sure to come right, including the head. There is never a weak head attached to a good and strong heart. The thing is impossible. As well expect a white face on a black body. Nature doesn't make 'em that way. The main thing is the heart. It is the central part. That correct, everything is correct. Love does not change the matter. It is simply an exchange, — one good thing for another of the same sort. People's hearts are often perverted, shrivelled, cold,