Page:Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Eulis! the history of love.djvu/95

90 is to say, pleasure results from a nervous current rushing along the nerves of each, and mingling in chemico-magnetic union in and at the termination of the nervous filaments radiating from every portion of the two beings, and converging to a point at the respective vital centres of each.

There can be no mutual joy unless such nervous currents do flash along the nervo-telegraphic system; nor can we experience any pleasure, whatever, either nerval, gustatory, or in any other manner, unless such currents do thus pass; and, moreover, every true, or even false human joy, must first be in the soul, before the body can participate. We cannot lift a board till we bend to it, and brace the muscles to the task. This is the principle of : i. e., placing ourselves to do the work, receive a blow, shock or impression. We hate, and all our external features array themselves—involuntarily—ever to materially express the metaphysical emotion. Now for the application of this principle to the subject under consideration.

L. It would look foolish for one to verbally protest burning love, while the face betokened its deadly opposite, or actual, stupid indifference! If the heart means love, and the lips assert it, the voice, manner, eyes, and genial glow, must express it also, if one expects to be believed. Yet in spite of the notoriously plain truth, there are thousands who talk love, while face, feature, voice and conduct give the lie direct to all the lips have spoken; and yet the speakers marvel because their story is not credited. Such persons, too, may honestly mean just what and all they say, yet, failing to pose themselves to the requirements of the case, fail also both in winning credence, and retaining what of love they have already won. Counsel: If your lips speak love, always pose your features to the natural language of the passion or sentiment. For the expression of feature, the soft and flowing modulations of tone, the mellow cadence and inflection of the voice, tells the immortal story of the heart quite as plainly, and far more eloquently, than can possibly any collocation of mere words, which any one can marshal to his or her aid; and soft and gentle tones will do more for errant, faulty husbands and wives than all the protestations or verbal storms that one could utter in a century!