Page:Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist (1844).djvu/85

 —censured Vulcan, for making a man without a window in his breast, that his ill designs and treacheries might be seen, which was all very well; but what necessity, even in that poetic age, would there have been for this window, had a social and political Fatometer obtained? And how infinitely more valuable would it be now—how society would be simplified by virtue of its introduction! Fat is the natural fruit of laughter: natural laughter springs from pleasure: pleasure is derived from happiness: happiness from goodness, and goodness comprehends all the virtues. That is one side of the question: now look at the other. Who ever saw a really laughter-loving man thin? No one. And why? Because laughter opens the shoulders—expands the chest—strengthens and increases the size of the lungs, and thus generates fat. Leanness, then, denotes the absence of laughter; the absence of laughter, the absence of pleasure; the absence of pleasure, the absence of happiness; the absence of happiness, the absence of goodness; and the absence of goodness, the absence of all the virtues. Who—had they been contemporaries—who would not have trusted Daniel Lambert—a man of one-doesn't-know-how-many stone—in preference to Monsieur—what was his name—the Living Skeleton? Let a Fatometer be established, that the amiable fat ones may be caressed, and the treacherous lean ones avoided! Let a standard of fat be fixed; and, as the crafty and designing can never hope to reach it, society will be all the purer.

Now, it is the peculiar province of an author to be cognizant of the most secret thoughts, not only of his heroes and heroines, but of every person whom he introduces to the world. Hence it is that he is held responsible for those introductions—and very properly, too!—but it would not be fair to attach to him this responsibility, were his liberty restrained. For example: he is allowed to follow a lady into her very chamber, and to contemplate her most private thoughts, even while she is there; which would be, under any other circumstances, highly incorrect. The lady herself wouldn't allow it; and, if even she had no great objection, by society it would not, it could not, be sanctioned. These remarks are held to be necessary as a sort of an apology, or rather as a species of justification, seeing that it has now to be stated that Aunt Eleanor, immediately after Legge had left the cottage, excused herself to her reverend friend, and went direct to her chamber to have a hearty laugh. And she did laugh heartily, and, therefore, very naturally. She loved to laugh, and hence was fat—that is to say, she had reached that standard which ought, for ladies thus circumstanced, to be universally set up. It is no sufficient argument against the establishment of this standard, that they who love to laugh are not at all times happy. The acmé of pleasure, for instance, consists in being entirely free from pain; but where are we to find the acmé of pleasure, seeing that pleasure and pain are twins? Even Aunt Eleanor, who loved to laugh as well as any lady in the county, was not without troubles, albeit they were few; and even while she was laughing in her chamber, she thought of that mystery which had not yet been solved. Feeling, however, then, that she had something like a clue to its solution, her mind was more tranquil, and when she had become, in her judgment, sufficiently composed, she returned to the