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.