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vated . She had been from her birth very pretty , and her parents , who were as ignorant of human nature as an Esquimaux of mathematics , made her their idol , cherishing her with a pernicious tenderness , the consequence of which was utter enervation . At the time that she became a bride , and long previous , one sole ambition possessed her mind , ( which the trash of a circulating
library fed , )—that ambition was to be a remarkable instance of youthful delicate beauty . With this view she denied herself the nourishment necessary to sustain her strength , and lived almost literally on bread and butter . * Ignorant of the intimate sympathy which exists between all parts of the human economy \ —iguorant that there is beauty , great and various , beyond this blank beauty
of form * she but imperfectly attained that at which she aimed ; and she sank into a debility which rendered any mental action , beyond a feeble irritableness , impossible . To this was superadded habits of dress , J at utter variance with health or the liberty of action to many of the functions of her frame ; and thus , while aiming at perfect beauty , she was purchasing premature decay , and perpetual imbecility .
Unhappy Cyril ! was this a being to brave with thee thy stormy fortune , and top the mountain billows in triumphant success ? Was this the being to turn aside with thee at intervals from the toiling tasks of life , and recreate thee and herself at the unexpensive , yet rich , banquet of intellectual love ? Was this a being to be the mother of thy children ? What organic energy or mental culture could they derive from her ? * A fact *
¦}• Haller , Soetnmering , and Cuvier , in speaking of the proportion of the brain to the body , regard it difficult to determine that proportion , because , they say , the body alters , that is , increases or diminishes , and the brain does not . On this Dr . Spurzbeim observes , that the latter part of this proposition is refuted by experience ; that though no adipose substance be deposited in tbe brain more than in the lungs , it still
participates in the nutrition of the body as well as every other organic part ; its convolutions are more plump and more closely packed together , and the whole brain \ h heavier , in well-nourished men and animals in the flower of youth and vigour , than in the old , lean , or emaciated , or in those who have died of hunger or of lingering diseases .
I Dr . Southwood Smith ( for whose observations on the enlargement of female knowledge , contained in his ' Philosophy of Health , * the wiser part of the world will honour him , and the other part yet learn to thank him ) says that the pulsation of the heart goes on at the rate of a hundred thousand strokes every twenty-four hours , having at every stroke a great resistance to overcome . How- extreme the folly , or how lamentable the ignorance , which permits women to suffer the pressure of whalebone ,
steel , or ligature , to impede the operation of this important function ! The same intelligent mind has likewise observed upon the wonderful provision which makes the functions of the heart , on the uninterrupted action of which life depends , independent of the will ; were it not so , existence must be devoted to anxious attention to keep the heart in motion , since the cessation of that motion would be death . An effect very analogous to what this would create , may be perceived in the anxieties of dresfc and deportment ; the mind intent on these , —the mind which cannot for a
moment forget them , lest they should make a dereliction from the right line of attraction , must inevitably be incapable of receiving impression from anything else 5 or if at intervals it does receive Buch , it must be Incapable of developing them . Thus tt is that ftoldieraand ladies on parade day are § 0 parsimonious of wdfdg * HoW could they ptoteni arms * &c . &c . » if they were suffering any distraction from feeling or fancy ?
Untitled Article
150 Sketches of Domestic Life *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1835, page 150, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2643/page/6/
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