manual work … how their minds are continually informed of a thousand subtleties of which we men have no notion. In idle women of society and men with a fine skin mental aptitudes are developed and maintained in the direct ratio of the perfection and delicacy of sensibility of the skin. The perfection of touch becomes in a manner a second sight, which enables the mind to feel and see fine details which escape the generality of men and constitutes a quality of the first order, moral tact, that touch of the soul as it has been called, which is the mark of people with a delicate skin, and whose sensory nerves, like tense cords, are always ready to vibrate at the contact of the slightest impressions."
This is all very well for the lady (it is so well for her that the tact she gains will often take the place of all the talents); but what about the "horny-handed son of toil"? "Compare the thick skin of a man of toil," continues Luys, "used to handling coarse tools and lifting heavy burdens, and see if, after an examination of his intellectual and moral sensibility, you think that he understands you when you try to waken in him some sparks of those delicacies of sentiment that are so very striking in people with a fine skin. On this point experience has long ago pronounced judgment, and we all know that we must speak to
