THE PHILOSOPHY OF EXPRESSION.
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��marked features which belong to the genuine bilious temperament. In such persons, however, there has generally ])een found a union of the sanguineous with the bilious. If that vital energy and impulsive force which the activity of the system of blood vessels pro- duces, be wholly wanting, the bilious temperament is aj)t to/degenerate into the melancholic. " The skin then assumes a deeper tinge, the countenance appears sallow and sad, and the disposition becomes habitually gloomy and suspicious." Such a dia- thesis of body is rather morbid than healthy. Tiberius Caesar, that lump of clay kneaded up with blood, as he is portrayed by the matchless pen of Tacitus, seems referable to this class of subjects. He was dark, designing, suspicious, and constantly malevolent. No ray of kindness or cheerfulness ever beamed from his clouded brow. A more ill-natured, unamiable human being never walked the earth. Melan- choly is near allied to madness, and the " blues " sometimes prove to be real demons. In the phlegmatic tem- perament, the proportion of fluids is too great for the solids in the system. It is thus described bv an eminent physiologist : " The fleshy parts are soft, the skin fair, the hair flaxen or sandy, the pulse weak and slow ; the figure plump but without expression, all the vital actions more or less lan- guid ; the memory little tenacious, the attention wavering ; accompanied by an insupportable desire of indolence and aversion to both mental and cor- poreal exertion." Such men are re- markable for their masterly inactivity. Sancho Panza was a true type of this fraternity, who exclaimed : "Blessed be the man who first invented sleep. It covers a man all over like a cloak." Of the same character was the English- man, who was called by mistake at day- break to take the early train. When the servant dinned his drowsv ears with the message, Day is breaking, sir," he exclaimed, " let it break, it owes me nothing." Solomon often alludes to such persons under the denomination
��of "the sluggard," who cries : "A little more sleep, a little more slumber, and a little more folding of the hands to sleep ; who will not plow by reason of the cold, and therefore l)egs in harvest and has nothing ; whose field is all grown over with thorns, and the stone wall thereof is broken down." It seems almost like a contagious disease among the young of our day. Boys just ripening into manhood are peculiarly subject to it. "Neighbor Jones," said a nervous old gentleman, who observed too many rests in the music of the flails in his barn, " is not your son John afraid of work? " "Afraid of work ! " replied Mr. Jones ; " no indeed, he will lie down and sleep by it all day, without any sign of fear." The nervous temperament is almost precisely the reverse of the phlegmatic. Its external signs are fine, thin hair, delicate health, smallness, of muscles and vivacity of feelings, manifested by the rapid and sudden motion of the limbs. It is al- most always accompanied with a mor- bid condition of the subject, and per- haps is in part the result of chronic disease. It often produces great irrita- bility of body and mind because their harmony is interrupted by continued ill health. " The mind banquets and the body pines." Such men, like Cassius, "have a lean and hungry look. They think too much." It is not im- probable that this diathesis of the physical constitution is often induced by severe mental labor or by excessive anxiety about worldly affairs. Some of the greatest minds ever known have been tenants of the most crazv, shat- tered and frail mortal tenements that were ever animated with the breath of life.*
��* Note. — It is a curious fact, that a large majority of distinguished men, whether in the field, the cabinet, the forum, or in the illimitable arena of arts and sciei.'ces, have been undersized ; few there have been of lofty stature. \\ ho can account for this, but on the hypothesis that they were perfect copies, even to the physique of the mother nature. A Teuton was asked how he came to have so feminine
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