Languages & literature > Beauties of Washington Irving

12
BEAUTIES OF
worrying about, from the uneasiness of its situation.
Whereas your round, sleek, fat, unwieldy periphery is
ever attended by a mind like itself, tranquil, torpid, and
at ease ; and we may always observe, that your well-fed,
robustious burghers are in general very tenacious of their
ease andcomfort; being great enemies to noise, discord,
and disturbance: and surely none are more likely to
study the public tranquillity than those who are so care¬
ful of their own. Who ever hears of fat men heading
a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs?—No—
no—it is your lean, hungry men, who are continually
worrying society, and setting the whole community by
the ears.
The divine Plato, whose doctrines are not sufficiently
attended to by Philosophers of the present age, allows
to every man three souls : one immortal and rational,
seated in the brain, that it may overlook and regulate
the body—a second consisting of the surly and irascible
passions, which, like belligerent powers, lie encamped
around the heart—a third mortal and sensual, destitute
of reason, gross and brutal in its propensities, and en¬
chained in the belly, that it may not disturb the divine
soul, by its ravenous bowlings. Now, according to this
excellent theory, what can be more clear, than that
your fat alderman is most likely to have the most regu¬
lar and well conditioned mind. His head is like a
huge spherical chamber, containing a prodigious mass
of soft brains, whereon the rational soul lies softly and
snugly couched, as on a feather bed; and the eyes,
which are the windows of the bed-chamber, are usually
half closed, that its slumberings may not be disturbed
by external objects. A mind thus comfortably lodged,
and protected from disturbance, is manifestly most
likely to perform its functions with regularity and ease.
By- dint of good feeding, moreover, the mortal and
malignant soul, which is confined in the belly, and which,
by its raging and roaring, puts the irritable soul in the
neighbourhood of the heart in an intolerable passion,
and thus renders men crusty and quarrelsome when
hungry—is completely pacified, silenced, and put to