LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 123 



in order to deposit his particular share at some 

 point or other of the honey-comb which they are 

 all mutually engaged in building or repairing. 



When the blood has thus arrived at every point 

 of the entire body, and each streamlet has fulfilled 

 its office of renovation, by parting with the new 

 materials which it contained, and depositing them in 

 the place of the old and worn-out materials which 

 have been removed, but the instant before, by the 

 absorbents when, in a word, the function of nutri- 

 tion has been performed; the little hairlike arte- 

 ries, which brought these several minute streamlets 

 of blood from the heart to the several points of 

 their destination, bend back upon themselves, lose 

 the structure peculiar to arteries, assume that pe- 

 culiar to veins, and commence their journey back 

 to the heart. 



The little streamlets of blood which fill these 

 little back ward- running veins having now parted 

 with those living elements those fresh materials 

 which they brought for the renovation of the body, 

 may be likened, not inaptly, to the same swarm of 

 bees mentioned before ; which, having deposited 

 their precious burdens in various parts of the 

 honey-comb, are now hastening abroad for a fresh 



supply. 



09 



