LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 149 



three-cornered holes : no wonder we are uneasy 

 we don't fit. Is it possible that a square man can 

 be jammed into a three-cornered hole, without 

 being most uncomfortably pinched? But of this 

 I shall have more to say at a future time; when 

 I hope to ring such a peal in your ears, as shall 

 make you heartily ashamed of the lazy and luxu- 

 rious life you lead. But to proceed : 



In order to exhibit the manner in which the body 

 is nourished that is, the manner in which the fluid 

 blood is converted into the solid parts of the body 

 it will, I think, be better to trace, to this consumma- 

 tion, only a single drop of blood at a time. You will, 

 by this method, more readily understand it. But, 

 by a drop, I do not mean a great, round, pumpkin 

 of a thing, like a rain-drop or a dew-drop ; but a 

 delicate, minute globule, visible only to the eye of 

 imagination like the glowworm's tear of disap- 

 pointed love, when she lighteth her lamp in vain. 



You have just seen the fresh chyle taken up by 

 the chylous absorbents, and emptied, by the tho- 

 racic duct, into the veins at the bottom of the neck. 

 Let us follow a single globule of this chyle. 



Hurried along by the current of blood in these 

 veins, it passes through the right side of the heart, 

 along the pulmonary artery ; then through one of its 



