Eig] AND SYMBOLS. 149 



serpents. There is in most of these an expression of malignity 

 which well indicates their deadly character. Their flattened 

 head, more or less widened behind, so as to approach a triangular 

 figure ; their wide gape, and the cleft tongue ever darting to 

 and fro ; and above all, the sinister expression of the glaring, 

 lidless eye, with its linear pupil, are sufficient to cause the 

 observer to retreat with shuddering precipitancy. Darwin, 

 speaking of a sort of viper which he found at Bahia Blanca, 

 says, " The expression of this snake's face was hideous and 

 fierce ; the pupil consisted of a vertical slit in a mottled and 

 coppery iris; the jaws were broad at the base, and the nose 

 terminated in a triangular projection. I do not think I ever 

 saw anything so ugly, excepting, perhaps, some of the vampire 

 bats." no. 



The Higher Life requires the Higher Aliment. 



The air which has once passed through the lungs of a man, 

 and which, in losing four or five per cent, of its oxygen, has 

 become charged with three or four per cent, of carbonic acid, 

 will yield but very little of its remaining oxygen when again 

 passed through the lungs ; and if this air be breathed over and 

 over again until the sense of suffocation force a cessation, the 

 air will still be found to contain ten per cent, of oxygen that 

 is to say, nearly half of its original quantity. In air thus vitiated 

 the respiratory process is impossible, but only impossible for warm- 

 blooded animals in health : frogs, reptiles, fish, and molluscs, 

 instead of perishing when the air has lost about half its oxygen, 

 continue to breathe and absorb oxygen almost as long as there 

 is any left. Spallanzani, Humboldt, and Matteucci have placed 

 this beyond a doubt by their experiments. It is equally beyond 

 a doubt that in the intellectual world also the higher life 

 requires the higher aliment. The conversation which will 

 kindle and sustain all the vitality of a number of weak-minded 

 gossips, will cause a man of intellect to experience a sensation 

 of suffocation. The intellectual atmosphere of some churches 

 and chapels, which is fully adequate to the wants of a certain 

 tepid order of mind, who can exist on the same truth uttered 

 over and over again, is one in which men composed of vigorous 



