to refrain from washing herself in cold
water; because water warm or tepid is the proper thing for all kinds of
ablutions.

Let Broussais be your idol. At the least indisposition of your wife, and
on the slightest pretext, order the application of leeches; do not even
shrink from applying from time to time a few dozen on yourself, in order
to establish the system of that celebrated doctor in your household. You
will constantly be called upon from your position as husband to discover
that your wife is too ruddy; try even sometimes to bring the blood to
her head, in order to have the right to introduce into the house at
certain intervals a squad of leeches.

Your wife ought to drink water, lightly tinged with a Burgundy wine
agreeable to her taste, but destitute of any tonic properties; every
other kind of wine would be bad for her. Never allow her to drink water
alone; if you do, you are lost.

"Impetuous fluid! As soon as you press against the floodgates of the
brain, how quickly do they yield to your power! Then Curiosity comes
swimming by, making signs to her companions to follow; they plunge into
the current. Imagination sits dreaming on the bank. She follows the
torrent with her eyes and transforms the fragments of straw and reed
into masts and bowsprit. And scarcely has the transformation taken
place, before Desire, holding in one hand her skirt drawn up even to
her knees, appears, sees the vessel and takes possession of it. O ye
drinkers of water, it is by means of that magic spring that you have so
often turned and turned again the world at your will, throwing beneath
your feet the weak, trampling on his neck, and sometimes changing even
the form and aspect of nature!"

If by this system of inaction, in combination with our system of diet,
you fail to obtain satisfactory results, throw yourself with might and
main into another system, which we will explain to you.

Man has a certain degree of energy given to him. Such and such a man or
woman stands to another as ten is to thirty, as one to five; and there
is a certain degree of energy which no one of us ever exceeds. The
quantity of energy, or willpower, which each of us possesses diffuses
itself like sound; it is sometimes weak, sometimes strong; it modifies
itself according to the octaves to which it mounts. This force is
unique, and although it may be dissipated in desire, in passion, in
toils of intellect or in bodily exertion, it turns towards the objec