mental impulses imaginary or real. The first layer is outer, composed of longitudinal fibers covering the front of the womb and its rear wall. The middle layer is composed of fibers extend-ing in every direction, clinging together and interlocked, most of them interlaced in the shape of the figure eight, as the French write it, around the large blood vessels. The inner layer is formed of circular fibers, most of which gather in the lower part, near the outlet or neck.

It is necessary to attend to the distribution of these various fibers, so that one may under-stand what happens when each group of them contracts. Yet it is difficult to tell one group from another, and practically impossible for any clear difference between the fibers of these layers to appear in the dissecting room, though each of them has a property and a task belonging to no other. The longitudinal outer fibers have a property, which is the power of expulsion, and an aim, which is to empty the cham-ber of the womb and vacate the prison. The middle fibers, when they contract, imprison the blood in its vessels; and when they relax, they ease its movement, so that it runs its natural course in the vessels. As for the inner circular fibers, when they contract they close the door of the womb and bar it — though its true work comes at delivery — so that the prison's outlet remains shut, or narrow.

The contraction of the womb's muscle depends, of course, upon the nerve networks; and the womb draws its nerve supply from three sources, which send their signals to its various muscles. The circular fibers and the fibers of the middle layer are supplied by the "sympathetic" nervous system; the longitudinal fibers, however, have two sources furnishing them with nerves. The first is the nerve branching from the "sympathetic" system, and the second is the local nerve group

within the muscle of the womb itself. This latter has no con-nection whatever with the spinal column or with the "sympathetic" nervous system; but this local group has an importance which appears plainly when the question is studied at length, to bring out the internal muscular harmony.

There is nothing strange in muscles opposing one another; in every region of the body there are muscles that oppose one another in their actions in order to perform their tasks most perfectly. If we wish, for example, to bend the arm at the elbow, the two-headed muscle contracts while the three-headed muscle relaxes, since by its very forma-tion it is the opposer of the first; and if we wish to stretch the arm out, the three-headed muscle con-tracts and the two-headed relaxes at the same time. This opposing movement is called the harmony of muscular contractions. Should the two muscles work together in a single direction, the arm is seized with rigidity; and if the contractions are strong, it is seized with a trembling followed at once by severe pain.

A like harmony of muscular movement takes place in the intestines at stool, and in the urinary passage and the bladder at excretion. In the natural state the expelling muscles contract without meeting resistance from the muscular ring surrounding the outlet, so that the passage of the waste is easy and natural, without pain. If the state is not natural — as when there is a fissure at the outlet, or an inflammation in the urinary canal — the muscular ring contracts suddenly and resists the expelling muscular contractions, and the discharge of the waste becomes difficult and very painful. And so it happens at childbirth: in ordinary cases the harmony appears plainly in the movements of the womb's muscle; the longitudinal fibers contract in an expelling motion, and the circular fibers slacken and yield, so that the door of the womb

stretches, the outlet of the prison opens, and an easy passage is made ready for the imprisoned child, leading it to the world of light and freedom.

From the general principles of the womb's structure, as we have explained it, one may conclude that easy, natural delivery, free of racking pain, depends upon the following causes:

First — a power of expulsion displayed by the longitudinal fibers without meeting resistance from the circular fibers.

Second — the setting of the longitudinal fibers in motion by the local nerves, and the halting of the action of the nerves connected with the circular fibers, so that these fibers remain in their natural state, without tension.

Third — the relaxing of the fibers of the middle layer around the vessels between the expelling pangs, so that the blood may be renewed and the dregs and deposits produced by muscular action carried off.

Thus delivery is made easy by a willed, conscious act depending upon the expectant mother her-self, by which she is enabled to escape what used to terrify her of pain — pain that stirred her delicate, deeply impressionable feelings with the tales of her neighbors and companions and the horror of childbirth they pictured, a horror embodied by fancy and swollen by fear.

• The smile, in "La Gioconda" — its wonder lies in its rendering, not in the original of its loveliness. And so it is with beauty, in literature: it need not be, in itself, a thing of beauty. "Amin Nakhle"