104. Look a little, also, at the labours of the _teeth_, for these correspond with those of the other members of the body, and with the operations of the mind. 'Quick at _meals_, quick at _work_,' is a saying as old as the hills, in this, the most industrious nation upon earth; and never was there a truer saying. But fashion comes in here, and decides that you shall not be quick at meals; that you shall sit and be carrying on the affair of eating for an hour, or more. Good God! what have I not suffered on this account! However, though she must _sit_ as long as the rest, and though she must join in the _performance_ (for it is a real performance) unto the end of the last scene, she cannot make her _teeth_ abandon their character. She may, and must, suffer the slice to linger on the plate, and must make the supply slow, in order to fill up the time; but when she _does_ bite, she cannot well disguise what nature has taught her to do; and you may be assured, that if her jaws move in slow time, and if she rather _squeeze_ than bite the food; if she so deal with it as to leave you in doubt as to whether she mean finally to admit or reject it; if she deal with it thus, set her down as being, in her very nature, incorrigibly lazy. Never mind the pieces of needle-work, the tambouring, the maps of the world made by her needle. Get to see her at work upon a mutton chop, or a bit of bread and cheese; and, if she deal quickly with these, you have a pretty good security for that activity, that _stirring_ industry, without which a wife is a burden instead of being a help. And, as to _love_, it cannot live for more than a month or two (in the breast of a man of spirit) towards a lazy woman.
105. Another mark of industry is, a _quick step_, and a somewhat _heavy tread_, showing that the foot comes down with a _hearty good will_; and if the body lean a little forward, and the eyes keep steadily in the same direction, while the feet are going, so much the better, for these discover _earnestness_ to arrive at the intended point. I do not like, and I never liked, your _sauntering_, soft-stepping girls, who move as if they were perfectly indifferent as to the result; and, as to the _love_ part of the story, whoever expects ardent and lasting affection from one of these sauntering girls, will, when too late, find his mistake: the character runs the same all the way through; and no man ever yet saw a sauntering girl, who did not, when married, make a _mawkish_ wife, and a cold-hearted mother; cared very little for either by husband or children; and, of course, having no store of those blessings which are the natural resources to apply to in sickness and in old age.