Part 7

There are three serious objections to my health prescriptions ❦ First, I make no charge for them. Second, they are written in plain English, without myth, miracle or mystery, and can be understood even by the mediocre mind. Third, you have to fill the prescription yourself, and this costs effort. Sickness is a selfish thing. If you are well you are expected to work, and give your time and talent to helping other people. If you are sick you are supposed to be immune from many unpleasant tasks and duties. Mark Twain said he was never really happy except on two occasions. One was when he was given that Oxford degree and wore a marvelous red cloak and a mortar-board hat; and the other was when he had the measles and expected to die. The joy of holding the center of the stage and having the whole family in tears, just on his own account, was worth all the pangs ❦ But, indeed, there were no pangs. Mark was a humorist, and a humorist is a man who has the sense of values, and to have the sense of values is wisdom. Mark was a great philosopher as well as a humorist ❦ Not only did he testify that pangs and pains are the attributes of life, not death, and that there is no pain in death, but he also gave testimony that sickness is an acute form of selfishness. The sick man disarranges the entire scheme of house-keeping wherever he is, unless he be in a hospital. To have his meals served to him in bed he regards as natural and right ❦ For once he holds the center of the stage—all dance attendance. Doctors come, nurses run for this and that, neighbors call and inquire. He is It. ¶ The paranoiac is a person who craves attention, and rather than go unnoticed, commits crime. Just observe how most sick people obtrude their maladies upon their friends, and then tell me whether sickness is not usually a form of paranoia! Doctor Johnson said the sick man is a rascal ❦ Not only is the remark true, but Doctor Johnson might have gone further and stated that a long period of rascality is required to produce most cases of sickness. Hate, prejudice, revenge, jealousy, wrath, are all disturbers of the circulation, and producers of toxins. These toxins poison the entire system, and continued, may produce rheumatism, dyspepsia, Bright’s disease, or various other pleasant things for which we look to the doctor for relief. ¶ Most people go through life on a short allowance of ozone, and a surfeit of food. We eat too much and breathe too little ❦ Life is combustion—the digestive tract is a boiler. And as oxygen is necessary to fire, so it is to life. The value of exercise in the open air lies in the fact that it is getting a goodly draft of oxygen through your system, and this forced draft is both eliminating refuse and burning up slag ❦ These things are all so trite and true that it seems silly to write this for cultured people, and yet cultured and educated people are sick quite as much as the other kind. In fact, more so, since necessity is often removed and the person has the privilege of going to bed in the morning, getting up when he pleases, eating a multiplicity of dishes that set up an internecine war, giving the saw-buck absent treatment, and forcing or bribing other folks to wait on him. ¶ It is a curious comment on our civilization to find our great sanitariums and health-resorts full of college graduates. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Vassar and Wellesley are all represented constantly at Battle Creek, Dansville, Mount Clemens, Hot Springs, Richfield and Alma ❦ Imagine an LL. D. being given vicarious exercise by a healthy colored man who can neither read nor write; a Ph. D. looked after by a saucy slip of a nurse, in becoming cap and apron, fresh from the farm or paper-box factory; an M. D. vigorously Muldooned by a man who knows nothing of medicine, but something of health! ¶ A great surgeon tells me that he has never yet seen a case of appendicitis where the patient has not been addicted to the Beecham Habit. That is to say, this disease is the result of medicine, just as are many others. ¶ So here is the prescription: Get the Health Habit—by throwing physic to the dogs, because it will not hurt the dogs, since they know better than to swallow it; drink plenty of pure water; eat what you like, but do not overeat; have a regular daily occupation; breathe much and deeply in the open air; have a veranda bedroom, open if possible on two sides, or at least sleep in a room with windows run up wide, even if the water-pitcher freezes; think well of everybody, especially doctors, for good doctors everywhere are practising a Science of Prevention, and will corroborate these suggestions ❦ They are doing the best they can, considering the ignorance, superstition and inertia which they have to combat—often in their own minds, and those of others.

The Elks’ Creed

Here is a story told me the other day by a drummer traveling for the Solvay Process Company. We were on the New York Central, riding from Syracuse to Albany ❦ The incident has a fromage flavor that makes it look like lallapaloosala persiflage. However, it may be true, for no one is in such danger of the Ananias Club as he who has the courage to give the plain, unvarnished facts ❦ I am unable to recall his exact words, and so I use my own language. ¶ So say we, tell we the tale: My friend, the drummer, took the Owl, a midnight train from Chicago to Des Moines ❦ The section just across from his berth was occupied by a Vision in Gray. ¶ The chromatic ensemble was that known at Wanamaker’s as “elephant’s breath.” From the tip of her toe to the proudly defiant Henry of Navarre ostrich-plume, she was an ecstacy in silvery gray. The Chiaroscuro was as lissome, billowy, willowy, pearly, evasive and impressionistic as the fog that hangs low on the October corn, when the rising sun is a great, round, red ball on the rim of the dreamy and effete East ❦ From Land’s End to John O’Groat’s the symphony was satisfying and complete. Her hat was a milliner’s creation; her dress an architect’s dream, devised by Kirk Cutter in an artistic seizure; her hair was done up as provided by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Yet the woman was modest, refined, lady-like. Her high-sign only referred to the duds and haberdashery ❦ She was neither fly nor flip—merely bouffant, that’s all. She was as tall as the Solvay Process man, for he had observed it, being from Syracuse. ¶ The Pullman-car conductor came through and took up the tickets. The Vision in Gray had the whole section—she said so—she needed the upper berth for her clothes, and cautioned the porter that the space was hers. “Yassum! Comin’ up!” said George in reassuring tones that cost a quarter. He had no tissue envelope big enough for the hat, so it was covered with two copies of the Chicago _News_. ¶ The train started. Soon the curtains were drawn and the lights turned low; nothing was heard save the rumble and roar of the onward rush of the train, and the snores of an obese attorney, traveling for pleasure. Morning came. It often does. It came dim and foggy. Lights blinked, six o’clock whistles blew, calling workmen from their beds to toil ❦ The man from Syracuse was awakened by words of tumult and sounds of entreaty. The porter was swearing an alibi in a tearful Scipio Africanus voice: “Ah nevah saw dem close, Missus! Ah hope to die—Fo’ Gawd, I hope to die! I’se a Baptis’ an’ nevah done nothin’ bad in my life!” And from out the berth filled by the Vision came subdued feminine threats, which died away in half-sobs of anguish that shook the soul of the Solvay Process party, strong man though he was. ¶ The Pullman Conductor came. The train conductor was summoned ❦ The flagman who guards the rear end forgot his duties, as he stood in the aisle with his red flag, and attached to it two cartridges and a red light, ready to fire on a second’s notice of danger. The train conductor was trying to make a list of the things lost ❦ The upper berth was absolutely empty. The hat was gone; the dress, a tailor-made fabric, which the unseen said between sobs was worth two hundred dollars, was swallowed by oblivion. All the fluffy ruffles had disappeared. “Haven’t you a kimono?” asked the Pullman Conductor, not so much for information as to reveal his knowledge of technique. ¶ “I did have, but that has gone too,” was the anguish-laden response ❦ Alas! All she had was the suit of pajamas that she wore which clung close in this time of need. Even the gray chamois-shoes were gone. Two women had left the train at four o’clock in the morning at the Junction, but they carried nothing save hand-bags. “They could have put my clothes on over theirs,” murmured the lady from out the dismal depths of Lower Number Nine ❦ The train-hands retired to the smoking-room to consult. It was no joke to them—they were all under suspicion. ¶ Suddenly, the man from Syracuse had an Idea. He had with him an extra pair of trousers, and of course the regular business-suit he wore. Hastily he groped beneath his berth for his suitcase. With trembling hands he pulled forth the pants. He reached over and pushed them into the berth, saying: “Here, Miss, I am an Elk ❦ Don’t be afraid, I’m an Elk, and the first prong of my creed is to do good ❦ I am a respectable married man from Syracuse. I’ll help you out of this fix—put on these.” And then, his generosity increasing as the Good Samaritan instincts in his cosmos began to find expression, he handed over his coat and vest. “Then here is my raincoat, which will come to your feet!” “Oh, thanks, kind sir,” she said; “but I can not take your clothes—for what will you do?” The voice was flute-like, and modulated like an aeolian. “Oh, I don’t need any clothes,” said the liar from Onondaga County; “besides, I have another suit.” ¶ “But my hat! my hat!” moaned the lady. “Take this,” said the disciple of Chancellor Day. “Take this. I have my traveling-cap,” and he pushed the hat into the unseen depths ❦ It was a big, light-colored Roycroft Stetson. “Do your hair up on top of your head, and pull the hat well down—it will be all right—don’t cry!” ¶ “But I have no shoes!” “Wear mine—I have a pair of slippers.” ❦ And he pushed his shoes through the curtain, and looked the other way. Only the onward roar of the train was heard as the conductors came back. “You are sure you had the clothes on when you boarded the train?” asked one conductor in a voice ill-concealing his resentment. “Never mind—I’ll get along—go away—I will make my claim on the road direct. Go away, please!” They were glad enough to get away. ¶ As the gloaming began to gloam, the porter turned up the lights. Now and then the electric bell buzzed. The obese party was calling for his shoes. A man had lost an umbrella. He got it. A lady in an upper berth wanted a stepladder. The porter was working like mad making up berths so as to brush his passengers and receive the offertory before they got to Des Moines. A party wearing a long raincoat and a big, light-colored Roycroft Stetson emerged cautiously from a berth, and hurried toward the ladies’ dressing-room ❦ “Hi, Kuhnel, t’other end of the kyar, if you don’ min’, please,” called the porter ❦ The berths were all made up. The porter had brushed everybody except the party wearing the big Stetson, drawn low, who occupied Number Nine. The porter had now concluded that the unpleasantness of the early morning was the result of a hoodoo—the failure to carry his rabbit’s foot. It was all a bad dream! “Brush!” he said, with a flourish, approaching the party in the long raincoat. The Stetson shook, and two sad, gray eyes looked straight at the colored brother ❦ He fled in dismay. George was out a quarter that he had counted on. The drummer from Syracuse, wearing his ulster buttoned to the chin, helped the soft-hatted party out of the car, through the station into the Hotel Savery bus. “I’ll send your clothes back as soon as I can buy more,” said the lady in her low, musical voice ❦ “Oh, don’t bother!” said Dionysius of Syracuse, blushing brick-dust. ¶ The drummer forgot to give her his address, and to take hers. He felt sort of guilty, being a respectable married man, and from Syracuse, as before stated. He did not go to the Hotel Savery, as usual. ¶ He bought a pair of shoes, a smart Stein-Bloch Company suit, saw his trade, and left for Omaha on the Two-ten.

Remember the Weekday

Did it ever strike you that it is a most absurd and semi-barbaric thing to set one day apart as holy? If you are a writer and a beautiful thought comes to you, you never hesitate to write it down because it is Sunday ❦ If you are a painter, and the picture appears before you, vivid and clear, you make haste to materialize it before the vision fades. If you are a musician, you sing a song or play it on the piano, that it may be etched upon your memory—and for the joy of it. ¶ But if you are a cabinetmaker you may make a design, but you will have to halt before you make the table, if the day happens to be the “Lord’s Day”; and if you are a blacksmith, you will not dare to lift a hammer for fear of conscience or the police. All of which is an admission that we regard manual labor as a sort of necessary evil, which must be done only at certain times and places. ¶ The orthodox reason for abstinence from all manual labor on Sunday is that “God made the heavens and the earth in six days and rested the seventh day”; therefore, man, created in the image of his Maker, should hold this day sacred. How it can be possible for a supreme, omnipotent and all-powerful being, without “body, parts or passions,” to become wearied through physical exertion, is a question that is yet unanswered. ¶ The idea of serving God on Sunday and then forgetting Him all the rest of the week is a fallacy. Sunday with its immunity from work was devised for slaves who got out of all the work they could during the week. No man can violate the Sabbath; he can, however, violate his own nature, and this he is more apt to do through enforced idleness than through either work or play. Only running water is pure; stagnant nature of any sort is dangerous, and a breeding-place for disease. ¶ Change of occupation is necessary to mental and physical health. As it is, most people get too much of one kind of work. All the week they are chained to one task, a repugnant task because the dose is too big. They have to do this particular job or starve. This is slavery, quite as much as when man was bought and sold as a chattel. ¶ Will there not come a time when all men and women will work because it is a blessed gift—a privilege? Then, if all worked, wasteful consuming as a business would cease ❦ As it is, there are many people who do not work at all, and these pride themselves upon it and uphold the Sunday laws. If the idler would work, no one would be over-worked. If this time ever comes, shall we not cease to regard it as wicked to work at certain times, just as much as we should count it absurd to pass a law making it illegal for us to be happy on Wednesday? Isn’t good work an effort to produce a useful, necessary or beautiful thing? If so, good work is a prayer, prompted by a loving heart—a prayer to benefit and bless. If prayer is not a desire, backed up by a right human effort to bring about its efficacy, then what is it? ¶ Work is a service performed for ourselves and others. If I love you I will surely work for you—in this way I reveal my love. And to manifest my love in this manner is a joy and a gratification to me. Thus, work is for the worker alone, and labor is its own reward. These things being so, if it is wrong to work on Sunday, then it is wrong to love on Sunday; every smile is a sin, every caress is a curse, and all tenderness a crime. ¶ Must there not come a time when we shall cease to differentiate and quit calling some work secular and some sacred? Isn’t it as necessary for me to hoe corn and feed my loved ones (and also the priest) as for the priest to preach and pray? ¶ Would any priest ever preach and pray if somebody did not hoe? If life is from God, then all useful effort is divine; and to work is the highest form of religion ❦ If God made us, surely He is pleased to see that His work is a success. If we are miserable, willing to liberate life with a bare bodkin, we certainly do not compliment our Maker in thus proclaiming His work a failure. But if our lives are full of gladness and we are grateful for feeling that we are one with Deity—helping God do His work—then, and only then, do we truly serve Him. ¶ Isn’t it strange that men should have made laws declaring that it is wicked for us to work?

Reciprocity

The first requisite in life is that we shall be able to earn a living. For our own good we must be able to produce as much or more than we consume, and to make two grins grow where there was only a grouch before. And we can help ourselves only by helping others. A transaction where only one side makes money is immoral. ¶ Reciprocity, Co-operation, Mutuality, are the three big words. To be of genuine advantage, all human effort must be reciprocal. The worker who works merely with his own benefit in mind doesn’t get much benefit ❦ Personal good comes incidentally, and to go after a gain direct is to have it elude you. The very effort you put forth to secure the thing sets in motion an opposition that makes it slip away beyond your reach. The man who seizes culture by the cosmic scruff will never secure her tender confidences. ¶ If you want to study the birds you do not go in wild search for them; you simply seat yourself on a log in the woods and, lo! soon the branches are vibrant with song. To clutch for love and demand it makes you both unlovely and unlovable. If you would have friends, be one. ¶ This great spiritual law which provides that we lose the thing for which we selfishly strive has seemingly been overlooked in our universities and institutions that foster the so-called Higher Culture. Fond parents send their sons to college for but one reason—not to earn a living, not to render the world a service, not to perform some necessary task—they send them to college in order to absorb and appropriate a certain imaginary good. The idea of reciprocity in a college is a barren ideality. The “work” is non-productive, futile, fictive, fallacious and imaginary. In all Nature there is no analogy to this thing of making an animal as big as his father exempt from securing his own living ❦ The birds in the nest are fed, and the young are suckled; but a weaning-time that does not take place until long after adolescence is fraught with danger. The plan is medieval and dates to a time when conspicuous waste and conspicuous leisure were the badge of respectability. The college is really a mendicant institution: its teachers and students belong to the parasitic class. ¶ The fact that a thing has to be endowed proves there is something wrong with it. It is not self-sufficient and in itself supplies no excuse for being. It requires an explanation. No explanation ever explains the necessity of making one. ¶ Our system of teaching will never approximate the perfect until we devise an Industrial College where the students will produce as well as consume. The school then will not be an imitation of life—it will be life ❦ The fact that many college graduates are highly successful men does not answer the argument—that very many college graduates are wholly incompetent is the thing that forms the damning count. The man who gets his education out of his work, at his work, is the type that has always ruled and yet rules the world. We are safe only as we move with Nature; and any system of teaching that seeks to improve on Nature is founded on fallacy. ¶ There is only one valid reason for sending a boy to college, and that is, so he can discover for himself that there is nothing in it. A college degree, as matters now stand, is like a certificate of character—useful only to those who need it. However, there must surely come a time when degrees will be given only to those who can earn a living—and this degree will be signed by the young man’s employer. ¶ All this for the simple reason that no man is a safe person whose time is not employed in some useful daily occupation where others as well as himself are the gainers. Time and energy not used, or misused, form a dangerous dynamite; while time and human effort fused with reciprocity produce radium. Can you earn a living? Also, do you? ❦

Vaccination