Chapter XXII: Act IV: for further particulars (8)

It would disgust the reader if I should enter into the details of telling him what people--respectable people, even, in nice houses--breathe over. Air is life. The purer the air, the purer the life-stream that courses through our hearts. You cannot get too much of it. Take it in freely. Have only pure air in your houses, in your sleeping-rooms and cellars. Particularly see that the children have the freedom of the air, day and night, at home, at school, everywhere. It is free--costs nothing!

THE FREEDOM OF THE STREET.

"I dwell amid the city,
And hear the flow of souls;
I do not hear the several contraries,
I do not hear the separate tone that rolls
In art or speech.

"For pomp or trade, for merry-make or folly,
I hear the confidence and sum of each,
And what is melancholy.
Thy voice is a complaint, O crowded city,
The blue sky covering thee, like God's great pity."

"Heaven bless the freedom of the park," has exclaimed a child of song; and he might also have invoked the same blessing upon "the freedom of the street." The street is free to all; to high and low, young and old, rich and poor. It recognizes no distinctions or castes; it is the very expressiveness of democracy.

The child of fashion, arrayed in silks, ribbons, and furbelows; the child of penury and want, in rags, filth, and semi-nakedness; the shaver of notes and the shaver of faces; the college professor and the chiffonier, all mingle in common on the street. Now walking side by side, now brushing past each other, now stopping to look at the same cause of excitement, now each jostled into the gutter. No distinction in wealth, birth, or intellect is recognized; no one dare attempt to restrict the freedom of the thoroughfare, and none dare say to another, "Stand aside, for I am better than thou."

The little boy trundles his hoop against the shins of the thoughtful student; the little girl knocks the spectacles from the nose of the man of science with her rope, while the preacher runs against an awning-post to make way for a red-faced nurse with a willow carriage; the antiquated apple woman, and the child with its huge chunk of bread and butter, sit on the curb; the painter digs the end of his ladder rather uncomfortably into some pursy old gentleman's stomach; while the sweep, with the soot trembling upon his eyelashes, strolls along as independently and leisurely as the dandy in tights, and with the sweeter consciousness that he is doing something for the public good.

The street is a world in miniature, a Vanity Fair in motion, a shifting panorama of society, painted with the pencil of folly and fancy. It is the only plane upon which society, "the field which men sow thick with friendships," meets on a common level. It does not flaunt in aristocracy, and never dares to be pretentious.

"KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AND MOUTHS CLOSED."

There's true philosophy in the above saying of a wise _savant_. But there is more wisdom in the latter clause than he even dreamed of in his philosophy.

The Book informs us that God breathed the breath of life (air) into man's _nostrils_. Nothing is more injurious, save continually breathing foul air, than the habit of breathing through the mouth. Keep the mouth closed. A great many diseases of the teeth, mouth, throat, head, and lungs may be traced directly to the pernicious and general habit of breathing with the mouth open--inhaling and exhaling cold air directly into the mouth and throat, inflaming and chilling the mucous membrane and the blood. The nostrils are the only proper passages for the air to the lungs. Here are filterers to exclude particles of dust and foreign matter, and various ramifications, whereby the air is properly warmed before reaching the lining of the throat and lungs. In infected air you are less injured, and less liable to contract contagious diseases, when inhaling only through the natural channel, the nostrils.

I think it was Dr. Good, of London, who wrote a book on the subject, which Carlyle pronounced "a sane voice in a world of chaos."

George Catlin says he learned the secret of keeping the mouth closed while among the North American Indians. They would not allow themselves or their children to sleep with the mouth open (though their reasoning is questionable), because the evil spirit would creep in them at night. Hence the parent went around after the pappooses were asleep, and closed their mouths. Pulmonary diseases are seldom found in the "close-mouthed." Kant, the philosopher, claims to have cured himself of consumption by this discovery. Persons never snore except by breathing through the open mouth. O, give us quiet, you snorers, by keeping your mouths shut, even at the expense of "keeping your eyes open" to watch yourself, and thus deliver the world from the disturbance of snoring.

THE LUNGS.--BREATHING.

All that live, down even to vegetables and trees, breathe, _must_ breathe, in order to live; live in proportion as they breathe; begin life's first function with breathing, and end its last in their last breath. And breathing is the _most important_ function of life, from first to last, because the grand stimulator and sustainer of all. Would you get and keep warm when cold, breathe copiously, for this renews that carbonic consumption all through the system which creates all animal warmth. Would you cool off, and keep cool, in hot weather, deep, copious breathing will burst open all those myriads of pores, each of which, by converting the water in the system into insensible perspiration, casts out heat, and refreshes mind and body. Would you labor long and hard, with intellect or muscle, without exhaustion or injury, breathe abundantly; for breath is the great re-invigorator of life and all its functions. Would you keep well, breath is your great preventive of fevers, of consumption, of "all the ills that flesh is heir to." Would you break up fevers, or colds, or unload the system of morbid matter, or save both your constitution and doctor's fee, cover up warm, drink soft water--cold, if you have a robust constitution sufficient to produce a reaction; if not, hot water should be used. Then let in the fresh air, and breathe, breathe, breathe, just as deep and much as possible, and in a few hours you can "forestall and prevent" the worst attack of disease you ever will have; for this will both unload disease at every pore of skin and lungs, and infuse into the system that _vis animæ_ which will both grapple in with and expel disease in all its forms, and restore health, strength, and life.

Nature has no panacea like it. _Try the experiment_, and it will revolutionize your condition. And the longer you try, the more will it regenerate your body and your mind. Even if you have the blues, deep breathing will soon dispel them, especially if you add vigorous exercise. Would you even put forth your greatest mental exertions in speaking or writing, keep your lungs clear up to their fullest, liveliest action. Would you even breathe forth your highest, holiest orisons of thanksgiving and worship, deepening your inspiration of fresh air will likewise deepen and quicken your _divine_ inspiration. Nor can even bodily pleasures be fully enjoyed except in and by copious breathing. In short, proper breathing is the alpha and omega of all physical, and thereby of all mental and moral function and enjoyment.

A MAN FULL OF HOLES.

Yes, made of holes!

A gentleman once told me a story, as follows. We were travelling on the Ohio River, on board of a steamer.

"You see that bank over opposite?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Well, thereby hangs a little story. I always laugh when I think of it, or pass the spot, which is often. A fellow sat looking at that spot, watching the thousands of swallows that were continually flitting to and fro, in and out of their nests, and laughing immoderately to himself. I approached, and ventured to inquire the cause of his mirth, that I might partake of it.

"Well, you see that bank and all them nests? Well, one day I went down on the boat and noticed them. When I came back, there had meantime been a heavy rain storm which washed the bank away, and left the holes all sticking out;" and the fellow continued to laugh as though he would split himself, probably from the _idea_ of the holes "sticking out." I wondered how he could see them if the bank around was washed away.

Still the man full of holes is a fact. According to Krause, quoted in Gray's and Wilson's works on anatomy, there are twenty-eight hundred (2800) pores in the skin of the human body to the square inch; and the number of square inches to an average-sized man is twenty-five hundred (2500). This would give some _seven million pores in the whole body_. These pores, or tubes, are one fourth of an inch in length; hence, the entire length of them all is _twenty-eight miles_.

That part of the skin is the healthiest which is the most exposed to the air, as the face and hands. That part the most diseased from which the air is most excluded, as the _feet_. Three fourths of all persons over fourteen years of age have diseased feet; either corns, chilblains, or diseased joints or nails.

SEVEN MILLION MOUTHS TO FEED.

These seven million mouths must be fed daily and hourly. Their food is light and air. Man is not only fed and nourished through the portal of his mouth, but through all the pores of his body, by drawing in nutriment from the surrounding elements, even from the viewless air.

These little mouths also need moisture. This fact is revealed to the senses through the medium of the nerves; for, how grateful to the dry, parched skin, is a bath of cold water! or, if the blood is in a "low state,"--impoverished by disease,--let it be a tepid bath. Let it feel comfortable and grateful to the user. This is a good rule to direct you. The little children love it--love to paddle and splash in it. If they cry and fight against washing, it is usually because of the rudeness of the operator, who, with brawny palm or rough sponge takes the child unawares, nearly suffocating it, and briskly and rudely rubbing over the surface of the tender face, regardless of such small obstructions as nose, chin, and lips, and not unusually dashing a quantity of yellow soap suds into the infantile eyes. The next time the little fellow is requested to be washed, he, remembering the last _scouring_, naturally objects to a repetition of the unpleasant process.

As the nostrils inhale pure air beneficially, they also exhale impurities. The pores also excrete, or throw off impurities. A healthy skin will throw out, by the pores, from two to three pounds of impure matter every twenty-four hours. To be sure a greater quantity of this impurity is a vapory substance, yet that holds in solution solid particles of corrupt matter, which greatly tend to clog the pores if left to obstruct free perspiration.

WATER.

Then, aside from cooling and nourishing the skin and the system through the pores, cleanliness and health demand oft and repeated ablutions of the whole body. In order that the perspiration may be unobstructed, it is absolutely necessary to wash the whole surface of the body in water, and on account of the _acid_ and oily substance collecting on the skin, using a small quantity of alkali, as soap or soda in the water, and thus, by good brisk rubbing, using the hand in preference to a cloth or sponge, thoroughly cleansing the little mouths referred to, else their action is retarded and suspended. This should be done daily during the summer season.

This is a simple process, indispensable to health, and the unwashed can hardly believe what beneficial results follow such a plain course, or know the healthful influence or the comfort derived from a frequent use of pure water.

Those who bathe thus daily seldom take colds. During the winter, in cold climates, weekly or semi-weekly bathing may suffice.

A statesman, in seeking an illustration of the difference between price and value, very happily hit upon water, which costs nothing, and yet is of inestimable worth. Water, next to air, is the most indispensable of all the productions of nature. "Unlike most good things providentially supplied for our use, it is hardly capable of abuse. The more common danger to be feared is from too little, not too much, water.

"Simple a thing, however, as it may be to quench the thirst from the running stream, or the mountain spring, there are but few people who know how to drink. Most people, in the eagerness of thirst, swallow with such avidity the welcome draught, that they deluge their stomachs without proportionately refreshing themselves. The slowly sipping of a single goblet of water will do more to alleviate thirst than the sudden gulping down of a gallon. It is more frequently the dryness of the mouth, during hot weather, than the want of the system, which calls for the supply of fluid. When larger quantities, moreover, are poured into the stomach than are required, that organ becomes oppressed mechanically by the distention, and the digestion is consequently weakened."

The prescribed ablutions of the Jews and Mohammedans have not only a spiritual but a hygienic value. "The washing of the body not only whitens the outside of the sepulchre, but purifies the internal organs, and renews the spiritual man as well.... Hence, when the body becomes foul by the retention of worn-out and corrupt material accumulated on the surface and the interior of the structure, it becomes a cage suitable only for the dwelling of unclean birds, and no others will descend and make their nests therein. It is a vessel fitted to receive only the lower passions and feelings of human nature.

"Public bathing-houses are as important a means of grace as our poorly ventilated churches, and many an unhappy soul would be brought nearer to heaven by a judicious application of soap and water than he could be by listening to a sermon about that of which he comprehends little and cares less."--_Rev. W. F. Evans's "Mental Cure."_

SOAP VS. WRINKLES.

How much younger and fresher the wayworn traveller or the outdoor laborer looks after a thorough washing of the face and hands only. Many who complain of "bird's claws" and wrinkles might murmur less if they made a thorough use of warm water and "old brown windsor soap," or better, the true castile soap. Nearly all the soap sold at groceries for castile is spurious. A good druggist will have the desired article, and for rough, chapped skin nothing is better, not even glycerine.

Then wash out the furrows of fine dirt that gather in the _little_ wrinkles, and it will surprise some folks to see how, thereby, they have reduced the size of their wrinkles. It is like cleansing an old coat!

GOD'S SUNSHINE.

Next to air and water in importance to health and happiness is sunlight. O, "let there be light" in your houses, that there may be light in your hearts also!

Our houses should be so constructed and located that the sun may shine into every room some time during the day. Too many build houses and live in the rear. The hall and large parlors are usually situated in front, to the south or west, throwing the sitting, dining, and working-room--kitchen--in the shade. Let the cheering, life-giving influences of God's dear blessed sunshine flood the working, sitting, and, particularly, the sleeping rooms. He or she who sleeps in a room from which the sunshine is totally excluded will be pale, weak, tired, and die prematurely of consumption. Try a plant in such a room. It soon turns pale and sickly. Just so your children and yourself. I have such patients daily. Medicine cannot substitute sunshine.

Throw open the blinds, dash aside the curtains, and let in the light and sunshine to your homes and hearts. Never mind the carpets; they may be replaced, but you and your children, never! Save your health, if _you ruin an old carpet in so doing_!

Cholera, dysentery, scrofula, nervous diseases, and consumption prevail more extensively in narrow and darkened, as also in the shady side of streets; also in darkened prisons and hospitals.

A heavy heart walks in dark and cheerless apartments. The cheerful, happy man, the joyous, contented wife, the beautiful, healthy children, dwell and rejoice in homes where flows full and free the pure air and the life-keeping, health-giving sunshine.

Christianity is more likely to take up its abode with the latter. There only green leaves and beautiful flowers can gladden the sight and exhilarate the senses.

Air, water, sunlight! "These three." Don't neglect them. So shall you live long, live healthy, and at last die happily!

XXXII.

HEALTH WITHOUT MEDICINE.

How shall I stay life's sunny hours?
For though the summer skies are clear,
Foreboding thoughts steal o'er my heart,
And autumn sounds oppress my ear.
While heart with hope beats warm and high,
And pleasures drink in summer bowers,
I know that autumn frosts will come--
How shall I stay life's sunny hours?

CHEERFULNESS.--GOOD ADVICE.--REV. FRANCIS J. COLLIER ON CHRISTIAN
CHEERFULNESS.--WHAT GOD SAYS ABOUT IT.--WHINING.--LOVE AND
HEALTH.--AFFECTION AND PERFECTION.--SEPARATING THE SHEEP AND
GOATS.--THE FENCES UP AND FENCES DOWN.--SIXTEEN AND SIXTY.--ACTION AND
IDLENESS.--IDLENESS AND CRIME.--BEAUTY AND DEVELOPMENT.--SLEEP.--DAY
AND NIGHT.--"WHAT SHALL WE EAT?"--A STOMACH-MILL AND A
STEWING-PAN.--"FIVE MINUTES FOR REFRESHMENTS."--ANCIENT DIET.--COOKS
IN A "STEW."--THE GREEN-GROCERIES OF THE CLASSICS.--CABBAGES AND
ARTICHOKES.--ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE DIET.

CHEERFULNESS.

I place cheerfulness next, in the catalogue of essentials to long life and happiness; before "diet," for, unless a man eats cheerfully, nothing will agree with him; and if he be constantly cheerful, nothing that he eats will injure him.

"How shall I be cheerful when all the world goes wrong with me?" asks the diseased and despondent man or woman.

Put on cheerfulness as a garment. Assume it. Try my suggestion. Use a little hypocrisy with yourself. Go before your glass, if necessary, and assume a cheerful countenance. Keep it up, and before long you will be astonished to find that Mr. Melancholy don't like it, and begins to withdraw his sombre person. Keep on "keeping it up," and the most happy results will soon follow your exertions.

Try the reverse, and melancholy will return. This is cheap medicine. "[R]--A cheerful face, taken daily, feasting."

CHRISTIAN CHEERFULNESS.

The following prize essay was written by Rev. Francis J. Collier:--

"_Cheerfulness as a Medicine._--Perhaps nothing has a greater tendency to cast gloom over the spirit than _disease_. The mind sympathizes with the body as much as the body with the mind. Their union is so intimate, so delicate, so sensitive, that what affects the one necessarily affects the other. Each to a certain degree determines the other's condition. If the mind is joyful, its emotion is betrayed by the expression of the body. 'A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.' But if the body is injured, or the physical system deranged, the mind at once suffers, and forthwith droops into sadness. It becomes, therefore, your Christian duty, if you have health, to study the laws of your physical being; to compel yourself both to labor and to rest; to avoid unnecessary risks or exposure; to abstain from injurious indulgences; to be prudent, temperate, chaste, and, by every proper means, to try to preserve what is so essential to your spiritual comfort. If you have lost this boon, strive to regain it. Think not, speak not, all the while about your malady. Suppress moans and complaints. They are always disagreeable to others; they can never be beneficial to you. Count your mercies, and not your miseries. Try upon your body the stimulus of a cheerful spirit. It may not insure your recovery, but it will certainly produce a pleasant alleviation. 'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; but a broken spirit dryeth the bones.'

"_Borrowing Trouble._--Forebodings of evil rob the mind of cheerfulness. 'Ills that never happened have mostly made men wretched,' says Tupper. Casting our glance ahead, we see 'lions' in the way; difficulties which we are sure we can never overcome; griefs under whose heavy weight we shall be utterly crushed. Not satisfied with our present troubles, we borrow misery from the future. The Holy Scripture instructs us to do otherwise. 'Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.'--Prov. xxvii. 1. 'Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'--Matt. vi. 34. And then it gives us a golden promise, 'As thy days, so shall thy strength be.'

"The life of many Christians is a life of constant sadness and gloom. They seem to be entire strangers to all the happiness of earth and all the hopes of heaven. Their faces commonly appear as sombre as the stones which mark the dwelling-places of the dead. Their feelings are better expressed in sighs than in songs. Unhappy themselves, they make others unhappy. They come and go like clouds, shutting out the sunshine from cheerful hearts, and for a while casting upon them shadows cold and dark.

"Arise, O, desponding one! Quit your tearful abode in the valley of gloom, and come and make your dwelling on the bright hill-top of cheerfulness. Look up! look up! and behold the sun shining through the clouds, and the stars through the darkness."

WHINING.

This is a habit opposed to cheerfulness, and producing contrary results. It is half-sister to scolding, and equally as obnoxious. Don't fret and whine. It makes you look old and cross. The disease soon becomes chronic if indulged in. It is a disease that not only the doctors know at sight, but every one can read it in the face of those thus afflicted. "O, what a cross face that lady has got!" I heard another female exclaim but yesterday, as they passed on the street. You cannot hide it; then don't induce such a look.

Somebody has written the following, which so completely expresses my ideas of the matter, that I quote the item verbatim:--

"There is a class of persons in this world, by no means small, whose prominent peculiarity is whining. They whine because they are poor; or, if rich, because they have no health to enjoy their riches; they whine because it is too shiny; they whine because it is too rainy; they whine because they have 'no luck,' and others' prosperity exceeds theirs; they whine because some friends have died, and they are still living; they whine because they have aches and pains, and they have aches and pains because they whine, no one can tell why.

"Now, we would like to say a word to these whining persons. Stop whining. It's of no use, this everlasting complaining, fretting, fault-finding, scolding, and whining. Why, you are the most deluded set of creatures that ever lived.

"Do you not know that it is a well-settled principle of physiology and common sense that these habits are more exhausting to nervous vitality than almost any other violation of physiological law? And do you not know that life is pretty much what you make it and take it? You can make it bright and sunshiny, or you can make it dark and shadowy. This life is only meant to discipline us, to fit us for a higher and nobler state of being. Then stop whining and fretting, and go on your way rejoicing."

LOVE.

"Well, what has that to do with health and long life?" ask the cynic, the bachelor, the old maid possibly, and the plodders.

Everything, I reply.

The man, woman, or child who loves well and wisely, who loves the most, is the happiest, healthiest, and will live the longest.

"That is a bold assertion," says my quizzer.

Yes, and true as bold. Now listen in silence to my statement.

Who loves, what loves, and what is the result?

"God is love." Here is the first, the fundamental principle.

He is the oldest of all beings. To be like him is to love,--to love all things which he has created. This is Godlike. If you are not thus, you are like the ungodly, who "shall not live out half their days." "Love God, and keep his commandments."

"Love thy neighbor as thyself."

Is there not more happiness and health in the obeying of this command, than in disobedience to it? Whatever is conducive to happiness is healthful. Whatever produces unhappiness is injurious to health. Love is undefinable.

"There is a fragrant blossom that maketh glad the garden of the heart.

Its root lieth deep; it is delicate, yet lasting as the lilac-crocus of autumn.

* * * * *

I saw, and asked not its name; I knew no language was so wealthy.

Though every heart of every clime findeth its echo within.

And yet, what shall I say? Is a sordid man capable of love?

Hath a seducer known it? Can an adulterer perceive it?

* * * * *

Chaste, and looking up to God, as the fountain of tenderness and joy.

Quiet, yet flowing deep, as the Rhine among rivers.

Lasting, and knowing not change, it walketh in truth and sincerity.

Love never grows old, love never perisheth."

AFFECTION AND PERFECTION.

Love is so closely connected with our lives, and all that makes or mars our peace and pleasure, health and beauty, that I should feel guilty of a sin of omission by excluding this item from my chapter on health and happiness.

To be unloved is to be unhappy. Do not forget the connection between health and happiness. They are all but synonymous terms.

You may know the unloved and unlovely by the lines of care, dissipation, or crime that are furrowed upon their brows. Go into the highways, and you may readily pick out the unloved child by its unsatisfied expression of countenance. It lifts its great, hungry eyes to yours instinctively, and asks for love and sympathy as plainly by that searching look, as the child of penury, the bread-starveling asks for alms when it presents its scrawny hand, and in pitiful tones says, "Please give me a penny, for God's sake."

O, give the child "love," for God's sake; for he so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten Son, who only in turn taught us to love.

Physical perfection is never found in the unloved.

The unloved wife is not long beautiful, nor the child of such. There is a marked difference between them and the wife and child that the husband and father cherishes and caresses with unrestrained affection. In sickness love divides the burden, as in the common toils of life.

Disguise or deny the truth of the assertion if you will, woman must love somebody or some thing. She were not otherwise a true woman, nor made in the image of her Maker. If the husband denies her that affection which truly belongs to her nature, he must not blame her, but himself, if she loves another. She will cling to something. If she has no children upon whom to lavish her affections, she will love some other's, or a pet canary, or even a cat, or lapdog; but love she will.

SEPARATING THE SHEEP AND GOATS.

I place cheerfulness before love, because angry and melancholy people are unlovable. If you wish to be loved and happy, be lovable. Strive to please, to make those about you happy, and then you will be lovable. Cheerfulness is the first step.

A very sensible writer in the _Phrenological Journal_ says,--

"There is not enough thought, and time, and consideration devoted to this inevitable requisite, love. It is kept too much in the background. How many years are given to preparing young people for professions, trades, and occupations; how much counsel and advice are heaped around these topics; and yet how little importance is attached to the very influence which will probably be the turning-point of their lives. No wonder there are so many unhappy marriages. If we could only remember that boys and girls are not to be educated for lawyers, merchants, school-teachers, or housekeepers alone, but for husbands and wives, as well."

Those girls are the most chaste and ladylike who have been brought up with a family, or neighborhood, or school of boys; and on the other hand, those boys who have from their earliest days been accustomed to female restraint and girlhood's influences, make the best men, and most faithful, loving husbands and fathers.

What shall I say of those demoralizing institutions where the "young ladies" are taught algebra, languages, and ill manners? Where they are forbidden to recognize a gentleman in the school-room, prayer-room, or street? Can you, honest reader, believe there are such institutions in our enlightened land? Yet there are; where the sexes are denied not only the association with, but are forbidden the common courtesies of life; where, if a friend or brother lifts his hat to the young lady, while belonging to that institution, she is forbidden to acknowledge the courtesy.

I remember Mrs. Brandyball, in one of Theodore Hook's novels of society, boasting of her seminary for young ladies as one of the _safest_ in the world, being entirely surrounded by a dense wall, eight feet high, surmounted by sharp spikes and broken glass bottles. I reckon all the virtue preserved in this way was not worth the cost of its defences.

FENCES BROKEN DOWN.

The writer passed some time in a town where these discourtesies were promulgated. I boarded with a pious family, where a large number of male students boarded also. There was one class of influences and _passions_ pervading that place. All female influence and restraint were withdrawn. And what was the result? The boys were forbidden to smoke, or chew tobacco, or play at cards. They reckoned me as a "right jolly good fellow," because I could be induced to play a game of euchre with them; but they occasionally smoked me out of their rooms, and I was repeatedly compelled to check their wonted flow of licentious conversation. Cards, as an innocent amusement, I could stand, but the "accomplishments" referred to I could not endure. Shall I, as a physician, mention the positive evidence, the pathognomonic indications which were revealed to me in the faces of many of those young men; of vulgar habits, which are less often or seldom revealed in those who customarily associate in pure female society? They had little or no respect for the opposite sex. Their ideas of them, thoughts and conversations, were most gross. If some now and then, as they occasionally would, took a stolen interview, a walk at night, when "Old Prof." was asleep, it was with no more exalted views of purity than any other midnight criminal prowlers are supposed to cherish.

And the girls? Alas! they were ready to flirt with every strange man, drummer, or else, who came into the village. The aforesaid pious landlord assured me further, what my eyes did not see, that he knew of girls climbing out of the windows at night, and partaking of stolen rides and interviews as late as midnight; and he pointed out to me one coy, plump little miss, who he knew "had been out as late as one or two A. M., taking a ride with a gentleman scholar."

The scholars all met in the "chapel" for prayers. Are sly glances, winks, or billets-doux prayers? If so, they prayed fervently.

Any well read, observing physician will tell you of the ruined healths of the majority of females educated at such exclusive seminaries.

And what is the reverse of this exclusiveness?

Bring the sexes up together. Teach them together, as much as is consistent. They will each have better manners, be more graceful, and possess clearer ideas of propriety, more beauty and better health, than by the plan of a separate education.

We all dread to grow old. Don't talk of second childhood. Keep the first youthfulness fresh till the last. Love will do much towards continuing this desirable state. Says the _Phrenological Journal_, beauty comes and goes with health. The bad habits and false conditions which destroy the latter, render the former impossible. Youthfulness of form and features depends on youthfulness of feeling.

"Spring still makes spring in the mind,
When sixty years are told;
Love wakes anew the throbbing heart,
And we are never old."

If, then, we would retain youthful looks, we must do nothing that will make us _feel old_.

O, the folly of parents in some things! The nonsense of sixty is the sweetest kind of sense to sixteen; and the father and mother who renew their own youths in that of their children may be said to experience a second blossoming of their lives. Teach them to talk to you of their friends and companions. Let the girls chat freely about gentlemen if they wish. It is far better to control the subject than to forbid it. Don't make fun of your boy's shamefaced first love, but help him to judge the article properly. You would hardly send him by himself to select a coat or a hat--has he not equal need of your counsel and assistance in selecting that much more uncertain piece of goods, a sweetheart?

There is a great deal of popular nonsense talked and written about the folly of our girls contracting early marriages. It is not the early marriage that is in fault, it is the premature choice of a husband. Only take time enough about selecting the proper person, and it is not of much consequence how soon the minister is called in. Keep him on trial a little while, girls; look at him from every possible point of view, domestic or foreign. Don't be deluded by the hollow glitter of handsome features and prepossessing manners. A Greek nose or a graceful brow will not insure conjugal happiness by any means. A husband ought to be like a watertight roof, equally serviceable in sunny or rainy weather.

ACTION AND IDLENESS.

While action is surely essential to our physical and moral being, all extremes should be avoided. Excessive labor, even out of door, in the air and sunshine, may be injurious. On this point I quote the _Scientific American_:--

"It has oftentimes been asserted that those exposed to severe labor in the open atmosphere were the least subject to sickness. This has been proven a fallacy. Of persons engaged at heavy labor in outdoor exposure, the percentage of sickness in the year is 28.05. Of those engaged at heavy labor in-doors, such as blacksmiths, etc., the percentage of sickness is 26.54--not much to be sure; but of those engaged at light occupations in-doors and out, the percentage of sickness is only 20.80-21.58. For every three cases of sickness in those engaged in light labor, there are four cases among those whose lot is heavy labor. The mortality, however, is greater among those engaged in light toil, and in-door labor is less favorable to longevity than laboring in the open atmosphere. It is established clearly that the quantum of sickness annually falling to the lot of man is in direct proportion to demands on his muscular power.

"How true this makes the assertion,--'Every inventor who abridges labor, and relieves man from the drudgery of severe toil, is a benefactor of his race.' There were many who looked upon labor-saving machines as great evils, because they supplanted the hand toil of many operatives. We have helped to cure the laboring and toiling classes of such absurd notions. A more enlightened spirit is now abroad, for all experience proves that labor-saving machines do not destroy the occupations of men, but merely change them."

IDLENESS INDUCES CRIME.

This fact cannot be too strongly or repeatedly impressed upon parents and children.

Warden Haynes, of the Massachusetts State Prison, lately uttered these emphatic and significant words, which are worthy to be written in letters of gold: "Eight out of every ten come here by liquor; and a great curse is, not learning a trade. Young men get the notion that it is not genteel to learn a trade; they idle away their time, get into saloons, acquire the habits of drinking, and then gambling, and then they are ready for any crime." How many young men we see every day who are in the pathway to this end. Fathers and mothers who hold the dangerous view that it is not genteel for their children to learn a trade, can see where such ideas lead. The words of wisdom quoted above are full of weighty import for both parents and children.

BEAUTY AND DEVELOPMENT.

Activity of body and mind are conducive to health.

Everybody ought to know that moderate exercise develops the muscular and nervous power, hence the vitality of all creatures. Is the active, prancing steed, or the inactive, sluggish swine, the better representative of beauty, strength, and long life?

"The horse," answers everybody. Then avoid the habits of the other, and you will be very unlike that indolent, unclean, and gluttonous animal. When you see a man who reminds you of a hog, be assured he has swinish habits.

Mental activity, unless it is excessive, is conducive to beauty, to strength, and health. A writer in the American Odd Fellow has some good ideas illustrative of my argument, that I may be pardoned for quoting him:--

"We were speaking of handsome men the other evening, and I was wondering why K. had so lost the beauty for which five years ago he was so famous. 'O, it's because he never did anything,' said B.; 'he never worked, thought, or suffered. You must have the mind chiselling away at the features, if you want handsome middle-aged men.' Since hearing that remark, I have been on the watch to see whether it is generally true--and it is. A handsome man who does nothing but eat and drink grows flabby, and the fine lines of his features are lost; but the hard thinker has an admirable sculptor at work, keeping his fine lines in repair, and constantly going over his face to improve, if possible, the original design."

Therefore, we infer that this moderate (outdoor) exercise is conducive to beauty, health, and longevity. Moderate activity of the mind the same.

Idleness begets licentious thoughts and deeds. Activity of body and mind in honorable pursuits calls away the nervous power from the lower to the higher organs. A lively, cheerful, clean man or woman, is seldom wicked or licentious.

SLEEP.

By the assistance of John G. Saxe, we have already given those

"Early to bed, and early to rise,
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,"

fellows a touch of our opinion on too early rising. I base my judgment upon careful and continued observation during many years.

The Scriptures teach that the day is for work, and night for sleep. This turning day into night, sitting up till near midnight, is all wrong. It is ruinous to health and beauty. This other extreme, of rising at four or five o'clock and pitching into hard labor, is wearing and tearing to the constitution; and though nature for a while adapts herself to the necessity, by browning and unnaturally developing the exposed parts of such deluded or unfortunate persons, _it does it at the expense of his length of days_. He will not live so long for his over-doing.

Begin by retiring earlier, at the first indication after nightfall of fatigue and sleepiness. If sweaty, wash the skin quickly, as previously directed, with warm water, _rubbing dry and warm_, and cover up. Lie on one side. Do not sleep on your back. You are more liable to dream laborious or frightful dreams, snore, or have nightmare. Do not sleep in clothes worn during the day.

Unfortunate is the man or woman, who, from necessity, arises before six or seven in winter, or five to seven in summer.

Literary persons require more sleep than laborers. Children require more than adults. Do not lie in bed long after awaking at morning. Open your window wide as soon as you arise--it is supposed to be partially open at the top all night.

In inhaling air at night or morning, do it only through the nostrils. Night air is _not_ injurious any more than day air if so inhaled. Sleep when sleepy--this is a good rule, unless disease induces unnatural sleep.

WHAT SHALL WE EAT?

_Eat what relishes well, and agrees with you afterwards._ This is the best general rule I have been able to adopt for eating.

There has been so much ridiculous stuff written upon "diet" that most sensible people have given up trying to follow the prescribed rules of writers, if not their physician's directions on that score.

Take the following, by one celebrated Dr. Brown, of England, for an example, although we may find others quite as ridiculous nearer home:--

"For breakfast, toast and rich soup made on a slow fire, a walk before breakfast, and a good deal after it; a glass of wine in the forenoon, _from time to time_; good broth or soup to dinner, with meat of any kind he likes, but always the most nourishing; several glasses of port or punch to be taken after dinner, till some enlivening effect is perceived from them, and a dram after everything heavy; one hour and a half after dinner another walk; between tea-time and supper a game with cheerful company at cards or any other play, never too prolonged; a little light reading; jocose, humorous company, avoiding that of popular Presbyterian ministers and their admirers, and all hypocrites and thieves of every description.... Lastly, the company of amiable, handsome, and delightful young women and an enlivening glass."

Dr. Russell, to whom we are indebted for the quotation, might well say that "John Brown's prescriptions seem a caricature of his system."

A "STOMACH-MILL" AND A "STEWING-POT."

There have been many speculations about the nature of the digestive process, and in relation to them the celebrated Hunter remarked, playfully, "To account for digestion, some have made the stomach a mill; some would have it to be a stewing-pot, and some a brewing-trough; yet all the while one would have thought that it must have been very evident that the stomach was neither a mill, nor a stewing-pot, nor a brewing-trough, nor anything but a _stomach_." All that can be said is, that digestion is a chemical process, the mechanical agency spoken of being of service only in thoroughly mixing the gastric juice with the food.

"FIVE MINUTES FOR REFRESHMENTS."

"Murder! murder!" the conductor might as well cry to passengers, as "Five minutes for refreshments."

Now it makes less difference what we eat than how we eat. Cold hash, eaten slowly, therefore, well masticated, and mixed with the saliva, is more likely to "set well" than a light cake or a cracker, though it be "Bond's best," if hurried down the throat.

What the English call the "blarsted Yankee style" of gulping down the food half masticated, washing it down with drinks, will ruin anything but a sheet-iron stomach in a cast-iron constitution. Talk about "mills." Why, that most excellently contrived mill in the mouth is not suffered to perform its duty. The hopper is too crammed; it clogs the whole machinery.

Eating between meals destroys the regular periods naturally established by the stomach for digestion. Three meals should be sufficient for twenty-four hours.

"Much has been said about exercising after eating, and the truth has been often over-stated. The famous experiment with the two dogs is cited to show that exercise after eating interferes with the process of digestion. Observe just how much was proved by the experiment. Two dogs were fed to the full, and while one was left to lie still, the other was made to run about very briskly. In an hour or two both dogs were killed, and it was found that the food was well digested in the dog that remained quiet, but not in the other. (I have seen it stated the reverse.) This proves simply that _violent_ exercise, taken _immediately_ after eating, interferes with digestion. Other facts show that light exercise rather promotes than impedes the process, and that even very strong exercise does not interfere with it if a short interval of rest be allowed, so that the process may be fairly commenced.

"The same is to some extent true of exercise of mind. It seems to be necessary that there should be some measure of concentration of energy in the stomach for the due performance of digestion, and any very decided exercise, bodily or mental, tends to prevent this. In the dyspeptic, even a slight amount of effort, either of body or mind, often suffices to do it.

"It is very commonly said that it is wrong to eat just before going to bed. Is this true? Cattle are apt to go to sleep after eating fully. Do sleep and digestion agree well in their case, and not so in the case of man? In some seasons of the year the farmer takes his heartiest meal at the close of the labors of the day, and soon retires. Is this a bad custom? Our opinion is that food may be taken properly at a late hour, provided, first, that the individual has not already eaten enough for the twenty-four hours,--that he has done so being true, probably, in most cases; and provided, secondly, that he is in such a state of health that digestion will not so act upon his nerves as to disturb his sleep. If it will thus act, it is clear that he had better be disturbed when awake, for he can bear the disturbance then with less of injury to his system."

ANCIENT DIET.

"How did them old _anti-delusion_ fellows live?" once asked an honest old farmer of the writer. "They must have lived differently than we live, or they would not have told so many years as they did."

True, true. The difference between ancient and modern diet is remarkable. The ancient Greeks and Romans used no tea, coffee, tobacco, chocolate, sugar, lard, or butter. They had but few spices, no "nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, or cloves," no Cayenne pepper, no sage, sweet marjoram, spinach, tapioca, Irish moss, arrow-root, potato, corn starch, common beans; no oranges, tamarinds, or candies, or the Yankee invention, "buckwheat cakes and molasses." What would our modern cooks do without the above enumerated articles in the culinary department? And the butter! Down to the Saviour's time butter was unknown. Dr. Galen (130-218, A. D.) saw the first butter only a short time before his death. Tea is comparatively a modern introduction.

THE GREEN GROCERY OF THE CLASSICS.

The cabbage has had a singular destiny--in one country an object of worship, in another of contempt. The Egyptians made of it a god, and it was the first dish they touched at their repasts. The Greeks and Romans took it as a remedy for the languor following inebriation. Cato said that in the cabbage was a panacea for the ills of man. Erasistratus recommended it as a specific in paralysis. Hippocrates accounted it a sovereign remedy, boiled with salt, for the colic. And Athenian medical men prescribed it to young nursing mothers, who wished to see lusty babies lying in their arms. Diphilus preferred the beet to the cabbage, both as food and as medicine,--in the latter case, as a vermifuge. (Horace Greeley prefers the latter, for he says that "a cabbage will beat a beet if the cabbage gets a-head.") The same physician extols mallows, not for fomentation, but as a good edible vegetable, appeasing hunger and curing the sore throat at the same time. The asparagus, as we are accustomed to see it, has derogated from its ancient magnificence. The original "grass" was from twelve to twenty feet high; and a dish of them could only have been served to the Brobdignagians. Under the Romans, stems of asparagus were raised of three pounds' weight, heavy enough to knock down a slave in waiting with. The Greeks ate them of more moderate dimensions, or would have eaten them, but that the publishing doctors of their day denounced asparagus as injurious to the sight. But then it was also said that a slice or two of boiled pumpkin would reinvigorate the sight which had been deteriorated by asparagus! "Do that as quickly as you should asparagus!" is a proverb descended to us from Augustus, and illustrative of the mode in which the vegetable was prepared for the table.

A still more favorite dish, at Athens, was turnips from Thebes. Carrots, too, formed a distinguished dish at Greek and Roman tables. Purslain was rather honored as a cure against poisons, whether in the blood by wounds, or in the stomach from beverage. I have heard it asserted in France, that if you briskly rub a glass with fingers which have been previously rubbed with purslain or parsley, the glass will certainly break. I have tried the experiment, but only to find that the glass resisted the pretended charm.

Broccoli was the favorite vegetable food of Drusus. He ate greedily thereof; and as his father, Tiberius, was as fond of it as he, the master of the Roman world and his illustrious heir were constantly quarrelling, like two clowns, when a dish of broccoli stood between them. Artichokes grew less rapidly into aristocratic favor; the _dictum_ of Galen was against them, and for a long time they were only used by drinkers against headache, and by singers to strengthen their voice. Pliny pronounced artichokes excellent food for poor people and donkeys. For nobler stomachs he preferred the cucumber--the Nemesis of vegetables. But people were at issue touching the merits of the cucumber. Not so regarding the lettuce, which has been universally honored. It was the most highly esteemed dish of the beautiful Adonis. It was prescribed as provocative to sleep; and it cured Augustus of the malady which sits so heavily on the soul of Leopold of Belgium--hypochondriasis. Science and rank eulogized the lettuce, and philosophy sanctioned the eulogy in the person of Aristoxenus, who not only grew lettuces as the pride of his garden, but irrigated them with wine, in order to increase their flavor.

But we must not place too much trust in the stories, either of sages or apothecaries. These pagans recommended the seductive but indigestible endive as good against the headache, and young onions and honey as admirable preservers of health, when taken fasting; but this was a prescription for rustic swains and nymphs. The higher classes, in town or country, would hardly venture on it. And yet the mother of Apollo ate raw leeks, and loved them of gigantic dimensions. For this reason, perhaps, was the leek accounted not only as salubrious, but as a beautifier. The love for melons was derived, in similar fashion probably, from Tiberius, who cared for them even more than he did for broccoli. The German Cæsars inherited the taste of their Roman predecessor, carrying it, indeed, to excess; for more than one of them submitted to die after eating melons, rather than live by renouncing them.

I have spoken of gigantic asparagus: the Jews had radishes that could vie with them, if it be true that a fox and cubs could burrow in the hollow of one, and that it was not uncommon to grow them of a hundred pounds in weight. It must have been such radishes as those that were employed by seditious mobs of old, as weapons in insurrections. In such case, a rebellious people were always well victualled, and had peculiar facilities, not only to beat their adversaries, but _to eat their own arms_! The horseradish is probably a descendant of this gigantic ancestor. It had at one period a gigantic reputation. Dipped in poison, it rendered the draught innocuous, and rubbed on the hands, it made an encounter with venomed serpents mere play. In short, it was celebrated as being a cure for every evil in life, the only exception being that it destroyed the teeth. There was far more difference of opinion touching garlic than there was touching the radish. The Egyptians deified it, as they did the leek and the cabbage; the Greeks devoted it to Gehenna, and to soldiers, sailors, and cocks that were not "game." Medicinally, it was held to be useful in many diseases, if the root used were originally sown when the moon was below the horizon. No one who had eaten of it, however, could presume to enter the temple of Cybele. Alphonso of Castile was as particular as this goddess; and a knight of Castile, "detected as being guilty of garlic," suffered banishment from the royal presence during the entire month.

It is long since the above instructive article on the "Green Groceries of the Classics," by Dr. Doran, was in print, and I think it will be new to most of my readers. I hope it will prove interesting as well as instructive.

ANIMAL OR VEGETABLE DIET?

Both, if considered in regard to health. With an eye to economy only, I should recommend vegetable diet.