AN INDICATION.

Man was made for the Weather, not the Weather for man.

A long drink often makes a short walk.

You may bring a man to the Sea, but you cannot make him think.

A tanned face doesn't make a healthy body.

Dew paddling should be done in the dark.

The only things that bathing machines make are cowards.

It is better to board yourself than let others be bored by you.

“A bore is one who thinks his opinions of greater importance than your own.”

People who throw pebbles into the sea shouldn't dive near shore.

A toothbrush is what many forget but few should need.

Scotland Yard is not in the Grampians.

Cheap food is often dearly bought.

Lyons have no depôts in Skye.

Orange-trees never yet sprang from scattered peel.

A pear in the handisworth two in the can.

Peter Piper.

Vol. VNo. 26September1913There will come a day when physiologists, poets, and philosophers will all speak the same language and understand one another.—Claude Bernard.

Vol. VNo. 26September1913

There will come a day when physiologists, poets, and philosophers will all speak the same language and understand one another.—Claude Bernard.

Food reformers sometimes forget that “man does not live by bread alone,” not even when supplemented by an ample supply of fresh air and physical exercise.

It has been pointed out by psychologists that the more highly organised and highly developed the creature, the less it depends on nervous energy obtained via the stomach and the more it depends on energy generated by the brain. True, the brain must be healthy for this, and one poisoned by impure blood, due to wrong feeding, cannot be healthy. But something more than clean blood is necessary. For, as change of physical posture is necessary to avoid cramped limbs, so periodic reversal of mental attitude (consideration from other than the one view-point) is necessary to the brain's health.

Again, change of air is often prescribed when the patient's real need is a change of the personalitiessurrounding him. While for the lonely country dweller a bath in the magnetism of a city crowd may be a far more efficacious remedy than the medicinal baths prescribed by his physician.

For man lives byeveryword that proceeds out of the mouth of God.—[Eds.]

Regular readers will recognise in this article a continuation of the series previously entitled “Healthy Brains.” The author of “The Children All Day Long,” is an intimate disciple of one of the greatest living psychologists, and she has a message of the first importance to all who realise that true health depends as much on poise of mind as on physical fitness. We regret that in the previous article, “Imagination in Play,” the following misprints occurred:—P. 475, line 4 from top, “movement” should be “moment”; p. 475, line 5 from bottom, “admiration” should be “imagination.”—[Eds.]

Some people are given to excusing their own uncharitable thoughts by saying, “I suppose I ought not to have minded her rudeness; I am afraid I am too sensitive.” In the same way, people say, “Oh, Icouldn'tsleep in the house alone” (or let a child go on a water-picnic, or nurse a case of delirium or do some other thing that suggested itself), “I have too much imagination.” In both cases the claim, though put in deprecating form, is made complacently enough. The correlative is: “You are so sensible, dear; I know you won't mind,” which is a formula under cover of which many kindnesses may be shirked and many unpleasant duties passed on.

The sensible, practical people who listen to these sayings sometimes attach importance to them, so that a habit has grown up of describing morbidly neurotic people as “over-sensitive” and cowardly ones as “too quick of imagination.” Ultimately, this leads to the thought that both sensitiveness and imagination are mental luxuries too costly for ordinary folk to grow, and that it is safest to check, crush or uproot themwhen we discover them springing up in others or in ourselves.

Is not this attitude of mind due to a misunderstanding? Imagination is anorgan of activity; it can be kept in the highest possible condition of health by having plenty of exercise; it should be working continually against resistance. A rabbit's gnawing tooth, if the opposing tooth be broken, may grow inwards and cause the creature's death, but the same activity of growth, if working under suitable conditions, enables him to go on living and gnawing at his food year after year without wearing his tools away.

The problem, then, in economy of effort is: How shall we use whatever force of sensitiveness and imagination we have, so as to get its maximum efficiency of usefulness and its minimum pain and inconvenience?

For many ages man has been dominated by fear. His way to freedom, now, is to step out through his cobweb chains and go right forward with courage and in faith. So we are told with relentless and almost tiresome reiteration. It is the fashion, one might almost say, to have cast off fear, and the one thing an honest “modern thinker” is afraid of is being afraid. (To less honest ones it is the thought ofbeing thoughtafraid that is a very real and present fear.)

But, if this standpoint is right, is not fear at least a vestigial organ, a survival of a mental activity which served its purpose in times gone by? Is it not even truer to go further still and say, aseach particular fearserves its purpose it may safely be discarded, but that, as far as our present knowledge goes, other grades of sensitiveness, finer shades of imagination of the type we have called fear, must take its place, to be discarded in their turn for yet other apprehensions?

For if we lost the kind of perception that we associate with fear, if our imagination closed itself automatically to the suggestion of all sorts of ugly possibilities, should we not find ourselves soon in the midst of difficulties akin to those of the hero of the German tale of the man who felt no pain? We accept the evidence of painas a guide to action; when we have decided on action we proceed to get rid of the pain as expeditiously, safely and permanently as we can.

The same thing seems true of fear. Over and over again we laugh at ourselves for fearing something that either never happened at all or happened in such a way as to be softened out of all likeness to the monstrous terror we had created. On the other hand, when misfortune falls heavily because of our lack of imagination in not foreseeing possible consequences of particular actions or events, we lament and complain: “If I could only have guessed! If I had only known!”

Fear pure and simple—the imagination of possible trouble—is a stage we can hardly yet afford to do without. But when it has roused our attention to a danger, its work is done. Let us practise turning it into action; taking due precautions against accident, guarding against hurting a neighbour's feelings, watching some possibility of evil tendency in ourselves. Then, and not till then, may we let it drop. It may pass; it has done its work. It is no longer our responsibility to foresee, it is our privilege to lay down the fear and live happily and at peace.

Even the dread perceptions of eternal laws come under the same method. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” thebeginning: the end is faith and love.

E.M. Cobham.

To Our Readers.Readers who appreciate the independence and all-round nature ofThe Healthy Lifecan materially assist the extension of its circulation by tactfully urging their local newsagent to have the magazine regularly displayed for sale. An attractive monthly poster can always be had free from the Publishers, 3 Tudor Street, London, E.C.

Readers who appreciate the independence and all-round nature ofThe Healthy Lifecan materially assist the extension of its circulation by tactfully urging their local newsagent to have the magazine regularly displayed for sale. An attractive monthly poster can always be had free from the Publishers, 3 Tudor Street, London, E.C.

Thearticle(signed “M.D.”) with the above title which we published in theJuly numberhas, as we anticipated, aroused considerable discussion.One interesting criticismappeared in theAugust number. We now publish two further contributions, to be followed, in ournext issue, by two further articles byDr RabagliatiandMr Ernest Starr.—[Eds.]

As one who has tried the low proteid diet, and came to grief on it, I desire to set my experience against that of Mr Voysey,[9]and to assert that, if it is true for him, it certainly is not true for me. Mr Voysey indulges in many loose and generalised statements which do not help the average man or woman in the least. I imagine it is these that “M.D.” has in mind when he advises a certain standard of diet, below which it is not safe to go. If Mr Voysey can, as Horace Fletcher can, exist on a very low proteid diet, that does not prove that all men and women can do the same and be healthily active; it only shows that he and Fletcher are exceptions to the average person, and that it may be dangerous to follow their example. For most men, “M.D.'s” proteid standard is not so nauseating as he finds it. Here is a specimen dietary for a day, for a man of ten stone, following, as most of us do, a sedentary occupation:—

Will any average person say that that quantity, divided into three meals, would be nauseating to him? And is that diet so very expensive that it would be beyond the means of an agricultural labourer in any country? It is certainly no mockery. The cost to such a labourer would probably not exceed 3d. or 4d. Of course the dietcan be made as expensive as one chooses, and widely varied.

[9]SeeAugust number.

Who amongst ordinary men and women has a reliable natural taste that would be an infallible guide in all matters of food? And what a misleading statement that is which asserts “that all the hardest work of the world has always been done by those who get the least food.” Put it to the test on the average person and see where it leads to.

My contention is that the average person, throwing over his or her accustomed meat diet, requires some definite guidance as to the quantity of proteid, such as Dr Haig's wide experience and much patient research have proved needful, or at least advisable, for the continuance of a healthy and vigorous life; and I will say that it does not help this average person in the least to put before him the misty statement that “the quantity depends on the development that is in progress, and is only discoverable by the natural guides of appetite and taste, ruled by reason and love of others.” All very noble and very well in another place, but hardly meeting the case of the ordinary person who is seeking a healthy diet. Nor can you “make the body a more harmonious instrument for the true life of man” by habitually underfeeding it. I thought that was a mediæval notion that had been knocked on the head long ago.

Is there any man, lay or scientific, Mr Voysey notwithstanding, who can claim to have as wide an experience of diet in its relation to health and disease as “M.D.,” to say nothing of the trained mind and long years of patient thought that have been exerted in dealing with the facts of this wide experience. For myself, I have come to see that, if “M.D.” does not hold in his grasp the absolute truth in the matter of diet, he is nearer to it, and is a safer guide, than all your low proteid advisers, lay or otherwise, where they come much below “M.D.'s” standard.

So, using Mr Voysey's phrases, I would urge laymen like myself to shun that weak-kneed manikin, the low proteid diet, and unite with me in a long strong pullto get him and others like him out of the rut in which that sorry weakling holds him.

Hy. Bartholomew.

The Editors were quite right in saying that thearticleunder this heading in theJuly issuewould arouse discussion. My wife and I, having discussed “M.D.” and many others with the title, feel constrained to put forth a warning against blind faith in anything which the faculty have to say on dietetics.

There are of course brilliant exceptions, such as Dr Rabagliati, Dr Knaggs, Dr Haig, the late Dr Keith and others, who give chapter and verse for every statement made; but when we consider the excellent work of laymen such as Albert Broadbent, Joseph Wallace, Horace Fletcher, Alice Braithwaite, Eustace Miles, Hereward Carrington, Edgar J. Saxon, Bernarr MacFadden, Arnold Eiloart, ordinary folks like ourselves may be excused if we venture to give our experience as against that of “qualified” men.

With your permission, then, we reply to “M.D.'s” five suggestions in the order he gives them:—

1. Food qualities arenotof extreme importance.

2. Quantity tables may have been “settled” by physiologists to their own satisfaction many years ago; but very good reasons have since been given for altering, or even ignoring, them.

3. The particular number of grains of proteid to be consumed per day is not of serious moment.

4. That departure from the quantity specified has not led to disaster is proved by the fact that the human race still persists, in spite of the very varying eating customs found in different nations. The great majority being poor or ignorant, or both, know neither “tables” nor the need for them.

5. There can be no reply to such a general statement as: “The nature of this disaster may appear to be very various, and its real cause is thus frequently overlooked.”

In such matters an ounce of personal experience is worth a pound of cut-and-dried theory. We—my wife and I—have been reared in an atmosphere suspicious of doctors, both sets of grandparents having relied rather on herbs, water treatment, goodness of heart and faith in God; and their children have had too many evidences of medical ignorance to accept any dogmas. We are anti-vaccinators, nearly vegetarian, and, to come to the point, we have four children who will persist in thriving on a basis of always too little rather than too much of food. The respective ages are girl 13, boy 10, girl 6, boy 2.

All have been brought up on these lines: never pressed to eat, but continually asked to chew thoroughly. Foods “rich in proteid” put sparingly before them. Milk has been well watered; and eggs, bacon and other tempting and rich foods only on rare occasions given to them.

We would ask readers who can to make the following experiment: Let your children have a good drink to start the day, and then run and play; don't offer food till asked for. You will almost to a certainty find, if you start this plan immediately after weaning, that day by day and year after year it is twelve to one o'clock before they inquire for “something to eat.” We have done this for twelve years, with children of entirely different temperament and of both sexes. They go to school, poor things! breakfastless. During these twelve years light breakfast for father has been on the table—he goes without lunch—and not once in fifty do they ask to join him. Nor, if invited, will they after three or four years of age.

The have never had a fever which lasted more than a day or two, and they are all above average height and weight.

They get fruit in season just as asked for, and as much to drink as they like,but not at meal-times.

Our experience is over a period of twelve years, and we have come to the conclusion that the infectious diseases so prevalent and death-dealing amongst children of all classes, rich or poor, are, in the main, the result of over-feeding. We find it wise to keep highly nutritious foods (like eggs, cheese, meat, etc.) away from children—that is, for regular consumption; a little occasionally may do no harm.

You will have it borne in on our minds year by year, as your children grow up under such a plan, that Dr Rabagliati, Hereward Carrington and others are quite right. We do not get our strength, nor heat, from food. Let the force of animal life (zoo-dynamic, I believe Dr Rabagliati calls it) have free play, and your children can't help growing up well and strong.

In to-day'sLondon Daily ChronicleI see a special article by Dr Saleeby, under this heading:World's Doctors versus Disease. 5000 Medical Men Meet To-day. The Triumphs of Three Decades.We know how much this wonderful faculty knew thirty years ago about,e.g., fresh air for consumptives. There is not a word said in this article (which is a sort of programme of the weighty matters for discussion) on the relation of food to the body. That question probably 4950 of them believe was settled by the eminent physiologists who compiled those “food-tables” years ago—and in so doing went far to pave the way for the modern frightful increase of cancer, Bright's disease, etc., as well as for “scientific” horrors like anti-toxin, tuberculin—not to mention compulsory eugenics!

J. Methuen.

Do many people consider reading from the point of view of health of mind and body—of refreshment in times of struggle—of recuperation after knock-down blows of sorrow, disappointment or misfortune?

Let us begin by saying that some of the greatest books are not to be read by everybody at all seasons. When one's heart or ankles are weak, one does not start to climb mountains, or one may end as a corpseor a cripple. So with one's soul under shock or stress. Personally, I can imagine nothing more cruel than the action of two women, one a story-teller of great repute among the “goody,” who, to a specially stricken and lonely young widow, tendered as “bed-side books,” Victor Hugo'sLes Miserablesand Browning's poignantThe Ring and the Book. If they had wished to make her realise to the bitterest depths the awfulness of the world wherein she was left alone, and the blackest depravity of the human nature around her, they could not have done differently.Les Miserablesshe read till she reached the dreadful scene where a vicious cad hurls snowballs at the helpless Fantine. Then the strong instinct of self-preservation made her put the book aside—not to touch it again for nearly thirty years. WithThe Ring and the Bookher mind was too wrung and too weary to wrestle—all it could receive was a picture of wronged innocence, and especially of the rampant forces of evil with which she was left to contend. With the same want of tact and judgment, if with unconscious cruelty, the gloomy, fatefulBride of Lammermoorwas selected out of all Scott's novels for the reading of a very homesick youth, solitary in a strange country!

Yet we must always remember that, as in affairs of the body so of the spirit, “what is one man's meat may be another man's poison.” Some of the wisest and most successful nurses or doctors will occasionally permit an invalid to indulge in a longed-for diet which would certainly never be prescribed. They know that idiosyncrasy follows no exactly known rule. So we could tell of one who, amid the dry agnosticism of the later half of last century, had felt her faith, not indeed extinguished, but obscured and darkened. From the perusal of certain writers she had shrunk, perhaps with cowardice. They were put on such a pinnacle that she feared she would find no arguments fit to oppose to theirs. Weakly, she locked the skeleton cupboard. Then she was attacked by a malady which, while leaving her mind free and strong, she knew might bevery speedily fatal. Straightway she said to her husband: “In two or three days I shall probably ‘know’—or cease from all knowing. There will not be long to wait. Therefore bring me three books,” which she named, works of authors of extreme agnostic views. Rather reluctantly he complied with her wish. She went steadily through the joyless pages, turned the last with the significant remark: “If this is all they can say, well!—” The skeleton cupboard, once opened, was speedily swept out. She quickly recovered, but never forgot her experience. Yet it must be remembered that this was the patient's own prescription, and was permitted by one who thoroughly understood her temperament. Therefore, though one would never wish to overrule a strong personal desire, that is quite different from offering counsel and furtherance—or proving experiments upon oneself.

A celebrated woman writer of the middle of last century was of opinion that young people of both sexes should not indulge in reading “minor poetry.” “Let them keep to the great poets, made of granite,” was her graphic phrase. A woman of singularly self-controlled nature has confessed that the only time in her whole life that she experienced an unwholesome moral and emotional disturbance, after reading a book, was when, at about twenty-two years of age, she read Emily Brontë'sWuthering Heights. She dared not finish it: and when, some time later, a copy was presented to her, she caused it to be exchanged for another book, not wishing it even to be in the house with her. Years afterwards, she read it again, quite unmoved. It may be added that her first reading was made in the course of a systematic study of English literature, which had already led her through the works of Chaucer and Fielding. She has herself asked: “Is it possible that the strong and unpleasant effect was produced because the book was the production of another young woman, perhaps of somewhat ‘sympathetic’ temperament?”

Taken as a whole, probably most fiction and all highly emotional work of any sort should be indulged insparingly by those in the danger-zone of life, or by any under special mental or moral stress. History, philosophy (with sustained chains of reasoning) and biographies (best, autobiographies) of active and strenuous lives, should be resorted to by those temporarily doomed to spells of suspense and involuntary inaction. Invalids should be encouraged to read Plutarch'sLivesrather than theMemorialsof other sufferers, however saintly!

It may be broadly stated that, during the tragic episodes which seem to occur in all lives, the most wholesome reading is to be found in the books of the great World-Religions—the Bible, and the teachings of Buddha, Confucius and Mahomet. The Bible is of course a library in itself, and many of its books are suited to very widely different circumstances and temperaments. The Psalms, the Gospels, the Epistle of St James, and parts of those great poems known as the “prophetical books” and the more personal and less doctrinal portions of Paul's epistles are perhaps of widest application. From the words of Buddha, Confucius and Mahomet there are many admirable selections—and one remembers a wonderful compilation of more than thirty years ago, calledThe Sacred Anthology, and wonders if it be out of print. It does not follow that these works should not be studied at other times than “tragic episodes.” If this were more often the case, perhaps there would be fewer “tragic episodes”!

Next to these come such wonderful books of spiritual experience as À Kempis'sImitation of Christ, thePilgrim's Progress, theDevout Lifeof Francis of Sales and others which will occur to the memory.

Allusion to thePilgrim's Progressbrings us to the remark that no books are more truly wholesome than some that can be enjoyed by those of all ages, and of very varied types of “culture”: in which the children can delight, and which refresh the aged and weary. Like Nature herself, they have hedgerows where the little ones can gather flowers, little witting of the farther horizons of earth and sky lifted up for the eyes of the elders. Let the children read thePilgrim'sProgresssimply as “a story,” its eternal verities will sink into their souls to reappear when they too are inVanity Fairor in bitter conflict withApollyon.

For the same reason, the Book of Proverbs should be commended to youthful study. Under wise supervision—or rather, in mutual study—it becomes at once a series of vivid pictures of primitive Eastern life—for all allusions should be explained, where possible, pictorially—while at the same time the memory will be insensibly stored with shrewd common sense and knowledge of the world, to be turned to, and drawn upon, as needed.

And then, while the children revel in the fun and the fancy of Hans Andersen'sFairy Tales, let the sorrowful or sore or wounded heart turn to them for solace, soothing or healing. Hans Andersen enjoys a very special “popularity” and yet some, who have learned to love and value him, doubt whether justice has yet been done to his work. Because it is matchless for the young, it may be easily forgotten that it can be so, only by some quality which makes it matchless for all others. Perhaps some of his most popular stories are not his most wonderful, but have simply caught the popular fancy, because of some artist's illustration, or some personal application to the writer's own history, as in the case of hisUgly Duckling. How many—or rather, how few!—can readily recall the pathos and wit of hisPortuguese Duckor the deep philosophy of hisGirl Who Trod on a Loaf?

It is told of Hans Andersen, a gentle soul in a homely exterior, which attracted the snubs and neglect which “patient merit of the unworthy takes,” on some such occasion was once heard to murmur: “And yet I am the greatest man now in the world!” It was very naive of him to say so, even in a whisper, probably wrung from him only in self-defence, but perhaps he might have thought it, in solemn silence—and—not been so very wrong! It may have been part of the very transparency of his inspired genius that he could not keep the secret to himself!

There is at least one reader who declares that she finds the seeds of all vital philosophy—ancient ormodern—in his stories. How much he derived from those who went before him, it is not for us to say, but this disciple, herself a devoted student and admirer of the world's latest teacher, Leo Tolstoy, yet puts Hans Andersen above him, as having attained in practically all his work what Tolstoy attained only occasionally—i.e.Tolstoy's own ideal of what Art should be and do.

In such a paper as this little can be done beyond indicating on the broadest lines the kind of reading which tends to preserve or to restore mental health. Away with your “problem” novels and “realistic” poems stated in the filthy material of moral gutters! Hans Andersen will take some birds, some flowers, some toys, and will state the same problems, and get the same eternal solutions, without making the inquirer run any risk of meanwhile catching moral malaria. Isaiah will help us to build “castles” for the human race and for our own future, but he will take care that we shall remember that righteousness and unceasing vigilance and unflagging repair must go into the laying of foundations and the upholding of walls. David, even in his “cursing psalms,” will exemplify for you the power of hate and vengeance in your own heart, and as he holds it up before you, you will see how small a thing it is, how mean, how ludicrous!

As a man eats and drinks, so is his body: if he is a gross feeder, his body will be gross and sensual; if his food lacks nourishment, he will pine and fade. So it is with our minds and our morals. With whatever original “spiritual body” we may start, it needs spiritual sustenance, spiritual discipline, spiritual sufficiency and spiritual abstinence. Too often we ill-use it, as bodies are ill-used, goading its weakness with fiery excitement, or gorging its greed with sickly sentiment, or emasculating it by empty frivolity.

All who desire spiritual health must find out what books best promote it in themselves: and sometimes they are found, like wholesome herbs, in very lowly places. One good rule is never to recommend what we have not seen proved in ourselves, or on others.

Isabella Fyvie Mayo.

This fine sonnet is fromLyric Leaves, poems by S. Gertrude Ford. 2s. 6d. net (postage 2d.). (C.W. Daniel, Ltd., 3 Tudor Street, London, E.C.)

Sing out thy swan-song with full throat, September,From a full heart, with golden notes and clear!No rose will wreathe thee; yet the harebell's here,And still thy crown of heath the hills remember.Bright burns thy fire, e'en to its latest ember,The sunset fire that lights thee to thy bier,Flaming and failing not, albeit so nearDun-robed October waits, and grey November.And though, at sight of thee, a chill change passesThrough wood and wold, on leaves and flowers and grasses,Thy beauty wanes not; thou hast ne'er grown old;Death-crowned as Cleopatra, lovely lyingEven to the end; magnificently dyingIn pomp of purple and in glare of gold.

S. Gertrude Ford.

If you have travelled at all frequently on certain of the London “tube” railways you may occasionally have noticed, facing you in the carriage, a small framed poster which for beauty and imaginative power has, I should think, never been surpassed in advertising art. If the first sight of it did not make you catch your breath you will not, I am afraid, be interested in this article.

The poster represents a rich landscape, in which noble tree-forms show sombre against a tumultuous sky—the latter an architectural mass of pale cloud, spanned by a vivid rainbow. Across the lower part of the picture is a scroll, on which are written, in musical notation, two bars from Chopin's Twentieth Prelude. At the top are the words,Studies in Harmony: it is an advertisement of Somebody & Co.'s wall-papers.

In both colour and design this poster is very beautiful. It would be scarcely less so without the rainbow; but “the dazzling prism of the sky” not only intensifies the subtle harmony of colour throughout the picture: it turns the poster into a symbol. And the artist might well have stopped there; only, you see, he had an inspiration. When he wrote across the picture those eight descending chords from the immortalLargohe made of the poster—a poem.

I do not know anything about the artist who conceived this advertisement of wall-papers. I do not even know his name. But I believe him to be the herald of an invasion.

The invasion of life by beauty.

Do you think it a degradation of art that it should be enlisted by the makers of wall-papers? Are there not too many ugly and discordant posters? Do you consider trade and manufacture so sordid that they are beneath the ministrations of beauty? It doesn't matter a new penny whether you answer such questions with a nod or a no: the invasion has begun. It is irresistible. Beauty is stooping—stooping to conquer.

Your ardent social reformer is too often obsessed with one idea. Across his mental firmament he sees only one blazing word:Injustice.And, fine fellow though he often is, he is inclined to be impatient with any talk of art or beauty. “How can beauty grow in these vile cities?” he cries. “What is the use of your music, your statuary, your fine pictures, your poetry, to the starving and the oppressed?” And he does not see that his passionate desire for justice is at root the quest for beauty, for fullness and harmony of life. His stormy sky shows no rainbow: yet it is there. And so is the stately music, the transmutation of colour into sound. And if his eyes could be opened to one and his ears to the other, there would be more power to his elbow. For beauty is inspiration and courage—

“My heart leaps up when I beholdA rainbow in the sky....”

And there is more than that in it. The cultivation of a sense of beauty, of harmony, makes reformers less harsh in their judgments, broadens their sympathies and helps to save them from becoming mere doctrinaires. If you have any love for the beautiful you simply cannot be happy about most Utopias, though they be Justice itself in civic form; and, when our “scientific” Fabian has demonstrated to you how to organise the national life in all its parts into one vast smoothly working State mechanism you will shudder, and then laugh. And then, without any rudeness, you will say: “Hang mechanism and a minimum wage! Live men and women want living crafts, liberty and a maximum beauty!”

And really, I am coming to see that there are a great many health-culture enthusiasts (not to mention food reformers) who see no rainbow in the sky and hear no music in the wind; and even if they did, ten to one they would see no connection between the two. I verily believe there are some poor souls who have studied food questions so closely that they cannot see the sun for proteid nor the sea for salts. In all meekness, and knowing the frailty of the human mind (I have written dozens of articles on diet!), I would prescribe for them a course of artistic wall-paper advertisements, combined with the letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. He, poor fellow, had to battle against disease all his short life; but he managed to end one of his letters something like this (I quote from memory): “Sursum Corda! Heave ahead! Art and blue heaven! April and God's larks! A stately music.... Enter God.”

A somewhat ecstatic utterance. A trifle too exclamatory. Perhaps. You and I don't end our letters like that. (Or do you?) More likely we say something about the weather down here being miserably cold (or damp, or dull, or changeable, or hot) and brave out the lie with “yours truly.” But O for one little spark from the fire that shone in the soul of R.L.S. Better to die young with a broken heart, if it were a heart as brave and gay as his, than beat Methuselah by meansof a mincing, calculating, cold-blooded attention to irritating self-made little rules.

Oh yes, I know well the value of little rules. And I know also that Nature offers us only two alternatives—obedience or death (either sudden or slow). But then Nature is something more than Mistress and Lawgiver. She is Beauty. And in that aspect, as in all other aspects, Nature is unescapable. We turn our backs on her only to find her awaiting us at the next turn in the road. Looking at the matter all round, I don't think we can come to any other conclusion than that Nature (or whatever you like to call It, Her or Him) is aiming at beauty all the time. So that we who are literally, if not figuratively, the children of Nature, had best do likewise.

Some mystic or other has said that man's search for God is God's search for man. If he was right—and I think he was—it follows that man's quest for beauty is Beauty invading life; and that the only healthy life worth the having is that which begins with “Lift up your hearts!” and issues in “a stately music. Enter God.”

Edgar J. Saxon.

Do two things worth doing, every day.Be scrupulously polite and kind, rather than witty or entertaining.Cherish cleanliness, sobriety, frugality and contentment.Cultivate sweetness of disposition and tranquillity of mind.Think before speaking, and so reduce your causes of regret.Seek peace and be peaceable forlis litem generat.Begin at home, let home always find you faithfully on duty.Care carefully for those whom Providence has entrusted to your care.And the reward of the faithful will abundantly yours,And your heaven will go with you wherever you go.

“A.R.”

Two's company, three's fun.

Levity is the bane of wit.

Braggers mustn't be losers.

Never put on to-day what you can't put on to-morrow.

It's an ill mind that finds no one any good.

It's no use crying over spilt milk: you're better without it.

Look before you sleep.

Never put an excursion ticket in the mouth.

Long hair never made true poets.

Obesity always carries weight.

Look after your manners and your friends will look after themselves.

Cranks of a feather fight together.

All is not toil that blisters.

To Sea Anglers:

A live catch is no better than a dead fish.

Better a place in the sun than a plaice on a hook.

Peter Piper.

What is the homemaker of limited means, who must have some help, to do under present conditions? Well, meantime, there is only the young “general” for her, either the “daily girl” or one who “lives in.” Of the two I prefer the “daily girl,” when she can be obtained. And the younger she can be obtained, other things equal, the better. She will have fewer bad habits to overcome. Some housewives object to the daily girl on the score that she may bring dirt or infection from her home, and also because she can seldom arrive early enough to help get breakfast. But a little management overnight can reduce the labour of breakfast getting to a minimum, and if the “outings” of the girl who lives in are as frequent as they ought to be the risk of her carrying infection, etc., will always apply.

The “daily girl” has definitely fixed hours of work and the same chance of enjoying a measure of home life, of keeping her friends and individual interests, as the typist or factory worker whose lot the domestic servant so often envies; while her employers are not faced with the alternatives of condemning a young fellow-creature to a solitary existence or forcing an unreal companionship which is equally irksome on both sides. It is true that the wages of the “daily girl” do not equal, in actual money, those of the factory worker, neither does she obtain the Saturday half-holiday or the whole of Sunday free. But to set against this she receives her entire board and, with a kindly mistress, is not tied down to staying her full time on days when she is “forward” with her work.

The life of the young “daily girl,” if her employer is a conscientious woman, need not be hard nor unpleasant; very little harder and no more unpleasant than the lot of the young “lady” who is paying from £60 to £80 per annum to learn cookery, laundry and housework at a school of domestic economy. Properlyconducted, the relations between employer and employee, “mistress” and “servant,” are those of mutual aid. Such relationsmaybe, and too oftenare, those of an inefficient little drudge for a “mistress” almost equally ignorant and inefficient. But when the employer is an intelligent woman with a sense of justice (I prefer a sense of justice to sentimental theories about sisterhood—people do not always treat their sisters justly) the weekly money payment and food will be but a small part of the girl's wage. In addition she will receive a training that will equip her for the “higher” branches of domestic service, or for homemaking on her own account. Not every girl has the sense to appreciate this when she gets it, nor the intelligence to profit by it; while it is certainly rather trying to the employer when the girl is “all agog” to “better herself” as soon as she has gained a bare smattering of how to do certain things properly. But all this is “the fortune of war.” Some girls never cease to be grateful to their first teachers and leave them reluctantly, while other girls never realise that they have anything to be grateful for. When gratitude and affection come they are pleasant to receive. But the motive power of the really conscientious woman is not the expectation of gratitude or affection.

A word to the unconventional homemaker. The young “general” is a bird of passage. Age and experience bring with them the necessity of earning more, and if her first employer cannot periodically raise the girl's wages the latter must in time seek better paid employment, probably with a mistress who is not unconventional. It is unkind, therefore, to refrain from teaching the girl how she will be expected to do things in the ordinary conventional house. I do not mean that the employer ought to slavishly run her home on conventional lines for the instruction of her “help.” But it is kinder, for instance, to help a girl regard a cap and apron with good-humoured indifference, or as on a par with a nurse's uniform, rather than as “a badge of servitude.” It is kinder, too, toshow her that it is not only “servants” who are expected to address their employers as “Sir” and “Ma'am,” but that well-mannered young people in all conditions of life can be found who use this form of address to persons older than themselves. I do not suggest for one moment that any attempt should be made to delude a girl into the belief that she will not be expected, in conventional households, to behave with equal deference to persons younger than herself. Such deception would be unpardonable. But it is anything but kind to allow a young girl to drift into careless and familiar habits of speech bound to lead to dismissal for “impudence” in her next “place.” There is a type of person, for example, who seems to believe that, in order to show that he is “as good as anybody else,” it is necessary to be rude and familiar. But good manners are not necessarily associated with servility. And it is no kindness to help to unfit a girl for getting her living in the world as it is.

It may seem that, in this article, I am more concerned for the “hired help” than the homemaker for whom I am ostensibly writing. But the points I have touched on are just those about which I know many thoughtful women are puzzled. I cannot solve their individual problems for them, of course, I can only just barely indicate some of the thoughts that have come to me on a subject that is so intimately bound up with the whole of our present unsatisfactory social and economic conditions that it cannot be adequately discussed in a little tract upon domestic economy.

Florence Daniel.

There are three methods in general use of caring for cupboards. Some housewives prefer their cupboard shelves of bare wood, to be well scrubbed with soap and water at the periodical “turn-out.” Others cover all shelves with white American cloth, which only needs wiping over with a wet house-flannel; while still others prefer to dispense with the necessity for wetting theshelves and line them with white kitchen paper, or even clean newspaper, which is periodically renewed.

Of the three methods I prefer the last, with the addition of a good scrubbing at the spring clean. The weekly or fortnightly scrubbing is apt to result in permanently damp cupboards, unless they can be left empty to dry for a longer time than is usually convenient. The use of American cloth is perhaps the easiest, most labour-saving method, but the cloth soon gets superficially marked and worn long before its real usefulness is impaired, so that the cupboard shelves never look quite so neat as after scrubbing or relining with white paper.

The larder should be thoroughly “turned out” once a week. Once a fortnight is enough for the store-cupboard and for china cupboards in daily use. While cupboards in which superfluous china and other non-perishable goods are stored, and that are seldom opened, need not be touched oftener than once or twice a year.

In very small houses one cupboard often must house both china and groceries, thus combining the offices of storeroom and china cupboard. The larder, strictly speaking, is for the food consumed daily. But when larder and store-cupboard have to be combined, the groceries may be packed away on the upper shelves, which can be tidied once a fortnight; but the shelves doing duty for the larder proper should never be left for longer than a week.

Nothing betrays the careless housewife like an ill-smelling larder. All food should be examined daily and kept well covered. Hot food should be allowed to cool before storing in the larder. In the summer time special precautions must be taken against flies, all receptacles for food which are minus well-fitting lids being covered with wire-gauze covers or clean butter muslin. If the shelves are lined with paper, care should be taken at the weekly change to examine the wood for stains caused by spilt food that has penetrated through the paper. These should not be just left and covered over, but well washed off. With ordinary carefulness, however, they need not occur.

F.D.

The New Suggestion Treatment.By J. Stenson Hooker, M.D. Cloth 1s. net (postage 1½d.) C.W. Daniel, Ltd., 3 Tudor Street, E.C.

This book is a striking example of the new synthetic movement in the medical profession. It is an exposition for the general reader of certain basic principles of mental treatment and of the author's methods of applying these; it is also, in reality, an appeal to doctors generally to put aside prejudice and examine the immense potentialities of rational “suggestion” healing methods.

After examining the main features and disadvantages of mere hypnotic treatment and passing under review present-day “mental science,” the author explains wherein his method of mental treatment both avoids the dangers of hypnotism and reinforces ordinary self-suggestion. Throughout there is the frank recognition that few forms of dis-ease are curable by one means alone; on the other hand, it is contended that most disorders, both mental and physical, are remarkably amenable to a rightly directed course of the new suggestion treatment, supplemented by other natural means.

The narrowness of view that too often characterises the specialist is entirely absent from this book. It is throughout thoroughly broad, refreshingly sensible and profoundly convincing.

The Cottage Farm Month by Month(illustrated with original photographs). By F.E. Green. Cloth, 1s. net (postage 2d.). C.W. Daniel, Ltd., 3 Tudor Street, London, E.C.

Here is a book of immediate social interest, of great practical value, and of uncommon literary quality.

In the course of twelve chapters, bearing the titles of the months of the year, it reveals a welding together of two things which in many minds have unfortunatelybecome divorced: the practical problems and arduous labour which no tiller of the soil can escape and—the keen delight of a poetical temperament in the ever-changing, yet annually renewed, beauties of earth and sky and running water.

It escapes the dry technicalities of the agricultural text-book, while at the same time conveying innumerable valuable hints on practically every branch of “small farming”—advice which springs from the author's thorough knowledge based on long and often hard experience.

On the other hand, while entirely free from that all too common defect of “nature-books”—hot-house enthusiasm—it will delight the most incurable townsman (providing his sense of beauty is not withered) by its joyous yet restrained pictures of open-air things.

Simple Rules of Health.By Philip Oyler, M.A. (2nd ed.). 3d. net. Post free from the author, Morshin School, Headley, Hants.

An admirable epitome of what might be called “advanced health culture without crankiness.” The author is an ardent advocate of simplicity in all things and—practises what he preaches. Moreover, he is one of those who sees health from all points of view: he is as much concerned with what the English Bible calls “a right spirit” as with a fit body and a responsive mind. It is a little book deserving of a wide circulation.

To the Editors

Sirs,

Would you care to publish the following experience of a cure for sleeplessness:—

I had no difficulty in going to sleep, but usually awoke again at about twoa.m.with palpitation, and it often took me two or three hours to go to sleep again.

I cured myself in the following way: I left off supper and reduced my tea meal by half, and the result was continuous sleep; the symptoms, however, began to come back again after a time, so I gradually cut the tea meal right away, and half of the midday meal as well. The cure was then permanent and after a time I found that I could resume the tea meal again. At the present time I am having a tea meal of fruit only.

In addition I should advise those who suffer from this complaint to keep cheerful, and to avoid excessive physical or mental fatigue and worry. Yours faithfully,

“A Six Months' Reader.”

The Editors have received the following letter from Messrs Rowntree & Co., Ltd.:—

“We note in your issue ofJuly 1913under the heading of ‘Lemon or Orange Squash’ anoteto the effect that bottled lemon squashes and lime cordials ‘are not pure in the strict sense of the term, since they are bound to contain 10 per cent. alcoholic pure spirit by Government regulations.’ We should be glad to know what is your authority for this statement. Possibly it is a misprint, because obviously the Government does not require anything of the kind. Our own lemon squash and lime juice cordial are entirely free from any form of preservative, including alcohol. They are made up from pure lemon juice and lime juice respectively, with sugar, and contain no foreign ingredient.”

The statement complained of was based on an article entitled “Fortified Lime Juice” which appeared inThe Chemist and Druggist, 13th May 1911 (page 51). On again referring to this article we find that the Government regulation applies only toexportedLime Juice.

We regret having made this error, and are genuinely glad to have Messrs Rowntree's assurance that their own “Lime Juice Cordial” and “Lemon Squash” are “entirely free from any form of preservative, including alcohol.”

Nevertheless, we think our suspicions regarding thepresence of preservatives in such articles are justifiable in view of the following authoritative statements made byThe Chemist and Druggistin the article referred to:—

“The British Revenue authorities have drawn the line a little tighter in the discharge of their responsibility respecting the soundness of lime-juice intended for exportation or for use on board ship. The new rule henceforth is to grant a ‘pass’ certificate for unfortified lime-juice to last for fourteen days only, at the end of which time another certificate must be obtained. As this new regulation affects lime-juice in its natural condition before rum or any other spirit is added to it, only lime-juice manufacturers or importers are concerned in the matter....With such rapidly deteriorating liquid as lime or lemon juice the addition of the preservative spirit is a necessity, hence the sooner it is fortified the better.The Revenue authorities permit duty-free spirit to be used for this purpose, but in order that lime-juice manufacturers shall have this advantage of not paying duty on the spirit used the Revenue authorities insist on approval of the juice and its subsequent fortification in bond under supervision of the Crown.... In reference to the proportion of spirit used, previously the regulation was expressed in a permissive sense, but now the emphatic “must” is used. In the last Government Laboratory report it was stated that 396 samples were examined, most of which were lime-juice, representing nearly 50,000 gallons. Even the fortified article is re-tested if more than three months old in cask or two years old in bottle, and this re-testing resulted last year in a condemnation of several hundred gallons owing to deterioration during storage. This juice is principally for use in the Mercantile Marine to combat scurvy.”

From which it would appear that the use ofsomekind of preservative is essential with such a rapidly deteriorating liquid as lime or lemon juice; and if not alcohol, there are innumerable chemical preservatives available. We wish we could rely on receiving assurances from other “Lime Juice” importers and manufacturers similar to that we have received from Messrs Rowntree.

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