The Pessimist.
The calamity howler is found everywhere. In times of peace or war he is with us. This pessimist sows seeds of discord, plants envy, generates the anarchist spirit, and is an all-around nuisance.
A man may spend years erecting a building; a fiend can demolish it in a minute with a stick of dynamite.
The calamity howler is a destroyer; he doesn't think, he spurts out words. His words and arguments are simply parrot mimicry and void of intellectual impulse, as are the movements of an angle worm.
These gloom merchants talk of their rights, and they expect and demand the same privileges and benefits that are earned by the man who uses his head.
The pessimist sees good in nobody. Human nature to him is a cesspool of villainy and corruption. He will not tolerate a word of praise for a thing well done. Disparagement is his favorite weapon. He ascribes mean and selfishmotives to public-spirited men. Every deed of kindness, every act of generosity, is given a sinister meaning when seen in the light of his own base soul.
At home he is a grumbler and a grouch. His presence depresses, and happiness fades away at his approach.
In the community, he never reaches high office because he lacks civic spirit and the forward-looking view. He obstructs progress instead of promoting it.
At his work, he lags behind where others achieve. He rails at conditions instead of changing them, and eventually he finds himself shelfed and shunned as a back number.
These purveyors of panic eat into the vitals of the nation. They breed discontent, undermine morale, and sow suspicion and distrust where previously there had been friendliness, co-operation and the pull-together spirit.
Wherever men gather, you will find these ghoulish spirits. They are in evidence in times of peace and plenty, as well as in times of war and peril.
It matters not that our farmers are seeing to it that our granaries are filled to-day as never before, and that every man has a job. Theseprophets of disaster have only one string to their harp, and they will twang on that and no other.
The Danger of Pessimism.
In times of war, the pessimist is doubly dangerous, for he spreads his iniquitous propaganda among people who are already under a great emotional strain. Always a menace, when a people are in the throes of a great life-and-death struggle, it is doubly necessary to stamp out this destroyer of morale, with his insidious campaign of gloom and despair and his veiled innuendos of panic and destruction.
It is up to you and to me to denounce these breeders of discord; to hold them up to the scorn of intelligent, thinking people. They are neither doers nor thinkers, and the world has no need of them in these trying times.
This evening I rode home in a crowded street car. What an interesting study it was to watch the faces in that car.
Discontent, discomfort, worry, gloominess on nearly every face. Tired faces, tired bodies drooped over from a hard day's work, mouth corners depressed. Hopelessness stamped on the countenances.
Gloom and Cheer.
As the people came in the car, some of them had smiles or at least passable expressions, but when they got crowded together and saw the gloomy faces, the gloom spread to their faces, too. At a picnic, all are smiling and laughing. In the street car at six o'clock, the long procession of workers is a stream of solemn faces. Contagion, example, surroundings, yes, that's it—contagion and example.
At six o'clock in the cars, all is gloom, blueness and sorrow faces. At eight o'clock many of these faces will be changed; there will be joy, smiles, rosiness, singing and dancing. Yet theactual conditions of finance, health, hope or prospects haven't changed since these people were in the car at six o'clock.
Why, then, such a change in two hours?
Good Cheer Contagious.
It is this: At seven o'clock these workers sat down to supper; they were out of that gloom-reflected street car atmosphere. Now they are talking; they are rounding-up the day's activities; they are HOME with mother, sister, brother and the kiddies. The home ones greet them with smiles, the appetizing supper pleases the palate, good cheer permeates, and all around them is smiles and joy.
Gloom spreads gloom. Joy spreads joy. Gloom is black; joy is white. One darkens, the other brightens.
Well, then, where's the moral? What's the benefit from this little study of the street car passengers?
The lesson is plain: It is that you and I are ferments of joy, or acids of gloom. We are influences to help or to hurt. To hurt others by our example hurts us. To help others by our example helps us. We become happier than ever.
In the street car, life was not worth living if you judged by the pained faces. In two hours,by changed thought, the example of life was worth while.
What changes mental attitude makes!
"When a man has spentHis very last cent,The world looks blue, you bet;But give him a dollar,And loud he will hollerThere's life in the old world yet."
Next time we get on the street car, let's plant some smiles. Let's give that lady a seat and smile when we do it.
We can spread cheer by merely wearing a cheery face. Costs little, pays big. Let's do it.
Some of our richest blessings are gained by not striving for them directly. This is so true that we accept the blessings without thinking about how we came to get them.
Be Happy.
Particularly true is this in the matter of happiness. Everyone wants to be happy, but few know how to secure this blessing. Most people have the idea that the possession of material things is necessary to happiness, and that idea is what keeps architects, automobile makers, jewelers, tailors, hotels, railroads, steamships and golf courses busy.
Do your duty well, have a worth-while ambition, be a dreamer, have an ideal, keep your duty in mind, be occupied sincerely with your work, keep on the road to your ideal, and happiness will cross your path all the while.
Happiness is an elusive prize; it's wary, timid, alert and cannot be caught. Chase it and it escapes your grasp.
One Man's Story.
I read today of a friend who walked home witha workman. This is the workman's story: He had a son who was making a record in school. He had two daughters who helped their mother; he had a cottage, a little yard, a few flowers, a garden. He worked hard in a garage by day, and in the evening he cultivated his flowers, his garden, and his family. He had health, plus contentment a-plenty. His possessions were few and the care of them consequently a negligible effort.
Happiness flowed in the cracks of his door. Smiles were on his lips, joy in his heart, love in his bosom; that's the story my friend heard.
Then came a friend in an automobile on his way home from the club. He picked up my friend, and unfolded to him a tale of woe, misery and discontent.
This club man had money, automobiles, social standing, possessions, and all the objects and material things envious persons covet—yet he was unhappy. His whole life was spent chasing happiness, but his sixty horsepower auto wasn't fast enough to catch it.
The poor man I have told you about was the man who washed the club man's auto.
The strenuous pleasure seeker fails to get happiness; that is an inexorable law. He developsinto a pessimist with an acrid, satirical disgust at all the simple, wholesome, worth-while, real things in life.
This is not a new discovery of mine; it's an old truth. Read Ecclesiastes, the pessimistic chronicle of the Bible, and you'll learn what comes to the pleasure-chaser, and you will know about "vanity and vexation of spirit."
Making Others Happy.
Do something for somebody. Engage in moves and enterprises that will be of service to the community and help the uplift of mankind. This making others happy is a positive insurance and guarantee of your own happiness.
You must keep a stiff upper lip, a stiff backbone; you must forget the wishbone and the envious heart.
Paul had trials, setbacks, hardships and hard labors; he had defeats and discouragements and still the record shows he was "always rejoicing."
Paul was a man of Pep. In the dungeon, with his feet in stocks, he sang songs and rejoiced. Paul was happy, ever and always, not because he strove to get happiness, but because he had dedicated his life to the service of mankind.
The real hero, the real man of fame, the real man of popularity, doesn't arrive by setting outon a quest for any of these things; the result is incidental.
The real hero forgets self first of all; that is the essential step to greatness.
Washington at Valley Forge had no thought that his acts there would furnish inspiration for a picture that would endure for generations.
Lincoln, the care-worn, tired, noble man, in his speech at Gettysburg, never dreamed that that speech would stamp him as a master of words and thought, in the hearts of his country-men. He thought not of self. He was trying to soothe wounds, cheer troubled spirits, and give courage to those who had been so long in shadowland.
Ever has it been that fame, glory, happiness came as rewards, not to those who strive to capture, but to those who strive to free others from their troubles, burdens and problems.
I am often asked: "Are you happy ALL the time?" My answer is no.
Continuous Happiness Impossible.
A continuous state of happiness cannot be enjoyed by any human. There are no plans, no habits, no methods of living that will insure unbroken happiness. Happiness means periods or marking posts in our journey along life's road. These high points of bliss are enjoyed because we have to walk through the low places between times.
Continuous sunshine, continuous warm weather, continuous rest, continuous travel, continuous anything spells monotony. We must have variety.
We need the night to make us enjoy the day, winter to make us enjoy summer, clouds to make us enjoy sunshine, sorrow to make us enjoy happiness.
But, dear reader, mark this: We can be philosophical, and have content, serenity and poise between the happiness periods.
When you get blue, or have dread or sorrow,or possess that indescribable something that makes you feel badly; when you have worry or trouble, then's the time to get hold of your thinking machinery and dispel the shadows that cross your path.
Occupation and focusing your thoughts on your blessings—these are the methods to employ.
As long as you dwell upon your imagined or your real sorrows, you will be miserable and the worries will magnify like gathering clouds in April.
Think Happiness.
Change your thoughts to confidence, faith, and good cheer, and busy your hands with work. Think of the happiness periods you have had, and know that there are further happiness dividends coming to you. Keep this sort of thought, and with it, useful occupation, and the sunshine will dispel your gloomy forebodings and sorrow thoughts like the sun dispels the April showers, bringing about a more beautiful day because of the clouds and storms just passed.
When trouble or sorrows come, sweeten your cup with sugar remembrances of joys that have been and joys you are to have.
Envy no one; envy breeds worry. The personyou would envy has his sorrows and shadows, too. You see him only when the sunlight is on the face; you don't see him when he is in shadowland.
Brace Up, Cheer Up.
No, dear ones, I, nor you, nor anyone on earth can have complete, unruffled, continued happiness, but we can brace up and call our reserve will-power, reason, and self-confidence into action when we come to the marshy places along the road. We can pick our steps and get through the mire, and sooner than we believe it possible, we can get on the good solid ground; and as we travel, happiness will often come as a reward for our poise and patience.
My friends say: "You always seem happy," and in that saying they tell a truth, for I am happy often—very, very often—and between times I make myself seem to be happy. This making myself "seem to be happy" gives me serenity, contentment, fortitude, and the very "seeming" soon blossoms into a reality of the condition I seem to be in.
You can be happy often, and when you are not happy, just seem to be happy anyway; it will help you much.
A little child is crying over a real or fancied injury to her body or to her pride.
So long as she keeps her mind on the subject she is miserable.
Distract her attention, get her mind on another subject, and her tears stop and smiles replace frowns.
This shows how we are creatures of our thoughts. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" is a truth that has endured through the centuries.
We are children in so far as we cry and suffer when we think of our ills or hurts or wrongs or bad luck.
We can smile and have peace, poise and strength if we change our thoughts to faith, courage and confidence.
Fear-Thought and Faith-Thought.
Our condition is what we make it. If we think fear, worry and misery, we will suffer. If we think faith, peace and happiness, we will enjoy life. Every thought that comes out of our brain had togo in first. The kind of thoughts we have afford an indication of the kind of people we are.
If we feed our brain storehouse with trash and fear and nonsense, we have poor material to draw from.
Thought Control.
The last thought we put in the brain before going to sleep is most likely to last longest. So it is our duty to quietly relax, to slow down, to eliminate fear-thought and self-accusation, and to substitute some good helpful thought in closing the mental book of each day.
Therefore read a chapter or two from a worth-while book the last thing before going to bed.
Say to yourself, "I am unafraid; I can, I will awake in the morning with smiles on my face, courage in my heart, and song on my lips."
These suggestions for closing the day will be of instant help to you.
The great power for good—the wherewith to give you strength, progress and efficiency—is within yourself and at the command of your will.
You can't think faith and fear, good and bad, courage and defeat, all at the same time.
You can only think one thing at a time.
Your great power is your will, and the wherewith to help yourself is your thought habit.
Change your thought habit as you go to bed. You can do it; it's a matter of will determination. The more faithful you are to your purpose, the easier your task will be. Be patient, conscientious, rational and confident.
You are what your thoughts picture you to be. Your will directs your thoughts.
Don't get discouraged if you can't suddenly change your life from shadow to sunshine, from illness to wellness.
Big things take time and patience. The great ship lies in the harbor pointed North. A tug boat could make a sudden pull and break the great chain or tow line.
Yet you could take a half-inch rope and with your own hands turn the great ship completely around by pulling steadily and patiently. The movement would be slow, but it would be sure and you would finally accomplish your purpose.
Don't jerk and fret and be impatient with yourself. You have been for years perhaps worrying and thinking fear-thoughts. You have put a lot of useless and harmful material in your brain.
You can't clean all your brain house in a day or a week, but you can do a little cleaning each day.
You can take the faith-rope of good purposeand start to pull gently, and finally you will turn your whole life's character toward the port of success.
The great crowd worries; only the few have learned the power of the will, and the benefits to be derived from mental control.
Business and social duties call for strong men and woman. You can't reach mastership if you remain a slave.
Your first duty is to yourself, and success or failure is your reward exactly in proportion as you exercise your will power and handle your thought habits.
The Best Medicine.
The doctors are giving less medicine and doing more in the way of suggesting diet and exercise rules, sanitation and preventive practices. Medicine is mostly poison and its effect is to shock the organs or glands to bring about reaction. Nature makes the cure.
In emergency drugs are all right, but the doctor and not the individual should settle the matter of what drug to use and the proper time to use it.
When there's a pain or disease, it's due to congestion of some organ, to infection, or to improper nourishment, or improper habits.
Ninety per cent of aches, pains and ailments can be cured by a dominant mental attitude and by proper attention to eating and exercise.
The habitual medicine user is not cured by the medicine but by nature; the medicine simply serves as a means to establish mental control and to create confidence in the sufferer that he is to get well.
Recently I spent much time in a large hospital visiting a relative who had been operated on. I know several members of the staff of doctors and nurses.
I have seen many operations, some very heroic ones, and my appreciation of the good work of good surgeons is greatly augmented by the wonderful helps I have seen them bring to suffering humanity.
I have talked with scores of patients and watched the progress of their cases.
I have by plausible logic, mental suggestion, and good cheer to the hospital patients, brought many a smile through a mist of tears.
I have seen the wonderful results of mental suggestion to the discouraged patients.
To show the effects that faith-thought will produce, I will relate some instances.
Mental Sickness.
One patient screaming for a hypodermic injection to relieve her pain was given an injection of sterilized water and the pain vanished. Another just could not sleep without her bromide. The nurse fixed up a powder of sugar, salt and flour; the patient took the powder and went to sleep. That was mind control and mental longing satisfied.
Another patient had to take something to stop her pains; she got capsules of magnesia. The capsule satisfied her longing, established her faith and gave her relief; the relief was through her mind and not through the capsule.
Changing Thought Direction.
I have seen several weary, despondent patients fretting and wearing themselves out over their so-called weakness and run-down condition. I have placed copies of "Pep" in their hands and watched courage, faith, cheer and serenity come to them. It diverted their minds from self-thought and self-accusation to faith-thought, confidence and courage.
You can think of only one thing at a time, and "Pep" or any other book that can change the thought habit from fear to faith, from worry to peace, is doing a service.
I've been in shadowland in the hospital to see for myself the actual help that mental control will bring to sufferers, and the evidence is far above my powers to describe.
I've seen the patient's eyes brighten up when the cheery surgeon came with hope, smiles and confidence on his face.
I've seen the drooping of spirits when well-meaning but poor-expressing friends came intothe patient's room and condoned and sorrowed with him.
Verily, "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
Verily, good cheer and good thought are good medicines.
And to these truths all good doctors say "Amen!"
The Pill Fiend.
How often we see the pill fiend. In his vest pocket he has a small apothecary shop—a collection of round paste-board boxes and little bottles. Every little while he dopes himself. If his stomach is on a strike, he pops in a pill. If his head aches, he takes a tablet. If he sneezes, he takes a cold-cure pill.
When anyone around speaks of a pain or ache, he hands the person a pill.
The pill eater is a hypochondriac, and very likely his doctor knows it. His salvation is that the doctor probably gives him harmless stuff in pill form. The patient doesn't know this, and it's like a rabbit's foot or a piece of pork rubbed on a wart—it satisfies the mind and nature makes the cure.
Often, however, the pills are not innocent; the pill fiend buys the tablets and pills direct from the druggist. The headache tablet is most likely one of the coal tar drugs like acetanilid, and that is positively harmful when taken too often.
There are times to take pills—in cases of emergency, when you can shock nature with a poison and bring a wholesome reaction.
These times are rare, and the doctor should be the sole judge as to when such treatment is necessary.
Exercise, diet, correct habits of living will prevent the congestion and clogging-up that causes illness and pain.
A Dangerous Habit.
The pill habit is nothing less than a drug habit, and the drug habit positively weakens the system. The headache tablet does not cure the headache; it only stops the pain; the evil is still there. The headache is merely nature's signal that something is out of whack.
Headaches are generally caused by stomach disorders, eye strain, or neuralgia; the latter in turn is caused by too much uric acid in the system.
Eat fruit, drink plenty of water, and that will flush the system and stop stomachic headache.
See the optician if it's eyes. If you have a frequent headache in the forehead, very likely it's the eyes, even though you do not suspect it.
If it's neuralgia, get a corrective diet from the doctor.
I know scores of men, and women, too, who take pills enough to kill a person. Their systems have been educated up to it; they are saturated with poison.
And the worst of it is they never get well while taking the pills; it is only a temporary deadening of the pain.
Then, there are many who take pills to make them sleep. That's a crime. It's self-murder by slow degrees, for they are surely shortening their lives by this poison dope pill habit.
Nature, the Curer.
Mark this: Nature, and Nature alone, effects cures, and it's in very, very few instances that a poison pill can be used to advantage. You can keep well by getting good air, good water, good sunshine, good food, good exercise, good rest, good cheer and good thought. That is what I call my golden prescription, and it will do wonders for you, and every doctor will tell you so.
Pills kill, if you keep up the habit. There are no two ways about it. I say positively and knowingly that this pill habit is absolutely life shortening.
Don't try to argue; the evidence is unshakable on this point.
If you could have seen the derelicts in the hospitals that I have, if you could have seen the wretched bodies, destroyed nerve systems, the broken-down, emaciated, hopeless shells of men and women addicted to the baneful pill habit, you would be as positive as I am that pills kill if you keep up the habit.
Life is sweet and precious to us all. Do not shorten it by taking pills and tablets for every ache or pain. Try nature's way. Realize that mental suggestion and will-power will drive away most pains or temporary aches.
Brace up, cheer up; chuck the pills in the garbage can.
Two Kinds of Pleasures.
There are two principal kinds of pleasures that man seeks; one is material pleasures, and about ninety-nine per cent of the human family devote themselves to these. The remainder—the one per cent—seek mental pleasures, and this little group is the one that gets the real, lasting, satisfying and improving pleasures out of life.
The material pleasures are the social pleasures of eating, displaying, possessing, and so forth. Material pleasures generate in the human the desire for fluff, feathers, and four-flushing.
Material pleasures accentuate the desire to possess things, and in the strife for possession, hearts are broken, fortunes wasted, nerves shattered, and the finer sentiments calloused.
The homes where material pleasures abound are the ones where worry, neurasthenia and nervous prostration abound.
Material pleasures are merely stimulants for the time being, and there always come the intermittent reflexes of gloom and depression.
The desire to show off, to excite envy in others, is always present at the homes where material pleasures are the rule.
Material pleasures call for crowds. Mental pleasures are best enjoyed in solitude.
The material pleasure-seeker lives a life of convention, engagements, routine, strain, and high tension.
Mental Pleasures Are Best.
The person who is so fortunate as to appreciate and follow mental pleasures is serene, natural, happy and content. A cozy room, loved ones around, music, books, love and social conversation—those are mental pleasures; those are best. He who can pick up a book and read things worth while, gets satisfaction unknown to those whose life is a round of banquets, theaters, dances, automobiles, parties, bridge, clubs and society doings.
When you spend the evening playing cards, the chances are you come home late, and when you retire, it takes perhaps an hour or so before you fall to sleep.
And during the night you dream of cards, of certain hands, of certain circumstances, or certain persons who were prominent in the evening's game.
The reason you do not go to sleep after anexciting evening is that you have set your nerve carburetor at high tension and have forgotten to lower it before you go to sleep.
Good Reading.
On the other hand, when you have been reading a restful book, full of good thought, you establish an equilibrium, a relaxed state of nerves, and particularly, you have switched the current or direction of your day's thoughts. That change spells rest, and you retire and go to sleep easily.
You will scarcely believe what a wondrous change for the better you will notice in yourself if you make it a rule to have a brain clearing, mental inventory, and nerve relaxation every night before you go to sleep.
Your brain works at night always; oft-times you have no remembrance of your dreams, but if your last hour, before retiring, was an hour of excitement, tension or unusual occupation, you will likely go over it all again in your dreams.
If you will let nothing prevent your evening period of soliloquy, you will establish your mental habits into a rhythm that will give you peace, rest and benefit.
In the olden days, when most families had evening worship or family prayers, the members of those households slept soundly and restfully.
Particularly was this so because of the habit formed of getting the mind on peaceful, helpful, comforting, soul-satisfying thoughts that remained fresh on the brain tablets as the members of the home circle went to sleep.
Too often the books read in the home circle are all of the exciting, fascinating, highly colored imaginative type. People read stories of love, adventure or crime, and they dream these same things almost every night.
I have found that it pays to read two classes of literature in the same evening. First read your novel, story, or fascinating book, but fifteen minutes before you are ready to go to sleep, read some good, wholesome, helpful, uplifting book, and that good stuff will be lastingly filed away in your brain.
What to Read.
Finish your evening with books that are interesting, yet educational. Such books as "Life of the Bee" by Maeterlinck, or any one of Fabre's wonderful books on insect life; "Riddle of the Universe" by Haeckel; Darwin's books; Drummond's "Ascent of Man;" "Walks and Talks in Geological Fields" is a splendid mental night cap; "Power of Silence;" "Physiology of Faith and Fear;" Emerson's "Essays;" Holmes'"Autocrat of the Breakfast Table;" "Rubaiyat" of Omar Khayyam; Tom Moore's Poems; "Plutarch's lives;" Seneca; Addison; Bulwer Lytton; Hugo; Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus." This latter book will not fascinate you like Carlyle's "French Revolution," but you will learn to love its fine language, its fine analysis of character, of times, and of things.
What You Gain.
There are countless books of the good improving kind. Always save one of them for your solid reading, after you have read light literature or novels. If you will get the habit, you will notice great benefits and rapid advancement in your mental equipment. You will sleep better, think clearer; you will learn to enjoy mental pleasures more than material pleasures.
Fifteen minutes, then, to be yours, yours alone, in which you quiet, soothe, strengthen and pacify yourself and add abundant resources and assets.
Let the last reading in the evening be something worth storing up in that precious brain of yours, and the good, worth-while deposit will grow and produce beautiful worth-while mental fruit.
Don't Overdo It.
Get the home reading habit. Don't overdo it. Call on friends; go to a good picture show oncein a while, to good concerts, to good plays, but do not make this going-out-in-the-evening-plan a habit. Let it be merely a dessert, or a rarity. Like candy and ice cream, it is proper and enjoyable when it is not overdone.
The lover of books and home can enjoy the play, because he only goes to plays worth while, and he doesn't overdo it.
The confirmed theater-goer is a pessimist; he roasts nearly every play, and he is universally bored.
When you get started reading worth-while books on science, on history, on geography, on travel, on natural history, you tap an inexhaustible field of pleasure and satisfaction.
At any time, you can pick up your book and be happy.
Waits in railway stations will be opportunities; trips on trains will be pleasant; evenings alone will be enjoyable, if you can get into a book you like.
Mental pleasures are best.
Material pleasures are merely passing shadows—to be enjoyed for the brief moment before they disappear.
Verbomania.
The malady Verbomania is spreading rapidly. What's that? You have never heard of Verbomania? Well, then, it's taken fromverbosus, the Latin word meaning "abounding in words," the using of more words than is necessary.Mania, also Latin, means "to rage"—excessive or unreasonable desire. Therefore, Verbomania is the excessive desire to use more words than are necessary.
There is too much talk nowadays and too little thinking. Some persons start their gab carburetors, and they talk and talk mechanically, without any effort spent in thinking. Just like walking, the motion just goes by itself.
Scientists have suggested that perhaps too much talking without thinking is a disease. I don't see that there is anyperhapsabout it. Disease is an unnatural condition—a function of the mind or body out of its natural order of working.
We know we can sit down and run ideas through our brain without words, and we can use a lot of words without ideas.
You have read whole pages in a book without receiving an idea. One can rattle off words and not have ideas. When the fountain of words flows in a desert of ideas, it's Verbomania.
Think More, Talk Less.
People in all walks of life have the disease; they talk together too much without any reason other than to take up time or make themselves at ease. Pink teas, receptions and society functions are great rookeries for these Verbomania birds to gather and indulge in their gabfest.
The pianist through long practice is able to play a difficult composition without thinking about it; it's automatic; it's habit in action.
The society dodo bird is just as dexterous in spinning words without thought, as the pianist with his difficult piece.
Our rapid mode of living, our conventions and customs are responsible for much of the Verbomania.
I should like to take my Dictophone to a fussy "afternoon" and record the word evacuations, the footless conversation, the forced pleasantries, the set sentences that mingle into a hum and buzz. A wilderness of words in a barrenness of ideas.
This abuse of the use of speech makes headaches, weariness, worry, unrest; it saps strength, lowers pep, and lessens resistance.
The cure for Verbomania is to keep away from these butterfly buzz bees; put the clothes-pin of caution on your lips; spend more time alone with your thoughts. Nourish your idea plants that have been starved; prune your word plants.
Don't expose yourself to the crowds where the Verbomaniacs gather. The disease is contagious; it's easy to acquire and hard to retire.
These are ideas put in type to convey a truth for the benefit of all who read these lines, and it is some truth, too.
Love builds homes, gold builds houses. The home has a mongrel dog which is called Prince, and all the family love it. The house had a pedigreed bull pup that is kept in the barn.
House and Home.
There is all the difference between the family which has a home and the family which has a house. In houses we find broken hearts, worry, nervous prostration, because there is idleness, artificiality and aimlessness. In homes we find warm hearts, happiness and love, because those in the home have natural, helpful occupation.
In the house is cold reserve; the occupants read when compelled to stay indoors; they grow crabbed and cross and get into a state of habitual dumbness and selfishness.
In the home there is unselfishness, thoughtfulness, and love expressed. Meal time is joy time; it's the get-together period of smiling faces.
In the house the breakfast table is merely a lunch station in the hurried trip from the bedroom to the office.
The sensitive wife of the house gets stinging remarks that abide with her after the lord and master of the house has departed.
What Makes Home.
In the home the family gets up plenty early enough. Songs and jokes, kisses and love pats are found; the family is on time, and there is happiness all around. Homes are sweet, because love is present. Houses built by gold are just hotels.
I've noticed the difference when a friend invites me to come to his home or to his house; the word he uses, home or house, indicates to me what I will find when I go there.
In the house I meet a maid or butler at the door. I see conventional furniture, conventional rooms. I am shown into a conventional waiting room, and I wait conventionally for the hostess to come forward with a stiff backbone, a forced smile, and a languid handshake.
When I go to a home built with love, I find a tidy dressed wife at the door, rosy children, and I get a warm, old-fashioned hand clasp, and a beaming, smiling face that spells welcome.
And the dinner—that, too, tells the difference between the "depend-on-the-cook" establishment and the "wife-who-is-the-boss" home.
At the house is formality and frigidity; at thehome is ease and enjoyment. The children of the home make breaks and we love them for it; it's natural instinct and frankness.
In the house is worry; in the home is happiness.
Verily, there's a difference in the atmosphere of the house built with gold and the home built with love; one is worthless existence, the other worth-while living.
Seven Simple Health Suggestions.
I haven't space in this book to give reasons or show proofs for everything I suggest, but I want right here to give you a few definite, short, positive, helpful rules about food, thought, habit and exercise that will pay you the most wonderful dividends in health and happiness.
First—Drink two or three glasses of warm, not hot, water, the first thing when you arise in the morning.
Second—Repeat this resolve as you are drinking the water: "I will be pleasant this morning until ten o'clock, and the rest of the day will take care of itself."
Third—Walk to your office or place of business, unless it is over four miles, in which case walk the first three miles and ride the remainder of the distance.
Fourth—Eat one or two apples every day, and do not insult Nature's proper adjustment by peeling the apple. You want the skin because it has things in it you need for your body, and especiallyfor your brain, and you have especial need of the roughage the skin gives.