Life — June 29, 1911 — page 36: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Ethics of Bran I AM sometimes lost in delight as I read the confident and generous directions of some man who has solved the problem of correct living and given his gospel to the world. How much: better than any imagined millennium will that be when we comfort all our vile bodies to his body; what a sweet uniformity when we will all eat and drink and sleep and dress and exercise exactly as he has found it best for him? The process of natural selection has been carried quite far enough. Let us be of one mind and one diet; bran of one bran, flesh of one flesh. We shall all go to bed at one hour, and that right early—ex- cept the editors of morning journals, who have a dispensation to die early. We shall all rise, like a bed of crocuses in spring, at a very early hour, and all togethe Sickness will not excuse us, for there will be no exe for sickness. At the same moment, we shall all be engaged in taking an air bath, a plunge bath, a sponge bath, a dry rub; and then dressing, according to a tabular set of fig- ures, furnished by the central authority, showing the proper weight of cach garment, according to the tempera- ture indicated by the thermometer, we shall all take a brisk walk of eleven minutes. We shall all saw wood for half an hour, if we have no lifting-machine, and then sit down to breakfast, to consist of half a pint of filtered water (free of all animal substances) and two-quarters of a dried apple, or any other fruit in season, to be eaten with the utmost cheerfulness, and even with a ittle moderate hilarity. A dried apple without hilarity is to be avoided. After breakfast we are to go to our various occupations with a clear mind and an elastic frame, By twelve o'clock we shall be quite ready for dinner. This meal is to be varied every day in the week—different kinds of bran- bread, different kinds of cracked wheat, different kinds of dried apples and other sorts of fruit that do not con- tain a certain kind of acid which is hostile to the standard stomach of the reformer whom we follow, to be eaten with a great deal of merriment (no matter who has died or who has gone into bankruptcy), to be eaten in large quantities. In fact, we are to cat all we want at this king meal, with one restriction. We are to leave all hungry and extremely hilarious. The dinner is to cost not over eight cents, except you dine with a friend, and he pa the bill, in which case you may take sugar on your fruit. After dinner you may take a siesta of twenty minutes and a nap in your chair, but do not lic down, and sleep with your mouth shut in fly-time, for animal food is absolutely prohibited. These directions may scem unimportant, but nothing is trivial to an immortal man, as you will feel when you go to your business with a springing step, a sparkling eye, glowing cheeks, fire in every limb, exultant blood in every muscle and the consciousness that you have no butcher’s bill, or milkman’s, that you owe no man a dollar, and can keep al. the commandments just as easy as you can wink. As yor walk along the street you occasion- ally jump into the air four or five feet or leap over the boundary fence and back and laugh aloud. At supper it is best for you to eat nothing, excepting your own cheerful- ness.. But if Nature will have something, try a little brown bread, raised without yeast, slowly masticating it, think- ing about butter and being ‘eful to call up no image of excessive laughter, for this is the time to begin to tran- quilize the mind and prepare for self-satisfied slumber. Of course, it must be understood that all you eat must be carefully weighed. This not, only guards against ex- cess, but it induces a careful and methodical habit of mind. When you go out to dinner you will carry your scales with you and weigh your own food at the table. It is im- portant to notice that beans, uncontaminated by pork, may be eaten on Sundays and the Fourth of July.—Charles Dudley Warner. Horace Porter on New England +.» + I have acquired some useful experience in at- tending New England society dinners in various cities. | dine with New Englanders in Boston; the rejoicing is marked, but not aggressive. I dine with them in New York; the hilarity and cheer of mind are increased in large degree. I dine with them in Philadelphia; the joy is un- confined, and measured neither by metes nor bounds. In- deed, it has become patent to the most casual observer that the further New Englander finds himself from New England the more hilarious is his rejoicing. Whenever we find a son of New England who has passed beyond the borders of his own section, who has stepped out into the damp, cold fog of a benighted outside world and has brought up in another State, he seems to take more pride then ever in his descent—doubtless because he feels that it has been so great—Fxtract from a Speech. The only thing that has been taught successfully to women is to wear becomingly the fig-leaf they received from their first mother. Everything that is said and re- peated for the first eighteen or twenty years of a woman’s life is reduced to this: “ My daughter, take care that your fig-leaf_ becomes you”; “your fig-leaf does not become you.”—Diderot, What is a philosopher? One who opposes nature to law, reason to usage, conscience to opinion and his judg- ment to error.—Chamfort. That two men may be real friends, they must have op- posite opinions, similar principles and different loves and hatreds.—Chateaubriand, . The stomach is a slave that must accept everything that is given to it, but which avenges wrongs as slyly as the slave does.—E. Souvestre. comicbooks.com