Earlier text: HOW TO LIVE.FASHION kills more women than toil or sorrow. Obedience to fashion is a greater transgression of the laws of woman’s nature, a greater injury to her physical and mental constitution, than the hardships of poverty and neglect. The slave woman at her task will live and grow old, and see two or three of her mistresses fade and pass away. The washerwoman, with scarce a ray of hope to cheer her toils, will live to see her fashionable sisters all die around her. The20 kitchen-maid is healthy and strong when her lady has to be nursed like a sick baby. It is a sad truth that fashion-pampered women are almost worthless for all the great ends of human life. They have but little force of character, they have still less power of moral will, and quite as little physical energy. They live for no great purpose in life; they accomplish no worthy ends. They are all doll-forms, in the hands of milliners and servants to be dressed and fed to order. They dress nobody, they feed nobody, they instruct nobody, they bless nobody, they save nobody. They write no books, they set no rich examples of virtue and womanly life. If they rear children, servants and nurses do all, save to conceive and give them birth. And when reared what are they? What do they ever amount to, but weaker scions of the old stock? Who ever heard of a fashionable woman’s child exhibiting any virtue or power of mind for which he became eminent? Read the biographies of our great and good men and women. Not one of them had a fashionable mother. They nearly all sprung from strong-minded women, who had about as little to do with fashion, as with the changing clouds.—Sel. SLEEP.—Invalids generally do not sleep enough. The importance of sound, quiet, and sufficient sleep cannot be too highly estimated, as may be inferred from the physiological fact, that it is during sleep that the structures are repaired. The materials of nutrition are digested and elaborated during the day; but assimilation—the formation of tissue—only takes place during sleep, when the external senses are in repose. Literary persons require more sleep, other circumstances being equal, than those who pursue manual-labor occupations. If the brain is not duly replenished, early decay, dementation, or insanity will result. The rule for invalids is, to retire early, and remain so long in bed as they can sleep quietly. If their dietetic and other habits are correct, this plan21 will soon determine the amount of sleep which they require. Gross, indigestible, and stimulating food, heavy or late suppers, etc., necessitate a longer time in bed, for the reason that the sleep is less sound. And for the same reason, nervine and stimulating beverages, as tea and coffee, prevent sound and refreshing sleep and thus wear out the brain and nervous system prematurely. Those who are inclined to be restless, vapory, or dreaming, during the night, should not take supper.—Dr. Trall. CRAWFORD, the celebrated sculptor, had an inveterate habit of reading in a reclining position. One eye had to be taken out in consequence of a cancerous tumor forming behind it, and his life has paid the forfeit, after years of suffering and the expenditure of a large amount of money. Prescott, the historian, in consequence of a disorder of a nerve, by which the eyes were rendered useless for all writing purposes, could not use a pen, as he was unable to see when it failed to make a mark for want of ink; nor could he distinguish the lines or edges of his paper. Yet with these disadvantages he wrote all his histories, using the agate stylus on carbonated paper, being guided as to the lines or edges by brass wires drawn through a wooden frame. But with all these hindrances he has made himself one of the most readable of modern historians, and earned a fortune besides. To avoid these and other similar calamities, we urge upon the young, especially, never to use the eye by any artificial light, where nicety of sight is required, nor the use of them in any straining position, or while riding in rail cars or carriages. We urge upon parents, in view of the many incurable eye diseases, to caution their children against reading by twilight; that is, before sunrise, or after sunset. It would be better not to allow them to read or sew by any artificial light, but if that is unavoidable, let it be imperative that they cease by nine o’clock at night in22 summer, and, by ten, at the furthest, in winter. It is a most inexcusable folly, and will, sooner or later, bring its punishment, to read or sew by gas or lamp, or candle light, and then sleep after daylight, as a habit. To all persons, of all ages, it is a most injurious practice.—Hall’s Journal of Health. Drink Less with Your Meals.
ONE great error, we drink too much at our meals. Before we have sufficiently masticated and insalivated our food, to enable us to swallow it, we force it down by taking water or warm drinks. This not only dilutes the saliva, but weakens the action of the gastric juice after the food gets into the stomach. Most persons take a swallow of fluid with almost every mouthful of food. Look along the side of the dinner-table in any of our hotels, and you will be surprised at the quantities which are drank during the meal: and, if your mind be not too much taken up with observing the errors of others, you may discover the same evil in yourself, and thus be led to correct it. This habit, sooner or later, ends in producing dyspepsia and constipation, than which there are no affections more destructive of comfort and health. When we are thirsty at our meals, or at other times, we should drink to allay such thirst only. All solid food should be thoroughly ground and mixed with saliva in the mouth, unaided and undiluted by water or other drinks. Rely upon it, this apparent necessity for drinking, is a mere habit, which we can correct at will; and all who prize health at its true value, will not consider its preservation or purchase too high at the cost of attention to so simple a matter. In this age of tobacco-smoking and chewing, the salivary glands seem to be turned to a new office—that of cleansing this filthy narcotic from the teeth and gums. Were they endowed with language, verily might they exclaim— “To what vile uses have we come at last.”
Who can wonder at the hollow and wan cheeks of mankind, when such a continuous drain is established upon them—a kind of perpetual catarrh or lachrymosis of the mouth. Take warning by what we say. If you would have good digestion, proper action of the system, and full, ruddy cheeks, eat slow, masticate your food better, drink less at your meals, and you who smoke, if smoke you will, avoid spitting as much as possible. The latter have a two-fold reason for observing our last injunction; they will save, at the same time, their own health and the feelings of their friends.—Sel. Wesley and His Preachers.
He prescribed the minutest rules of life for them, even such as concerned their physical habits. He found that some became “nervous” more probably by too much work than by too little, though he thought otherwise. He gave them advice on the subject. “Touch no drink, tobacco, or snuff. Eat very light, if any, supper. Breakfast on nettle or orange-peel tea. Lie down before ten; rise before five. Every day use as much exercise as you can bear; or murder yourselves by inches.” “These rules,” he adds, “are as necessary for the people as the preachers.” . . . He interrogated them closely in his printed Minutes about their habits, “Do you,” he asked, “deny yourselves every useless pleasure of sense, imagination, honor? Are you temperate in all things?—to take one for instance, in food? Do you use only that kind, and that degree which is best both for the soul and body? Do you see the necessity of this? Do you eat no flesh suppers? no late suppers? These naturally tend to destroy bodily health. Do you eat only three meals a day? . . . Do you take no more food than is necessary at each meal? You may know, if you do, by a load at your stomach, by drowsiness or heaviness, and in a while by weak or bad nerves. Do you use only that kind and that degree of drink which is best both for body and soul?24 Do you drink water? Why not? Did you ever? Why did you leave it off, if not for health? When will you begin again? To-day?”—Dr. Stephen’s History of Methodism. In the somewhat famous case of Mrs. Bogden’s will, which was tried some years ago, Mr. Webster appeared as counselor for the appellant. Mrs. Greenough, wife of the Rev. Wm. Greenough, late of West Newton, a tall strait, queenly-looking woman, with a keen black eye—a woman of great self-possession and decision of character—was called as a witness on the opposite side. Webster at a glance had the sagacity to foresee that her testimony, if it contained anything of importance, would have great weight with the jury. He therefore resolved, if possible to break her up; and when she answered the first question put to her,— “I believe?” Webster roared out, “we don’t want to hear what you believe, we want to hear what you know?” Mrs. Greenough replied, “That is just what I was about to say, sir,” and went on with her testimony. And, notwithstanding his repeated efforts to disconcert her, she pursued the even tenor of her way, until Webster, becoming quite fearful of results, arose apparently in great agitation, and drawing out his large snuff-box, thrust his thumb and finger to the very bottom, and carrying the deep pinch to both nostrils, drew it up with gusto. Webster—“Mrs. Greenough, was Mrs. Bogden a neat woman?” Mrs. Greenough—“I cannot give you very full information as to that, sir; she had one very dirty trick.” Webster—“What’s that, ma’am?” Mrs. Greenough—“She took snuff.” The roar of the court was such that he neither rose nor spoke again till after Mrs. Greenough had vacated her chair for another witness.