Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1870-01-05
Hints on Mental Culture.
From the Commercial Printing Gazette.

zation at which we are arrived, few
/ complaints are more common than
| that of q brain OverwOrked. This
complaint is not confined to authors
and students; it extends to all who
strive for name or fortune against ca
/ ger and numerous competitors. The
politician, the professional man, the
/ merchant, the speculator-all must
experience that strain Of special fac
ulties in the direction toward special
| objects, out Of which comes nervous
exhaustion, with the maladies eonse-
quent on overstimulus and prolonged
/ fatigue. Horace is a sound patholo-
gist when he tells us that after Pro-
metheus had stolen fire from Heaven,
a cOhort of fevers, unknown before,
encamped themselves on earth. In
our audaciOus age, we are always
! stealing new fire, and swelling the Co
hort of fever with new recruits. The
weary descendant of Iapetus drOOps at
last-the stolen fire begins to burn
low-the watchful cohOrt pounces on
| its prey. The doctor is summoned,
hears the case, notes the symptoms, ,and
prescribes-repose.
| But repOse is not always possible
The patient can not stop in the midst
of his career-in the thick of his
schemes. Or, suppose that he rush
/ off to snatch a nominal holiday from
toll, he can not leave Thought behind
him. Thought, like Care, mounts the
steed and climbs the bark.
a brain habitually active will not
be ordered to rest. 1t is not like the
inanimate glebe of a farm, which,
when exhausted, you restore by the
simple receipt, LET it lie fallown A
mind once cultivated will not lie fall
low for half an hour. If a patient,
/ habituated to reflection, has nothing
to mediate, his intellect and fancy
will muse exclusively over his own
ailments-museO over a finger-aehe and
engender a gangrene. What, then,
should be done? Change the occupa-
ton, vary the culture, callnew organs
into play; restore the equilibrium,
deranged in overwhelming one scale
by weights thrown into the other.
In therapeutic gymnastics, we
| strengthen one set Ofmuscles hitherto
little called into play, in order TO cor
rect the tendencies to a malady which
the fatigue of another set of muscles
has induced. What is thus good fol
the bodily health, / hold to be vet
more good for the whole mental de
velopment of man.
Frequently we meet with a writer
/ who achieves one remarkable book,
and whatever other books he writes
are comparative failures echoes Oi
the same thought, repetitions of the
same creations. The reason of that
stint of invention is obvious the au-
thor has embodied certain ideas long
meditated and if his book be really
great, all the best Of these ideas are
poured intoit. nthe interval between
that book and the next, he has not
| paused to ponder new studies and
/ gather from them new ideas, and the
/ succeeding books comprise the
leayings Of the old ideas.
A man of genius is inexhaustible
only in proportion only as he is al
ways nourishing his genius. Both in
mind and body, where nOurishment
ceases, vitality fails.
To sail around the world, you must
put in at many harbors, if not for
rest, at least for supplies.
To any young author of promise, in
the commencement of his career, nv
advice is this: Till you have succeed
ed in working out your conception,
persevere in that one conception =
work it out. When you have succeed
ed-exhausting the best ideas that
went to its cOmpletion-take care not
to repeat the same experiment. Ad-
venture some experiments wholly
new but, before you so adventure, be
sure you have taken in wholly new
ideas.
The wider your range of thought,
the greater your chance and choice Of
original combinations.
The author who adopts this counsel
is vulgarly called versatile" This
is a misnOmer. 1t is not that Genius
is versatile because the objects within
its scope are various. If YOU have
twenty thousand year instead of one
thousand, you are not versatile be-
cause you do a great many things
which man of thousand 4 year can
not do.
According to the axioms in optics,
1--WE see everything by means of the
rays of light which proceed from it,"
The eye is not versatile because it is
sensible to the rays Of light from more
things than one.
Again, in optics, ''we see everything
in the direction of that line in which
the rays approach the eye last" Ge-
MUS is not versatile because in the
sweep of its swift survey it sees each
thing in the line in which the rays
approach last to its view.
He who is always observant will be
always various.
But in my recommendation to seek
less in repose. Of thought (which is
scarcely possible to the thoughtfuD
than in change of the objects of thO't
(which to all thinkers is possible), the
safety from over-fatigue and exhaus-
ton, mental and bodily, do not ad-
dress only the children Genius, who
will take their own way, with small
heed of what critics may say to them
Il appeal to all sober mortals who,'l
whatever their career or their calling,
wish to make the most of themselves, [
in this multiform trial of life.
We are not sent here to do merely
one thing, which we can scarcely
suppose that we shall be required to
again, when, crossing the Styx, we
find ourselves in eternity. Whether
1 am a painter, a sculptor, I
poet, a romance writer, an essayist,
a politician, lawyer, a merchant, a
halter, a tailor, q mechanic at factO- |
ry or loom, it is certainly much for I
me in this life to do the one thing / I
profess to do as well rs / can. But |
when / have done that, and that thing |
alone, nothing more, where is my |
profit in the life to come? / do not |
believe that / shall be asked to paint |
pictures, carve statutes, write Odes, I
trade at Exchange, make hats or coats, I
or manufacture pins or cotton prints, (
when am in the Empyrean. Wheth-
er be the grandest genius on earth in I
a single thing, and that single thing 4
earthly, or the poor peasant who, be-
hind his plow, whistles for want Of
thought, / strongly suspect it will all
be one when pass to the Competitive
EIamination-yonder On the other
side of the grave Raffaelle's occupa-
ton may be gone as well as a plow-
mans. This world is a school for the
not of a faculty, but of q
man. Just as in the body if resolve
to be q rover, and only a rover, the
chances are that shall have, indeed,
strong arms, but weak legs, and be
stricken with blindness from the glare
Of the water; so, in the mind, if care
but for one exercise. and do not con-
suit the health of the mind altogether,
[ may, like George moreland, be a
Honderful painter Of pigs and pig
,fios hr1f in all alaa "a . bnpaaU being