Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1870-04-26
The Ethics of Bran.

Eat bran bread, drink cold water,
go to bed at 8, get up at 5, treat
yourself vigorously, deal roundly
with yourself in all habits of indnl-
gence--what for2 You will be
healthy and rich, probably. But
what is the object of being healthy
and rich? Why the full enjoyment
of your faculties and opportunities.
Health is necessary, certainly. and
wealth is not inconvenient. But
people may have so much care for
health and wealth that they miss
pretty much all the enjoyments of
life. Life has duties, of course, and
the highest life is a sacrifice of self to
the higher interests. But we are
speaking now of a rational senjoy-
ment of this life, which is quite con-
sistent with the other.
The modern stoics, who are urging
us TO eat nothing that is agreeable,
and TO go to bed in the best part of
the twenty-four hours, have a mis-
sion which they enjoy. We pro-
foundly respect them, and we like
to hear about their heroic refusal of
coffee and butter, the cold water
plunges at A. NJ. in January, the
clearness of their intellects, which
fairly scintillate on diet of mush,
squash and Cruel, and their bright
apprehension of moral truths, which
comes from an exhaustive knowl-
edge of the alimentary canal. When
one of them tells us that he neUer
eats anything between meals, and at
meals always stops when he is hun
CRY, we feel as if we were listening
to one of the fundamental truths
Older than Brahmaand contempora-
ry with Dio Lewis. The man of
hungry eye and a nervous activity,
the keen air of one abroad in the
world for a purpose, ard we respect
him and his incessant desire to make
every body like himself. He don't
smoke He expends more vital en-
ergy in denouncing the vicious habit
than the incorrigible smoker with
whom he is arguing expends upon
his pipe. What o lot of time he
saves TO be sure, by early rising. He
has lately read through the whole of
Bohn's classical library before break
fast. This ds admirable. He is q
perfectly honest man, and as active
in mind as q squirrel. He takes no
coffee, scarcely ever any meat, eats
no oysters, has his rules and employ
ment for every hour in the day, and
runs himself as if he was an electric
engine. he is SO awfully healthy
and high-keyed that he will run him
self out in very few years.
When we write d book on physiol-
ogy it will be shown that the whole
truth is not contained in the state
ment oman should eat to live" aud
that only. We should eat also be-
cause it is a pleasure, because food
tastes good, because eating gratifiss
one of the tastes implanted il us,
and which the various products Of
nature that are eaten were meant TO
crafty. We want the edibleness Of
these various products enhanced by
skillful cooking, and we want things
made tempting by cooking thai in
themselves are not inviting. Cook
ing is not so high an art as painting,
but 1t is worthy the attention of hui
man beings, and, in due proportion,
we like to see the palate cultivated
as we'll as the eye. We can appreci-
ate the despair of an artist in truffles
who sends fine dish to table, and
sees it gobbled down with no recog-
milton Of its delicaoy; so painter
must feel when a brute stares in ig-
norance upon one of his most exquis-
ite fancies, also done in oil. Proba-
bly, the most disagreeable people in
this agreeable world, at table, are
those who never know what they
eat.
TO eat coarse -four and save can
dies are noble ends, but they are not
the whole of life. Surprising you are
sitting before your open fireplace,
deep in a book or in easy talk with q
friend. The clock strikes 8. Put
the book down, show your friend to
the door; go to bed. That is the
bes for you. You will be so much
more lively at ga. NJ. Your duoden-
um will do something or another so
much better than it would if You sat
up ill 10 or II. But how about the
lost hours, that never can come to
you again, which you might have
given to the most.enriching compan-
ionship of the immortal mind of your
author, or to the imperishable de-
lights of social intercourse How
about the wine of life? How about
that perfectly proper enjoyment
which comes from not holding your
self to hard rules always. as if you
were maohine2 What becomes of
all those little tendernesses of our ma
ture, which are doubtless in us to en-
ioy2 Why is "ought" always to
govern and "may" never? If we
are never to crafty our desires and
never to take our ease, never, in
short, "to drop into poetry" we had
better all sign the bran-bread pledge
and move into cells where neither
beauty nor abundance will tempt us.
-RdrUord Courant.
aas-I If women really believe them
selves anxious to assist the vast num-