Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-14

HNN ably, than in the score
GEeNH of working year
I1 L@ which precede that
HBcsm time. Alas, that when
mr. the machine runs at its
surest and smoothest
we awaken to its pos
sibility of wearing out, and have perforce
to learn the last and wisest lesson of useful
ness-how to rest and take care of ourselves.
We have made attempts and pretenses at
rest before, which consisted in changing one
pleasing toll for another, racing through
Europe or the Pacific tour, or spending sum-
mer at seaside hotel or the Thousand Isles,
which is very much like going to Dutch
dance for a nights repose.
In the forties, just half way through life,
with its ripest and best before us, we are
compelled to learn to recruit in earnest.
We have spent much more than half our
vital force in half our lives. There are but
two alternatives, to 60 on as others do,
keeping ourselves up to the mark by men,
tai and physical stimulants, to feel our en-
ergies die out as miserably as most or to
study the real wants Of the human machine,
to keep it in good working order to the
last.
IThe Art of Living.
A few accomplish this in every age, not
seldom against untoward circumstances,
and the result is so enviable that it is a
wonder the race does not make it prime
study to learn how to live. The art is very
little understood, and those who think they
know it best are signally wanting. The
people who live by rule lay life out on too
marrow lines; they think entirely of the
oiling and cleaning and polishing of the
forged steel it turns out. Between taking
pills and powders and 'treatments" of some
sort and testing their effect, they lose eff
cheney for anything else.
If you and could go back to 20 years
again, don't you think we would lay our
lives out differently? Instead of romance
and sentiment, we would have paid more at
tention to physiology, read fewer two volume
novels at a sitting, sat up fewer nights talk
ing till o'clock and routed host of
melancholy moods and nervous symptoms
by discovering that outdoor work half the
time was the one thing indispensable for
nervous-muscular people.
What Might Have Been.
Instead of worrying about questions of
love and whether the attraction of the
moment was the lifelong destiny or not, we
would have kept crude susceptibilities we'll
in hand, secure that years would render
them no less keen, but vastly more vibrant
possessing and inspiring. We would not
have taken failures to heart in such pros
trating fashion, foreseeing that men outlive
many failures in a Life and many burnt
fingers, and we should have quit worrying
about the universe and trying to shoulder
its woes much sooner than we did, and have
attended strictly to our own affairs till we
had the mastery of them before undertaking
much for those of others. Still, 40 is not
too old to begin over again, with health or
the capacity for regaining health. Nature
is very much kinder than we think, and
often offers us terms of relief we are too
blind or too despairing to see.
She says softly, 'srhere are thousand
years to be lived for every one you have
lest, in which the memory of mistakes how
ever dreadful can be overlaid by SO much
that is blessed and happy that no mortal
mind can have room for the failures. There
is health for the distempers which you
suffer. You can outlive this chronic In
hammation. this liberated lung, this tumor,
this prostration. The world will look very
different to you then. You can begin to do
the things you have left undone, especially
in matters of sleep, rest and diet, and omit
the things you ought not to have done, and
there will be new health in you"
Good Living and Bearing Trouble.
Settle it in your mind that you will be
we'll if you have to study out your own
case and read much medicine yourself to
learn how to do without it. AT midlife,
health and happiness are exchangeable
terms. You are we'll and failures do not
crush, for you can work out success again
you are well, and untoward things do not
chafe and gall beyond endurance, and black
thoughts do not close down over your mind
1t is a great relief when one learns to say to
ones self: ''Things look hopeless this morn
ing, will wait and see how they seem after
breakfast, when somehow they turn bear
able after all, or you see way out which
escaped fanished brain. Affairs are apt
to look very dismal to people who lay awake
nights, when memories grow heartbreaking,
the future unbearable and it is avery ray
from heaven which says to the overburdened
spirit, "Wait till you have had sleep. You
will find God not SO unheeding of you, life
not so merciless after all" And it is fact
that after middle age few troubles are un-
bearable, provided we can have right food
and plenty Of sleep.
What Good Food VIII Do.
You recall that best saying of Colonel
Ingersoll, asking at hotel if they had
good butter-he had been wayfaring-and,
getting the landlords cautious answer that
sit was tolerably good butter" the Colonel
shouted ''Tolerasle butter! I'd as lief have
q tolerably virtuous wife" No tolerable
food will do for you in any description. 1t
must be perfection in essentials, and if any,
one thinks this is an easy matter to attain
let him try it. Still, it is worth the pains
and the money.
The next ingredient indispensable in the
hygiene of happiness is sleep, and those
who suffer from wakefulness will agree
with me that of all rubbish in the name of
advice the greatest is talked about going to
sleep. 'Lie perfectly STILL" says the Men
tor. "Do not move even finger, this will
save unnecessary expense of nerve force"
when the trouble nine times out of ten is
that the overweight nerves need to bal
ance their strain by muscular exertion, and
the tossing relieves tension just as laugh
or q cry does.
"You have overworked and time and
again forced the unwilling body to labor
from which it shrank," says Mentor, $50
now we can meet and conquer only by force
Of will. Do not complain or hesitate to use
your will to keep yourself perfectly quiet"
All right, only for the unwilling body