Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-01-08
TWHAT THEY ARE
! TALKING ABOUT.
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES

Food, Brains and Genius, according to
the Lancet, have close relations. In a
passage Of his Confessions descanting
upon the nature of drunkenness De
Quincy concludes that the exact con-
dition indicated is question of accur-
acy in terms. He was assured on
medical authority that a man could be,
and had been, drunk upon a beefsteak.
This is largely true, for even solid food
may produce at any rate great mental
torpor. The comfort Of a good dinner
may have suggested writer's theme,
we doubt whether it ever promptly
stirred his pen. 1t is the empty stom-
ach that best suits g. full head and ideas
that flow out freely before retire with
the entry of a substantial repast.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, with that
charming blend of wit and scientific
knowledge that gave the distinction to
his writings. has discoursed upon this
very point. He talks of the dubious
headed fellows steaming as they write"
and shows how to meet the demands Of
thought and imagination. The brain
must have more than its share of the
circulating blood. There must be no
rival in the full liver or the actively
digesting glands of the gastric mucous
membrane. Do not eat heavily, then,
If you are soon to think hard Either
your ideas or your dinner will be neg
lected and lie sorry weight upon your
head or your epigastrium. The poor
half-starving poet is familiar to every
enc. We may mitigate our pity by re-
fleeing that in many cases he would
have been no poet If he had not starved.
Enough fuel to sustain the fire of life
is necessary for work, but heap on the
coal and you Will deaden the overbur-
dened flame. The great thinkers, the
great workers in any direction put a
purely physical one, have for the most
part been abstemious men. II not nat
urally OF small appetite they have ex-
ercised constant restraint, grudging
from the play of higher functions every
moment and every energy spent upon
the animal activities of their nature.
Habit soon helps the fine effort of such
people, and 1t becomes natural for them
to eat less. to drink less and to sleep
less than their fellows Thus in a long
life OF intellectual activity many scores
of hours are utilized for the main pur-
pose which in the case Of other men are
squandered upon the dinner table or in
the mere nothingness Of sleep or iding.
Carlyle was justified in declaring ca
pacity for work to be the essence of
genius. Whatever great mans life is
read, no matter how brilliant his natu-
raj gifts, sooner or later he is found to
have worked with answering constan-
cy and imperturable devotion Others
as gifted have left no mark; 1t was in
the : Ii and the power to work that the
genius asserted itself. 1t is common to
hear man say, "So-and- So is a genius;
IL he worked he could do anything"
Just because he does not work "So-and
So" must be denied the title. In the
natural sciences and professions such as
medicine that depend upon them the in
evits bleness Of great work for great
achievement is. perhaps, more obvious
than in the service CT art and literature.
The artist and the writer of genius are
gifted with Inspirations falling to no
man of mere talent, however hard he
works. Yet even so the genius works to
illustrate his inspiration, whether 1t is
Raphael at his easel or Shakespeare at
his desk, with kind of frenzy Of appli-
cation and a continuous determination
that are impossible to men not SO en-
dowed.
Such labors Of the will and Of the
brain demand at the time the whole en-
orgies OF q human being. No lower
member of the confederated body which
rs man must seek employment while the
master parts are thus at work. $50 1t is. |