Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-30
HEALTH AND STRENGTH
By JOHN STRANGE WINTER.

| i By JOHN STRANGE WINTER. ],
+ = I
HAVE lately been thinking good deal
on the subject of what may generalize
as the bodily state-health, strength
il and beauty-and l have come to the
conclusion that these states of being
are not priceless gifts which We light upon
by accident, but something which rests very
much upon our own will to acquire, or to
lose, according to how we live.
To begin with the first health Now, what
is health? l have seen it described as re-
ferring chiefly to the body and as "indi-
eating that perfect and harmonious play OF
all the functions which permits a man to
be all that his Creator intended In the
first place, let me say at once that I am no
friend to the line and rule mode of living.
Variety is the essence of good living. The
cook who can vary her dishes, granted they
are all equally excellent, is the cook who
carries off the palm. Nothing is so bad for
the nourishment of the body as to live en-
tirely upon one diet.
l very early in life assured myself of the
inadvisabilty of extreme regularity in liv-
ing. l think the most striking example l
by line and rule, and intended to see at
least century, was that of lady, a near
neighbor of ours when I was girl She
was comfortably well off, lived in pleas
ant terrace house and had a couple of eX-
tremely good servants, and it is safe to
say that from early morn to deWy eve that
good lady regulated every word, every
thought, every action, and every morsel
| she ate by the fact that she meant to live
TO be d hundred. She at precisely the
| same hour every morning; her bedroom
| faced the south, 1t was large and airy; 1t
was well ventilated, it was well warmed;
| she took a tepid tub regularly as she
ate her breakfast; she scrubbed herself with
! patent flesh brushes and Turkey towels Of
! the toughest and most expensive descrip-
| ton; she used Indian clubs and dumbbells;
| she had precisely the same breakfast, as to
| quantity and general effect that she had
| yesterday; she walked regularly, taking
| care not to tire herself. so many PAGES to
| the right, so many PAGES to the left for
| all the world like man on sentry-go. She
| regulated her clothes summer and winter,
| with the same end in view, and she would
| not have eaten raw apple for the price Of
| a thousand pounds. She was frankly I'M
| able to understand that l. girl in my
teens. enjoyed munching apples at any
| hour in the day. "Ah. another nail in your
coffin, she would cry when she saw me-
| apple in hand.
| Well, l confess that we, as a family con-
| fidently looked for this particular bit of hu-
iilil machinery ~ go on forever. she never
| allied anything-occasionally felt little
| ''liverish,' when she would take a little ex-
| ira walk to work 1t off. At half-past nine
| she went to bed as regular as clock work,
| and great was the tribulation If our piano
| happened to be in use after that hour
| do not think she ever read anything; L
| never saw or heard of her reading any
| thing. except glance at the newspaper
| She was good natured, CHEEKY, optimistic
| and wholly unintellectual. When she was
a little over sixty she had a paralytic
! stroke, and she never was we'll woman or
| spoke straight afterward. | can tell YOU
! my readers it gave me q horror from that
| moment of great regularity in living and |
| have always carefully avoided it-that is to
| say, regularity of the line and rule type
| Poor old dear, she dragged on some three
| or four years, getting gradually worse and
| then her place knew her no more
! L believe If she had lived an inteligently
irregular life she would have been alive
| now.
! Now. of course, this incident Is not to be
| taken seriously. not to be taken au pied de
| la lettre, but the lesson l learned from nv
| old friends life and sad death Is this By liy-
! Ing the line and rule life, and by keeping
| herself up to a certain standard, she slight
| ly overstrained the intricate human ma
chnery which constituted her mortal self,
and, hey presto! it was the beginning of the
| eilu failO tllsit OIle case, happening at
| impressionable age, gave me the fixed idea,
| which have seen amply justified that an
| intelligent irregularity is indeed the COM
! Portable and royal road to good health:
| but, mark my words, intelligent irregular
| ity.
| You know, people living much longer
| now than they did fifty or a hundred years
| ago. Why? Because, to begin with, young
people were reared very much on one pat
tern. They were given roast mutton and
| baked rice pudding three times week. and
| If they did not like roast mutton and baked
| rice pudding they were looked, upon as
| flying in the face of Providence. and went
| without. / have known a child, not myself
| kept sitting before some loathed and ha ted
| dish and starved into eating 1t. 1 can only
| say that If that game had been tried upon
me l would rather have died than have
eaten it. Anything more calculated to SOW
| the seeds of ill-health and to induce all
| sorts of stomach troubles. than to force the
| intake of a young child, 1t is impossible to
| conceive. But ii was regular habit In our
| grandfathers' and in most of our parents
time, and evil indeed was the result There
| is nothing in the world for anything made
| of flesh and blood equal to a certain meas
| ure of elasticity. Why. take the case of the
| drinker, for instance. The drnker who
| drinks straight away gets through in a few
| months, but the drinker who drinks irreg-
| ularly can go on for years and not appar-