THE VALUE OF HEALTH.
The supreme value of good health is the fact that it is associated with
happiness and a greater capacity for good work.
[Sidenote: Health and happiness.]
It is not our environment but our state of health which handicaps us.
Mark Tapley succeeded in ejaculating “jolly” under the most depressing
circumstances. I know nothing as to Mark’s medical history, but I
should not hesitate to affirm that he did not suffer from a disordered
liver.
Everything in this world varies according to the way it is looked at,
and we are all liable to develop mental astigmatism when we are not
feeling up to the mark. A man will say and do things that are foreign
to his nature when he is waiting in impatient hunger for his dinner.
Wives who are wise have found this out, and wait until the brute has
been fed before they broach the subject of a new hat.
A man who has nothing special to worry him, and who if any difficult
position arose would face it without flinching, will brood over his
affairs during the hours of a sleepless night until he has created
troubles enough to last him for the rest of his life. His business may
be running like clockwork, but before morning he will have convinced
himself that he is on the road to the workhouse. A good night’s rest,
a brisk walk, even a cup of tea will work wonders in a careworn man or
woman, who has almost come to the conclusion that life was not worth
living.
One of the most prominent symptoms of jaundice is the depression which
accompanies that malady. There is a solid substratum of truth in the
old saying, “Looking at the world through jaundiced eyes.”
The most trying part of nursing sick people is the cantankerousness
which even the best-tempered persons tend to develop when they are
ill or in pain. The most considerate of patients are apt to become
positively unreasonable at such times. Yet because of their sufferings
they need all the sympathy and patience that can be bestowed upon them.
And as a rule, so long as they are really ill and laid aside, they
get it. What the world gets sick of is the croaker, who never ceases
talking about his ailments. People may sympathise with him for a time,
but before long they get tired of hearing about his complaints. It is
only human nature to prefer listening to skylarks rather than to frogs.
[Sidenote: Health and work.]
Perhaps the most serious effect of ill-health is the loss of confidence
which it entails. Many a man of frail physique and little stamina has
been left behind by others not nearly so richly endowed with skill or
intellectual ability. He has the accomplishments, but not the power to
use them. He is so afraid of making mistakes, that the psychological
moment has gone past before he has made up his mind, and time after
time he fails to take the tide at the flood.
Trace back the history of characters such as this, and you will find
that in almost all cases they have been weakly boys, who on account of
their lack of vigour and health were always afraid to take the plunge.
They might learn to swim, but they could not learn to dive.
A rising young Member of Parliament was once asked what quality was
most indispensable for success in the House of Commons? Some expected
him to say the art of speaking, others the faculty of rapid thinking,
others again firmness of convictions. All were surprised when he
replied, “Good bodily health. That,” he said, “was more important
than anything else.”
When you come to analyse that statement, it is found to imply more
than the strength to endure the enervating atmosphere of the House
or the tedium of long sittings. It means that if a man is well and
strong he is able to seize every opportunity of speaking, or otherwise
showing his capabilities and making use of them. Good health is not
merely a valuable asset in itself, it unlocks the door of all the other
faculties.
Most of us are not going into Parliament, but most of us have to make
our living. And no matter in what way we have to do it, whether by
artisanship, business or professional career, vigour and robustness are
essential to success.
An employer when about to engage a hand will most certainly give the
preference to a candidate who looks strong and seems in good spirits.
And this for more than mere consideration as to workmen’s compensation.
For we have all learned to associate cheerfulness with ability. If a
man undertakes a job as if he enjoys it, even if it is only a plumber
mending a kitchen sink, we naturally conclude that he knows what he is
about. If on the other hand he looks worried, we suspect that he has
come across difficulties that he does not understand. If he seems to
have no confidence in himself, we cease to have any confidence in him.
We are all more inclined to extend our patronage to a tradesman who
serves with a beaming smile than to one who looks as if he would be
thankful to see the last of us.
And in any avocation good health goes a long way by contributing that
quiet contentment of mind which is a _sine qua non_ to the attainment
of excellence.
It is a dictum in the medical profession that you can always tell the
state of a surgeon’s digestion by the amount of confidence with which
he makes his incisions.
The parson who enters the pulpit with an air of robust vigour is vastly
better calculated to secure the attention of his hearers than one who
crawls in looking as if he wished it were all over.
A man who is at the head of a large business awoke one morning feeling
out of sorts. His breakfast disagreed with him, and he arrived at
his destination in a state of irritability. Then he rapped out at his
subordinates until he had flurried them to such an extent that they
could not do their work properly. And of course after that everything
else went wrong. When he was called on to come to a decision in regard
to an important contract, he got the worst of the bargain simply
through lack of a little tact. Yet ordinarily he was noted for powers
of dealing, and for a judgment that was rarely at fault. That day he
was the victim of his own stomach.
Want of stamina has deprived the world of some who might have done much
to ease its woes and help its advancement. For it effectually limits
the sphere of a man’s operations. There are some of conspicuous ability
who have had to waste their talents in some quiet backwater, when had
they but had the requisite amount of strength they might have occupied
a prominent place in public affairs. Young men who have possessed every
other fitting quality have been rejected for the missionary cause
because their health was not good enough to stand the hardships of such
a life.
Some may ask as to whether good work has not been done by those
crippled by ill-health. Undoubtedly it has been done, yet as a rule it
has been by those endowed with talents which enabled them to carry out
their work in seclusion--writers, poets, composers and so forth--not by
those compelled to take their place among the rank and file in the busy
world of men and things. Too often in the latter case they have fallen
behind and been submerged. Even if success has been their lot, it has
been at such a cost to mind and body alike as to make it scarcely worth
the while.
Yet even those who have been in the fortunate position of being able to
exercise their talents in solitude, far from the madding crowd, have
betrayed the influence of their infirmities in the nature of their
works. Schubert and Chopin both wrote exquisite music, yet their weak
state of health still reveals itself in the melancholy strain which
pervades their compositions. The same is characteristic of some of
the writers and poets. Robert Louis Stevenson is the great exception.
But the disease which attacked him in his young days, and dogged his
steps mercilessly to the end of his life, was one that is oftentimes,
strangely enough, characterised by buoyancy and enthusiasm, in marked
contrast to the prevailing depression of the confirmed dyspeptic, of
which Carlyle was such a marked example. Yet what chiefly enabled
Stevenson to keep up the vigour and inimitable style of his writing to
the day of his death was the unremitting care which he took in order to
regulate his life in such a way as to preserve his energies and keep
his mental powers intact to the very end. That last broken sentence,
the most pathetic ever written, in _Weir of Hermiston_, is more than
an expression of his great genius; it is a lasting tribute to the
vigilance with which he safeguarded such strength as he possessed. It
is a lasting reproach to those who have been gifted with robust health,
and by their own heedlessness have lost what is man’s most priceless
possession. People may disregard the laws of health and appear for
a time to go unscathed. But the day of retribution will come, and
outraged Nature assert itself. Sooner or later the inevitable penalty
must be paid.