climbing trees and chasing game means the loss of the condition that
made for muscular activity, for good circulation, and good digestion.
The decline in muscular activity makes his body produce heat less
rapidly, and creates a demand for closely built walls and roof in
addition to clothing. This means a loss of the condition that insured a
plentiful supply of sunlight and fresh air. The permanent shelter makes
it impossible for him to move away from the _débris_ of his food and the
excretions of his body, and thus destroys the condition that in itself
favored and practically compelled cleanliness.
All this would make no difference, providing physical vigor were not
necessary to mental activity. This, however, is a theory with which in
the past we toyed to our sorrow. We conceived of a physical life and of
an intellectual life, of a healthy body as necessary for the physical
but not for the intellectual, and of development as coming through the
putting off of the physical and the putting on of the intellectual. But
we found that we were mistaken. The man from whom we were expecting
beautiful poetry breathed bad air, weakened his lungs, fell a victim to
tuberculosis, and we lost him and his song. The man to whom we were
looking to plan for us beautiful buildings, to compensate in part for
the natural beauties we had lost, weakened his body by insufficient
exercise, then drank polluted water, died of typhoid fever, and we lost
him and the beauties he might have created.
Then we began to think, and we realized that there is only one life;
that that life is a bundle of desires, of loves, of sympathies, and of
hopes; that development is not a putting off, but an expansion, coming
when the desires increase, when the loves widen, when the sympathies
broaden, and when the hopes get a farther view into the future; that for
the outward expression of this inner and invisible life the body is the
only tool, and that for the expression of the whole life, whether it be
a life of few desires or many, a “whole” or healthy body is necessary.
Acting upon this conviction, we began to establish kindergartens, and
schools for manual training, for handicraft, and engineering, in order
to train the hand to execute in material form what the mind conceived
as an abstraction. We added departments of physical culture to the
departments of Latin and Greek in our colleges, in order to train the
“whole” man and the “whole” woman.
To fit a body to be the tool for the satisfaction of a few desires, and
those mainly the desires for food and drink and shelter, is not a
difficult task. It is only when we try to make it satisfy the many
desires, including that for intellectual activity, that trouble begins.
Then the poor body, put upon the stretch, is likely to develop a weak
spot. To provide a suitable shelter for a body of few desires would
puzzle no one. To build a fit habitation for a body of many desires is a
problem that calls for all our experience and ingenuity.
At this point comes along the man who pooh-poohs at all things hygienic,
and tells us that if we will only cease to think of our bodies we shall
be all right; and this man has much on his side of the argument. He
forgets, however, that what we have broken we must also mend, if we
would have a whole. In the future there may be born a “whole” child
under such favorable conditions that he will develop harmoniously
without thought on his part or upon that of others. At present, however,
amid the conditions that we brought upon ourselves by conceiving of an
intellectual life apart from the physical, harmonious expansion is
impossible without a conscious effort to regain bodily “wholeness.”
The harmful effects of dwelling upon “unwholeness” are not to be
overlooked. To avoid them we must keep our attention upon the good as
far as possible. There have been in the past, if we can believe the
testimony of ancient statuary, fine, well-developed, full-chested, and
straight-limbed bodies. These we must study, and think of our own
underdeveloped bodies only long enough to learn how we can restore them
to the proportions of the body beautiful. There are conditions that
favor the development of the body beautiful. These we must analyze,
thinking of bad conditions only long enough to learn how to make them
good. Our model for our drinking water must be the water of an
unpolluted mountain stream; for our air, the air of the open country;
for our exercise, the varied movements of “the natural man” in his
efforts to secure food; for our food, that which the man eats whose
surroundings favor physical vigor.
To be sure, we cannot hope to regain the body beautiful, nor to have
houses that shall favor its development, until we have secured the city
beautiful, which shall unite fresh air and good water and abundance of
sunlight and the opportunity for enjoyable exercise and the chance to
get good food with the stimulus to and the time for intellectual
activity. There are some things, however, that we can do and some things
that we can leave undone which will help to restore good conditions.
Why, in the matter of fresh air, do we act upon the principle, _Windows
closed except when it is absolutely necessary to open them_? Why do we
not adopt the motto, _Windows open except when it is absolutely
necessary to close them_? Why do we not have soft woolen jackets, such
as the golfers use, to put on as the first expedient to avoid cold,
leaving the closing of the windows till the last? Why, in the winter
time, do we not put strips of wood in the lower parts of our windows, so
as to leave an open space between the sashes, where the air can enter
without striking us directly? Why, in the summer weather, do we ever
close our windows? Is it because of the dust? If the dust is
unreasonably great, why do we not stir up the town authorities to keep
the streets in such condition that we can have fresh air? If it is not
unreasonably great, but we have draperies that we value more than fresh
air, perhaps we need to make a little reëvaluation. Why, in the
beautiful autumn and spring days, when it is just too cool to have the
windows open without a fire, do we not, instead of closing our houses,
have a little fire and open the windows? Is it because that would be too
expensive? Then could we not have one less course at dinner or one less
dress a year and keep the air? Why do we wait until we have time for a
promenade before we “air” the baby? Why do we not put the baby in its
carriage on a sunny porch? Is it because we think that the baby, in
some mysterious way, derives benefit from the exercise of our legs? Why
do we always eat and sleep within doors? Why, when we plan new houses,
do we not arrange them so that the kitchen and serving pantry will
communicate as easily with a porch as with the indoor dining room? Why
do we not have roof gardens, where we can sleep under the beautiful
stars in warm weather? A shower bath open at the top, so that we could
take water and air and sun baths all at the same time, would add to the
attractiveness of the roof, and it might also be possible to have
arrangements there for our European breakfast or our afternoon tea. Why
do we ever shut the sun out of unoccupied rooms? Why do we not let it
blaze in its life-giving, sterilizing rays? Draperies again? Carpets?
Curtains? Well, there is one consolation. The old-fashioned, fast dyes
are being revived, and we may in time have furnishings that will stand
the sun.
In the matter of muscular exercise, why do we have our working clothes
(humorously so called) made so that they weigh down our legs and bind
down our arms; while our play clothes, our golf, tennis, and bathing
suits, are made so as to permit free muscular activity? Why do not
women, when they do their housework, which would give play to every
muscle if it had a chance, wear suits akin to gymnasium suits, less
abbreviated in the skirt, perhaps, but not long enough to be stepped
upon when the body is bent over? Why do we put skirts on the baby that
is just learning to draw himself to his feet, when we know that he
cannot avoid stepping upon them and wrenching his head forward? Why, in
short, do we put skirts on any living creature until that living
creature demands them? If we did not put skirts on our girls until they
discovered that they were differently dressed from the rest of their
sex, what a long period of free, healthful, muscular activity they would
have! One of the prettiest sights I ever saw was the little girls of a
New England town dressed for coasting in woolen tights and sweaters and
tasseled caps.
On this subject of clothes the hygienist and the teacher of physical
culture have done their best to reform us. The former has shown us
grewsome cross-sections of people who have had their ribs displaced by
tight lacing. The latter has stood up before us at exhibitions and
assumed graceful poses. But somehow neither has related the subject
sufficiently to life itself. It is only when we think of life as made up
of desires that find expression only through the body, when we think
that by a motion, by a posture, we can express love, hatred, sympathy,
cordiality, that we begin to cherish the smallest muscle and to think of
clothes, not with reference to whether they are tight or loose, but with
reference to whether they help or hinder the body in its effort to
express the inner life.
As to baths, why do we locate our bathrooms on the north side of the
house, and then make junk shops of them by filling them with blacking
boxes and medicine bottles and hot water bags and any other thing that
is not wanted elsewhere? Given a nice, clean, white tub in an airy room,
with the morning sun falling directly upon it, and who can resist a
bath?
Last of all comes food, and here is where the man who fears the physical
effect of self-consciousness sees most danger. “Eat what you wish and
don’t think about it, and you will be all right.” Alas, that is what the
world has been doing, and instead of being all right, it has fallen a
prey to numberless diseases that can be traced either directly or
indirectly to dietetic errors. In food, as in other matters, we have a
standard to guide us. That is the amount and kind of food that a person
eats who lives under conditions that favor physical vigor. Perhaps the
best we can do for ourselves is to think of the food that we ate with a
relish when we were camping. Then when we find that this plain, simple
diet, without “made dishes” and pastry, is no longer palatable, we will
probably decide that we need a long walk, and will take it if we can
possibly find the time.
Fresh air, sunlight, cleanliness, exercise, good food, good
water--these, the conditions of physical vigor, come to that part of the
world that is living under the intellectual stimulus only as the result
of a conscious effort; but to what better use can we put our intellects
after they are aroused than to the endeavor to regain bodily
“wholeness”?
MORE JOY IN MERE LIVING
The machinery of life and life itself are continually getting mixed up,
both in our theories and also in our practices, and it is frequently
difficult to say of a given act whether it is a part of life itself or
whether it is just a means of preparation for life. It was this fact, I
suppose, that Henry Drummond had in mind when he said that, even at the
worst, the struggle for life was really life itself. He applied this, to
be sure, to the fierce struggles for food and other necessaries of life
in which, during early stages of development, human beings engaged for
the purpose of self-preservation. It is just as applicable, however, to
our present struggle for life, for the care and the foresight that we
must exercise in order to secure the food and the shelter and the fresh
air and the sunlight which are necessary simply as preparation for what
we consider our life work really involve just the thought and the
exercise of reason that make life for us as distinguished from mere
existence. Thus the fact that the harder we must struggle for life the
greater is that mental activity which is an essential part of life
itself is the first source of consolation for the fact that we have to
struggle.
But there is another and a greater source of consolation. It was
Drummond, I think, who originated the expression, _the struggle for the
life of others_, making it cover all the activities to which we are
prompted by love. Of these activities the most important is home-making,
and it is the opportunity that home affords for merging _the struggle
for life_ into _the struggle for the life of others_ that takes the
sting from the work necessary for self-preservation. Thus, in providing
a shelter to protect himself from the elements and to keep him in
condition for work, man, if he be a home-maker, performs the same
service for those he loves; and in providing for herself food that shall
fit her to be an efficient working member of society, woman, if she be a
home-maker, performs the same service for those who are bound to her by
affection. Herein lies the second source of consolation for the fact
that the greater part of our time and energy must be given to securing
and caring for the machinery of life.
In getting ready to live, and in helping others to get ready to live--in
these two ways we spend the greater part of our lives. But there are
some activities in life which are simply a part of living. Of these, or
of part of them, Browning makes David sing in “Saul”:
Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,
The strong rending of boughs from the fir tree, the cool, silver shock
Of the plunge in a pool’s living water, the hunt of the bear,
And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair,
And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine,
And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine,
And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell
That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.
How good is man’s life, the mere living! how fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!
To the pleasures which are here suggested, and which are chiefly those
of the senses, should be added, if we are to have anything like a
complete list, those pleasures which come from going to the theater,
from listening to music, and from looking at works of art, providing, of
course, we do not take any of them too seriously; those pleasures which
come from social intercourse with friends, and which are not dependent
upon “improving conversation,” but which spring from the opportunity to
be near and to talk with those we love; and those pleasures which come
from meditation on life and its meaning, but which do not involve any
effort to straighten out its tangles. “Improving” conversation and
efforts to achieve artistic appreciation and to make the world better
are parts of life, but they are also parts of its struggle, and
therefore must be excluded from “the joys of mere living.”
If these pleasures that are _ends_ and in no sense _means_ are a
legitimate part of life, they must be taken into consideration not only
in adjusting the machinery of our own lives so as to have time for them,
but also in adjusting the machinery of home-making so as to secure them
for others. I know a woman who has four of the healthiest and happiest
children in the country. She is also the fortunate possessor of horses
and a carriage. If the day dawns bright and the woods seem to call for
her, she has the horses harnessed, bundles the children into the
carriage, puts a basket under the seat, and starts off down the street.
On the way she picks up a congenial spirit or two, and stopping at the
market fills her basket with bread and fruit and cooked meat or other
kinds of food that can be bought ready for eating. Then, with no more
ado than this, she is off for a whole day of “the joys of mere living”
in the woods. This she is able to do because she has simplified the
machinery of her home-making by excluding useless decorations from
furnishings and clothing. Nor is it to be understood that she has
thereby traded off the pleasures of beautiful home surroundings for the
joys of frequent glimpses of nature. Her windows command broad views of
lake and lawn, in the presence of which elaborate draperies would seem
like impertinences, and her children have bright eyes and clear skins
and well-developed figures, which plain clothing sets off better than
ruffles and flounces.
In passing, we must not fail to note that this woman has done something
more than to simplify housekeeping. She has also simplified the
machinery of picnics--a great art. We have not, all of us, horses and
carriages, but we can get some kind of conveyance--an electric car, if
nothing better--and we can pick up on the way to the picnic food which
will taste just as good in the open air as that over which we frequently
wear ourselves out before starting.
It is interesting to see how things work themselves out in this world.
We used to clean house in the spring. Although spring is violet time,
and a season of enormous possibilities in the way of real living, yet
this custom for many years worked little hardship, because most people
lived reasonably near to nature all the time. Later, however, life
became so artificial that we really needed occasional excursions into
the country. Then, too, the kindergartens began to teach the children
to _see_ and to enjoy nature. Then, just in the nick of time, just as we
had encountered the need of and the incentive to trips into the country,
the necessity for “spring cleaning” was taken away. We began to have
hardwood or painted floors, which made it possible to do housecleaning a
little at a time all the year around. Thus there is now no great piece
of work left to be done in the spring, when we really ought to be in the
woods.
Perhaps the most interesting of the recent movements in the direction of
simplifying housework is that in favor of sun-dried underwear, towels,
bed linen, etc. This stands for another “working together for good.”
When life became complex we began to begrudge the time necessary for
ironing, and sometimes, if we thought we could use our time more
profitably than in ironing, we used our clothes “rough-dried.” But now
we no longer speak of “rough-dried” clothes, because that suggests only
their negative advantage in saving work; but we say “sun-dried,” because
hygienists have told us that articles that contain in their meshes
fresh, sunned air are more healthful than those that contain the impure
air of kitchen or laundry. They have told us, also, that because air is
a poor conductor of heat, and because clothes that have not been pressed
contain more air than those that have, we can get more protection from a
given weight of underwear that has been sun-dried than from the same
weight of that which has been ironed.
But no one is going to make effort to get time for “the joys of mere
living” until he sees a prospect of getting them. For a long time we
have recognized the possibility of getting these pleasures in large
quantities in the summer time, during our vacations, but we have not
recognized half the chances that lie about us all the year. Of all
seasons the winter seems most unpromising, and yet I have experienced
more joy from simply being alive in the winter than at any other time.
On the greater part of the west shore of Lake Michigan there is a bluff.
This serves to protect the shore from the west winds which prevail in
that part of the world, and it also receives and reflects the morning
sun. In cold weather the sand is hard and as easy to walk upon as a
cement walk. On winter mornings, even when the thermometer is below
zero, one can walk along the shore in perfect comfort in clothing that
is light enough to make walking pleasurable. It is possible, also, with
perfect comfort, to stop and build a fire, make coffee, and eat a lunch.
And the lake and the sky present constant but ever changing beauties,
and the sun sparkles on the ice that is heaped up near the shore. It is
indeed good to be alive on the west shore of Lake Michigan of a bright
winter’s morning, and yet, although I have spent hours walking on the
shore on Saturday mornings, I have never seen a person besides those who
were with me. Where are the mothers? Why don’t they bring their children
down there? Don’t they know the fun of tramping up the shore and
building fires and having little camp lunches, and of watching the
winter landscape? This is but one instance of joys that are within the
reach of all, and yet are undiscovered. Doubtless each one of us knows
of some others such as these, and wonders why others do not avail
themselves of them. If so, let’s tell each other about them.
But we lose joys in life not only by failing to find them and by
complicating the machinery of life, but also by making machinery of
those things which are really ends in themselves. There is bathing, for
example. We take baths so many times a day or week in order to keep
clean and healthy. We might, if we arranged things properly, forget
about the necessity for health and cleanliness, and jump into the bath
just for the sake of “the cool, silver shock of the plunge.” We
perfunctorily “change the air” in our homes so many times each day, but
it is possible to get so enamored of living out of doors as to find even
the stillness of the air in the house unbearable. When one has reached
that point an open window is no longer a means to health, but a part of
the joy of living, because it brings the sensation of moving air.
What a difference, too, between a walk and a “constitutional”! I shall
never forget a woman whom I saw one summer at a resort in one of the
most beautiful parts of the Adirondacks. She used to come forth of a
morning after breakfast and, with a set, determined look upon her face,
walk so many times around the veranda, and then retire to the parlor for
the rest of the day. Poor lady! I suppose she never saw that woodsy path
that led up the hill behind the house, nor knew the joys of “leaping
from rock up to rock” in order to get to the top of the hill, nor
dreamed of the beauties of the moss-covered rock at the top, with the
red-berried bush hanging over it. She never knew the pleasures of
getting lost in the cranberry bog and having to wade the stream to get
out. Poor, poor lady!
As for the joys of social intercourse with those we love, we lose them
partly by letting them get mixed up with the machinery of education.
Study clubs are all very well in their way and in their place, but there
is such a thing as having too many of them. It is possible to get more
profit as well as more pleasure from reading a masterpiece of literature
for half an hour, and then talking with a friend for an hour and a
half, than from listening to a rehash of the masterpiece for an hour
and then talking with a lot of people we only half like for another
hour. It is possible, also, to lose the pleasures of the expression of
friendship by sacrificing them to formalities. If we give dinners and
receptions simply for the sake of discharging social obligations, we are
bound to throw away time which for the sake of the joy of living ought
to be given to those we love.
But it is possible, also, to lose the pleasures of friendship by
allowing them to interfere with the machinery of daily life, and to come
to a time when we have to sacrifice either social intercourse or
business. Perhaps there is no means of entertaining which yields so much
satisfaction with so little interference with that regularity in the
daily program that is necessary for health and work as the afternoon
tea. By this I mean, not the large reception which sometimes goes by the
name of “tea,” but the little, informal tea drinking. The food that is
served at such a time is not a means of life, but simply an addition to
the dietary made for the sake of refreshment and pleasure. It is not,
therefore, necessary to serve enough to sustain life from one meal to
another. Moreover, it is possible to buy ready prepared all the
materials--the biscuits, the wafers, and the candies--and to have them
always on hand. If busy people have it understood that they drink tea at
a certain hour when at home, and that their friends are always welcome
to drink with them, they are likely to get visits with real friends
which they could never get in any other way.