WHAT CONSTITUTES A FLETCHERITE
Fletcherism and Longevity--W. E. Gladstone, Fletcherite--Fletcherizing
Liquids--Getting the Best out of Everything--The Study of Mother-Nature
Since the term "Fletcherite" is incorporated in some of the latest
dictionaries, it is proper that the person whose name has been used for
the designation should define what constitutes a Fletcherite.
Any person who eats in a healthy manner is a Fletcherite.
Any person who eats in a polite manner is a Fletcherite.
Any person who is faithful to his end of responsibility in securing
healthy nutrition for himself is a respectable eater and a good
Fletcherite.
WHAT IS NOT A FLETCHERITE
The above definitions are fully comprehensive, but sometimes it is more
effective to describe a thing by telling what it is not, and leaving
the remainder as an inferential description.
Following this suggestion, it is safe to say, that:
Any one who eats when he is not hungry or what his appetite does not
approve, is not a Fletcherite.
All this presupposes the ordinary opportunity for selection in
civilized communities where this book is liable to be read and where
its revelations and recommendations are most needed.
Any one who does not give his appetite a chance to guide him to healthy
nutrition is not a Fletcherite.
Any one who does not extract all of the taste from his food, while it
is in the region where taste is developed, is not a Fletcherite.
Any one who succumbs to greed of "getting the worth of his money,"
because he has paid for food, or can get food free of cost, or takes it
on the insistence of Aggressive Hospitality, or to kill time, or for
any purpose other than for the satisfaction of a real appetite, is not
a Fletcherite.
FLETCHERISM AND LONGEVITY
Returning to positive definition of a Fletcherite: it is a good safe
betting proposition that all persons who have passed the seventy
year-mark in the life race are Fletcherites in the fundamental
requirement of healthy eating. If they reach beyond the eighty
year-mark it is certain that they have been fairly decent eaters
for many years, even if they abused themselves earlier in life. For
example: _vide_ the autobiography of Luigi Cornaro, which was concluded
only when he was nearly one hundred years old. _Vide_ also, occasional
newspaper statements attributed to centenarians or near centenarians
who claim to have been Fletcherites before Fletcher was born. Some of
them have had the "constitution" necessary to attain the respectable
longevity and have used tobacco and alcohol at the same time, but there
is no evidence that either tobacco or alcohol lengthened their lives.
In the same category of questionably-profitable indulgences may be put
any of the stimulants or narcotics which do not actually nourish the
body.
W. E. GLADSTONE--FLETCHERITE
The Epicureans, who were true to the principles of Epicurus, were
Fletcherites, before the name of Fletcher had evolved the occupation of
arrow making and archery. Mr. Gladstone was a philosophical Fletcherite
before Fletcher discovered that he had a mouth that was worth while
studying and using, but the name did not get into the dictionary as
describing his most statesman-like inspiration.
A Fletcherite does not confine his Fletcherizing to food. He is
encouraged, by the beneficial results of careful eating, to try the
same method of co-operating with Opportunity on anything that has good
and bad possibilities in it.
FLETCHERIZING LIQUIDS
For example: careful tasting of food reveals felicities of taste which
lead to seeking similar rewards wherever taste is to be found. Take
liquids: The only liquid that does not invite Fletcherizing with some
deliberation, but seems eager to get into the blood to quench thirst
is Water. If it is not pure water, soft, cool as if from a spring, and
delicious in its purity, it has an inclination to stop a little in the
mouth and give taste a chance to investigate or to get something worth
while out of it. Do not think that inanimate things have no sense of
propriety! Everything natural is as full of propriety as an "egg is
full of meat." Nature is Propriety!
Mineral waters, lemonade, beer, wine, and even milk have delicate
senses of propriety. They do not rush to be sucked up for the mere
relief of thirst, like pure water, but they linger a bit in the domain
of taste and inferentially say: "I am tasty; don't you want to taste
me: When I am swallowed my gustatory charm is dead and gone forever;
please let me leave my taste with you, good Mr. Taste."
Do not think this is a fanciful personification of the liquids which
have taste. Don't take my word for it. I am only telling you what Taste
has told me, and also told me to tell it to you. The next time you are
thirsty and have a chance to get good pure water, note if it doesn't
rush to swallow itself in about one-ounce swallows until the thirst
is satisfied. If it is too cold it will want to wait a minute to get
to the temperature of the body in the hot room of the mouth, before
rushing in to chill the stomach, and if it is too warm it will not give
the full satisfaction that spring-cool water gives, showing that Taste
has a wider usefulness than mere glorifying of sapid substances. Or: is
it Feeling that assists Taste in expressing approval or disapproval of
liquid as well as solid nutriment?
GETTING THE BEST OUT OF EVERYTHING
From Fletcherizing things which pass through the laboratory of the
mouth, it is most natural to call on Mother Nature in her stately
propriety to assist in getting the best and most out of everything from
a kernel of corn to the World at Large.
In the personal equipment, muscular exercise, mental discipline, and
habits of effectiveness come in at once for analysis and separation.
Outside the personality, companionship is of most vital concern, and
the wonder will be how soon the Natural Appetite for profitable
companionship will choose some dogs in preference to some human beings,
for the qualities of sympathy, approval and faithfulness that every
social being craves.
Of course, there are some companionable combinations among men that
are more satisfactory and profitable than any dumb animal can possibly
supply, but it is for the purpose of finding such combinations that the
Fletcherizing of friends is useful. There is much good in every one,
as there is in everything that Nature offers as nourishment for the
body, but everything has its Appropriate place and time, its harmonious
supplements and compliments, and this is true regarding companionships.
"What is one man's food, is another man's poison," is a truism
applicable alike to companionship and friendship. It is equally true
regarding honesty and dishonesty; truth and deceit.
THE STUDY OF MOTHER NATURE
The foregoing constitutes a pretty stiff proposition for the
measurement of ideal Fletcherism, but when you come to consider
that the aim is nothing less than getting as close to Mother Nature
as possible and listening to her orders relative to good team-work
between us, the contract does not seem so impossible. It was close
study of Mother Nature and her laws of gravity and resistance that led
Lilienthal, the German, to try to glide on the "wings of the wind"
with imitations of the wings of birds, and it was following Chanute's
lead that led the Wright Brothers to develop the flying-machine. It
was because of tutelage in the honest school of Mother Nature that the
Wright Brothers prefaced their first account of their "invention" by
giving the French aviator credit for the initial suggestion.
In similar manner, it was the close, objective study of the psychology
of digestion under the honest direction of Mother Nature in a somewhat
drastic form that led Pawlow, the Russian physiologist, to preface his
account of his great achievement by calling up the memory of the French
physiologist Blondlot, and telling that he had described the true
process of digestion from logical deduction fifty years before.
In like manner, Professor Cannon, of Harvard University Medical School,
insisted that dear Dr. Bowditch, his preceptor in Physiology, had laid
out for him the line of X-ray studies of the "Mechanism of Digestion,"
which has given him distinguished research fame. Getting close to
Mother Nature opens up infinite possibilities of enlightenment, and
among them cultivation of the honesty and unselfishness which she
herself typifies.