walking with bare feet, lovely with little shells and sea-worm curves
and ripple marks and the pits of razor-shells. Above them are the
slopes of shingle, gleaming with all colours in the September sun.
Farther up again, the low, brown crumbling cliffs crowned with green
wreaths of tamarisk. The sea comes creeping up, or else the wind
raises great white breakers; if the waves are quiet, old breakwaters,
long ago broken themselves, smashed fragments here and there of
concrete protections put by man, gaps in the cliff and changes in the
coast-line, remind us of the vast force behind the gentle and
persistent lap of water. The beach itself reminds us of it; there a
flint and here a rounded pebble made out of brick or glass, worn down
from man's rubbish to sea's proof of power.
Over it all are the children, brown-legged and bare-headed. (Is it
something in the weather this year that has given us the particular
red-brown, suggestive of shrimp and lobster, that is the
colour-vintage of 1913?) Babies with oilskin waders, bathers, girls in
vividly coloured coats walking along the sands; all make up the
picture and give us once again the thrill of holiday.
Inland, the Sussex lanes are green and the trees are broad and shady.
Thatched cottages are everywhere, and barns with heavy brows;
yesterday I saw some pots put for shelter from the sun under the
far-projecting thatch of a farmhouse. The gardens are full of
sun-flowers and hollyhocks, fuchsia and golden rod; the walls are
covered with jasmine and passion-flowers. Old, old churches make us
feel like day-flies. The yew in the churchyard five minutes' walk from
here is said to be 900 years old; the church itself is thirteenth
century, but into its walls were built fragments of a former church,
far older, on the same site. It carries us more than half-way back to
the foundation of Christianity. Dim tales of heathen earls and Norman
kings hang around the villages, and the very floor of the sea beyond
the land is richly laden with stores of half-forgotten memories.
Which of all these things makes these days my holiday?
All of them, perhaps. Present moving life, and long-past history, the
mighty movement of nature and the changes of geologic time: sheer
beauty too and the gaiety of amusements and excursions; do not all
have their place in unwinding us from the tight coils we make for our
working days?
Freedom to take from the world whatever is there of beauty and of
interest--it really hardly matters what or where; freedom enhanced by
sympathy, perhaps, for we seem to need some comrade in our play; so
many days and nights following each other--no matter exactly how
many--for letting ourselves go, and letting the world and all its
power and wonder flow into us; that, whatever be place, time and
conditions, is the making of a holiday.
C
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HEALTHY LIFE ABROAD.
"HYGIE."
_A New Definition of Neurasthenia._
We cull the following definition of neurasthenia from our French
contemporary: Neurasthenia is discouragement of the soul. Being in a
state of discouragement the soul ceases to take care of the body and
allows it to become encumbered with waste products. The body in its
turn becomes so defective that the soul is incapable of repairing the
enfeebled organs and throws the body away into the water or leaves it
somewhere to be crushed or abandons it by some other means.
Neurasthenia may be compared to an indolent mechanic. He neglects to
oil his engine. It runs off the rails and is smashed.
_Fresh Departures._
The Vegetarian Society of France has introduced three new sections
into its organisation. The first is documentary, and aims at the
collection, centralisation and classification of all information
bearing on food reform. The second deals with domestic economy and
hygiene. A number of ladies willing to devote themselves to the
popularisation of the leading ideas of vegetarianism have joined this
section. They offer advice and instruction to all who wish to
familiarise themselves with food reform principles. The third section
is concerned with physical training and outdoor games, with special
reference to the relationship between these things and a non-flesh
regimen.
"VEGETARISCHE WARTE."
_Nietzsche as Fruitarian._
"A simple life," wrote Nietzsche in 1879, "is very difficult at the
present time," and went on to explain its difficulties and to suggest
that even the most determined would be obliged to leave the discovery
of the way to a wiser generation. He himself, however, took some
steps upon the way during his stay in Genoa, when he lived on bread
and fruit and spent but a few shillings a week. Eggs were occasionally
included, and artichokes--and the little cookery he needed was done by
himself over a spirit lamp. His winter in Genoa, he declares, was the
happiest in his life and saw the production of his "Twilight of the
Gods."
_Food Reform in Russia._
The movement goes ahead rapidly in Russia. Hardly a town of any size
but has now its vegetarian restaurant. This year the first Russian
Vegetarian Congress has been held. It seems to have been a very
successful gathering. "Seldom," writes one who was present, "have I
experienced such a strong impression as was made upon me by this first
vegetarian congress in Moscow." Unity seems to have been the
prevailing note. Papers were read on the general significance and the
various aspects of vegetarianism, followed by discussions. Amongst the
various excursions undertaken was a pilgrimage to Yasnaya Polyana,
including a visit to Tolstoy's grave.
A Vegetarian Exhibition has also been held in Moscow. It included a
fine show of fruits and vegetables, exhibits of various substitutes
for leather, soaps made of vegetable oils, an abundance of Russian and
foreign vegetarian literature of all sorts, from the noblest reaches
of theory to the most invaluable details of practice. The next
Congress is arranged for Easter 1914, at Kiev.
_A Hopeful Sign._
Fifteen years ago the Berlin municipal authorities stoutly refused
Professor Baron's offer to found an orphanage which should be
conducted on vegetarian principles. At the present moment it is being
arranged that all school children shall be taught the value of
vegetables and leguminous preparations and the wholesomeness of a diet
that is relatively non-stimulating and practically meatless.
D.M. RICHARDSON.
THE CURTAINED DOORWAYS.
In George Macdonald's _Phantastes: a Faery Romance for Men and Women_
it is told how a man found himself in the midst of a great circular
hall built entirely of black marble. On every side and at regular
intervals there were archways, all heavily curtained. Hearing a faint
sound of music proceeding from one of these hidden doorways he went
towards it and, drawing aside the hangings, found a large room crowded
with statuary, but no sign of an living creature. Yet he was certain
the music had proceeded from that particular archway. Greatly puzzled,
he let the curtain fall and stepped back a few paces. At once the
music continued. Stepping stealthily and quickly to the curtain, he
again lifted it, and received a vivid impression of a crowd of dancing
forms suddenly arrested: something told him beyond dispute that at the
moment he had drawn the hangings aside what were now lovely but
motionless statues had sprung each to its pedestal out of the mazes of
an intricate dance. Sound and movement had been frozen, in a flash of
time, into a crowd of beautiful forms--in stone. No statue but seemed
to tremble into immobility as the intruder's gaze turned this way and
that no marble face but seemed to be aglow with the music that had
died with his entry; no white limb but seemed to be tremulous with the
rhythm of the dance that had ceased so suddenly.
If the subtlety and imaginative truth of this story should lead you to
read the whole book, I shall have had the privilege of introducing you
to what is surely one of the finest and most delicately wrought
fantasies in the English language, a fantasy so permeated with beauty
and truth that you will neither wish nor need to look for the "moral".
But whether you read _Phantastes_ or not, I may be allowed to suggest
that the incident I have attempted to describe conveys one of the
secrets of healthy living.
It is a trite saying, that health is harmony. But I plead for a much
wider and fuller interpretation of harmony than is customary. _Mens
sana in corpore sano_--a sane mind in a healthy body--does not fill
all the requirements of a healthy life. It is but an excellent theme,
wanting orchestration.
It is good to aim at a harmonious working of one's internal
arrangements if one has had the misfortune or the folly to break that
harmony. The physical basis of life must be attended to if we would be
well. Only, you cannot stop there without imperilling the whole
scheme.
Again, it is good to train the body by means of exercise, play,
singing and handicraft; all these things react both upwards and
downwards, outwards and inwards. For example, one of the special
virtues of tennis, if it be played at all keenly, is the necessity for
making one's feet (those neglected members!) quick and responsive to
the messages of eye and brain. In an increasingly sedentary age the
rapidly growing popularity of tennis is, for this one reason alone, a
good omen. But if you play tennis, or any other healthy outdoor sport,
or learn how to sing, or how to breathe, or if you do Muller's
exercises daily, for the sole purpose of benefiting your liver or
developing your muscles, or of "keeping fit," you will miss the real
prize.
It is good, also, to train the mind to be logical, critical and
balanced: it is good to cultivate a retentive memory and to store up
useful facts. But if while you are aiming at intellectual fitness and
alertness you allow these good things to obscure other and better
things, if, in short, you let means become ends, you will never be
healthy, because you will miss half the joys of living.
There are many very skilful performers on musical instruments. They
have set themselves, or their parents have set them, to gain certain
prizes, distinctions or qualifications. No music is now too difficult
for them to execute. But that is exactly what they do--they execute
it: destroy its head and heart by sheer mechanical perfection. They
have mastered the piano, or the organ, or the violin, or their own
voice; but music eludes them.
You see why I began with that tale of the curtained doors, the
mysterious music, and the quivering statuary. There is an elusive,
haunting quality about life and all living things which, if we look
for it and listen to it, imparts a glamour, a rhythm, a beauty to
everything that is worth doing. The great danger is that in the
pressure of work, the hurry of play, the pursuit of health, or the
training of the mind we miss the very thing which can give meaning and
value to all these things. The severely matter-of-fact people don't go
near the curtained doors, and if they did, would discover only a lot
of cold, lifeless statues. Whoever heard of statues dancing? Whoever
heard of music without instruments? And yet this very sense of a
lyrical movement imperfectly seen, and of a temporarily frozen music,
is not only the very secret of all art: it is a slender guiding clue
to the centre of everything....
And in the house of every man, and of every woman, are the curtained
doorways.
EDGAR J. SAXON.
HOW MUCH SHOULD WE EAT?
_This discussion arose out of the article with above title, by "M.D.,"
which was published in our July number._--[EDS.]
III
I lift my hat to M.D. and trust that, as I don't know him, the
somewhat jarring difference that I have with his views will not be put
down to personal feeling. A.A. Voysey has put my first objection quite
well from the layman's point of view. He says "there is no agreement
between those who have been taught physiology." This is true.
Playfair's full diet is different from Voit's. Voit's is different
from Atwater's. Atwater's is different from Chittenden's.
The custom of reducing the diets to calories, inasmuch as it
introduces a false theory, has had a disastrous effect on progress,
and has been a great hindrance to the attainment of knowledge. If the
coal in the fireplace _were_ the cause of the heat of the fire (but is
it?), there is no analogy between the elevation of the heat by
hundreds and even thousands of degrees when the fire is lighted, and
the elevation of half-a-degree or a degree which occurs when food is
taken into the body, especially when we remember that a similar
elevation of temperature occurs when work is performed by means of the
body without eating or drinking at all.
It is quite evident to every clear seer, or it ought to be, that the
force of animal life or zoo-dynamic is the cause of the heat of the
body, just as the electric force is the cause of the liberation of
heat through the battery, and the chemic force is the cause of the
heat of the fire, and that zoo-dynamic and electro-dynamic and
chemico-dynamic are forms or species or varieties of the one
omnipotent and eternal energy by which all things in this universe
consist. The aggregate of all the particular forces makes up the
eternal energy which is one. They are all species of the one, but it
is convenient and even necessary for our limited intellects to
consider them separately, for the indefinite number of the facts and
also their intricacy and complexity stagger and overwhelm us unless we
do; and indeed they stagger us even when we try to treat them and take
them up separately for consideration and examination. But now for the
proof of A.A. Voysey's statement.
Ranke found he required 100 grammes proteid; fat 100 grammes;
carbo-hydrate 240 grammes to keep him going. These he could have got
from 9 oz. of lean meat or 250 grammes, 18 oz. of bread or 500
grammes, 12 oz. or 55 grammes of butter and 1 oz of fat (I do not, of
course, suggest that it would have been wise for him to get them so).
Moleschott's demands are: proteid 120 grammes, fat 90 grammes,
carbo-hydrate 333 grammes. Voit demands for hard work: proteid 145
grammes, fat 100 grammes, carbo-hydrate 450 grammes. Atwater demands
for hard work the following:--proteid 177 grammes, fat 250 grammes,
carbo-hydrate 650 grammes. Horace Fletcher, we are told by Professor
Chittenden, took for a time, when everything was accurately measured
and weighed: proteid 44.9 grammes, fat 38 grammes, carbo-hydrate 253
grammes. Cornaro lived on 12 oz. of solid food and 14 oz. of red wine
a day for a period of something like 60 years, from 38 years of age to
about 97, and had vigorous health during the time except when he
transgressed his rule. Of course, he was not a hard physical
worker--_i.e._ he did not do the work of a navvy. But how, in view of
these differences, can M.D. say: "These quantities were settled by
physiologists many years ago, and no good reasons have since been
adduced for altering them"? It is amazing to me to read such a
statement. It reminds me of a statement by a distinguished physician
in London during last year to the effect that we could not give a
growing schoolboy too much food--we could not over-feed him. My
opinion, on the other hand, after a long experience, during which time
my eyes have not been shut, is that the large majority of the diseases
of humanity are due to mal-nutrition and that the form of that
mal-nutrition is over-feeding--not under-feeding. This opinion should
be taken for what it is worth. But to test it we should ask ourselves:
What is the reason for the necessity to take food into the body? Is it
to give strength and heat to the body? Or is it to restore the waste
of the body sustained by the action on it of the force of life or
zoo-dynamic which inhabits it? The demands for food will vary and vary
much according to the way in which we answer this question. As you
allowed me to discuss this question in _Healthy Life_ in July and
August of last year I must not take up your space by discussing it
again. But the answer we give determines the amounts of food that we
require to take, since, obviously, if the strength and heat of the
body depend upon the food, the more food we take the more strength and
heat shall we have; while, if the function of food in the adult or
grown body is only to restore the waste of the body, the question is
how much is the waste. There are various ways in which this question
can be answered and I cannot go into them now; but I say, in my
opinion, the waste is very much less than is commonly supposed. The
body, I take it, is made by zoo-dynamic or the life-force to be a fit
habitation for itself. The body must waste when the life-force acts
through it, and that waste must be restored by food and sleep, or the
body will die; since things (the body) cannot act as the medium of
conveying forces (zoo-dynamic or the life-force) without wasting under
their action. But so beautifully has the body been made by zoo-dynamic
that it wastes very little, much less than is commonly supposed, by
the action of zoo-dynamic through it. Not seeing this, we ingest into
the body far more than is required to restore its waste, and so we
fall ill, for, obviously, if we ingest more than the quantity
necessary for this purpose we choke the body up and render it
inefficient for its purpose as an instrument for work.
Now this is precisely what seems to me to happen in life. As we are
all under the double delusion that the strength of the body and its
heat come from the food, we all with one accord put far too much food
into the body, and when we find that we die, all of us, generation
after generation, at from 50 to 70 years of age, we make up little
proverbs to justify our unphysiological conduct and say that three
score years and ten are the measure of the duration of life. M.D. says
that "some twenty years ago most people lived fairly close to the old
physiological quantities" (but what are these? for we have seen how
they vary), "now they have been cut adrift from these and are
floundering out of their depth." May I remind M.D. that people are now
living longer than they did twenty years ago. How does he account for
that? No doubt some of the increase in the length of life is due to
the diminution of the birth rate, but still I suppose M.D. would
admit that there is an increase in the duration of life over and above
what can be accounted for in this way. If so, how does he account for
it?
M.D. says, further: "For the public it will now probably suffice if
they insist on raising (or considering, A.R.) the question of
quantity" (of food, A.R.) "wherever they suffer in any way." I agree
with all my heart. But M.D. implies, if I read him aright, that the
public should increase the quantity of their food when they suffer in
any way. I, on the other hand, and rather unhappily for myself, am
convinced that the raising of this question implies that it should be
answered in the exact opposite way to that of M.D. and that we should
diminish our food if we "suffer in any way." And I can point to
Nature's own plan as a corroboration of the truth of my view, for her
plan when we suffer in any way is to fling us into bed and take away
our appetite, or at least to diminish our appetite if we are not so
ill as to require to remain in bed.
The whole question of medical practice depends on the answer we give
to this question, and therefore one might go on indefinitely with its
discussion. Neither the Editors' space and patience nor my time allow
of this; but I should like to ask M.D., with all respect, if he
remembers what Dr King Chambers said of the starvation that comes of
over-repletion? Dr King Chambers occupied one of the most prominent
places as a consultant in London (very probably, I suppose) when M.D.
was a very young man. My late lamented friend, Dr Dewey of Meadville,
Pennsylvania, used the phrase "starvation from over-feeding," not
knowing that Dr King Chambers had used practically the same expression
before him. That I made the same discovery myself, and independently,
is not, I take it, a sign of acuteness of intellect or of observation.
The amazing thing is that every practitioner is not compelled to make
the same discovery. But if it is a true discovery, then it follows
that all the signs of lowered vitality referred to by M.D., while
they _may_ be caused by under-feeding, may also be caused by
over-feeding and may therefore require for proper treatment, not
increase of the diet, but diminution of it. A low temperature,
therefore, a slow pulse, languor, pallor, inanition, fatigue,
good-for-nothingness, inefficiency, anorexia, anaemia, neurasthenia,
etc., etc., may all be due to blocking of the body with too much food
as well as to supplying it with too little. Fires may be put out by
heaping up too much coal on them. To make them burn briskly we ought
to push the poker in and gently lift the coal so as to admit of the
entrance of air. Then in a while our fire will become brisk and
bright. And so it may be in the body. Nay, my opinion is that almost
always these marks of depression are caused by blocking up of the body
and that therefore the proper treatment is, as a rule, not increase
but diminution of the diet. The place in the body in which the
blocking first occurs is the connective tissues or the tissues that
connect every part with every other. It is here that the lymph is
secreted, and as the lymph joins the thoracic duct which conveys the
products of digestion to the blood, it is obvious that lymph-secretion
is a complementary digestive process and it is also obvious how
blocking up of the connective tissues, which is the immediate cause of
anorexia and inanition, usually comes to exist in the body.