Part 2 (1/2)

This process keeps up until really first-cla.s.s men are reduced to very small men.

Let a man go each year to the everlasting mountains; to the solitude of the ancient forests; to the eternal ocean with its manifestation of power and repose. Let him sit by its solemn sh.o.r.e listening to it sing that song which for a million years before our civilization was thought of it had been singing, and which for a million years after our civilization has become merely a line in history it will continue to sing, and he will realize how unimportant are the things which only a few weeks before seemed to him of such vast moment. Perhaps the words of the old Khayyam will come to him:

”And fear not lest Existence, closing your Account and mine, should know the like no more; The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour'd Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.”

Or,

”When You and I behind the Veil are pa.s.sed, Oh! but the long, long while the World shall last, Which of our Coming and Departure heeds As the sea's self should heed a pebble cast.”

Then you will come back to your work and see things in their proper dimensions. You will expend your energy on things that require it, and you will smile at the things that do not deserve your attention, and pa.s.s them by. You will subst.i.tute duty for ambition, and you will go your way with sanity for perhaps ten months. Then you will need again the elemental lesson of the forest, the mountain, or the sea.

I do not mean that you shall take a vacation until you have deserved it. What right have you to rest before you have labored--before you have earned a thread that clothes you or a mouthful that nourishes you. There are men whose whole lives are a vacation. These words are not for them. From my viewpoint, such men might as well be dead. The men upon whom I am urging the wisdom of taking periods for recuperation are those who have been pulling with the team and keeping their traces taut. And I a.s.sume that you who read are one of these worth-while men. Very well! I want you to last a long time.

On this subject, many is the talk I have had with friends who are business men. ”Well,” my business friend has said, ”I just cannot get away this summer. Next summer I will go away, but I cannot go away this summer. You see, I have a 'deal' which I am about to close; it demands my personal attention. It would be treason to my business to leave this summer.”

Yes, quite true, no doubt. But so has Nature a ”deal” on with this same business man; and it will be treason to Nature if he does not go away and let Nature's ministers attend him. If he has got to be false to his business or to Nature, he had better be false to the former. It is a fine thing to be true to one's business. But be sure that you are _really_ true to your business; and that means that, first of all, you shall look to your health. Your _business_ demands that. Good health is good ”business.”

I knew a business man who was so true to his business that he was unfaithful to himself. The machinery of his superb mind had been running at highest speed for ten months. It needed a rest--oil on the heated bearings, a reburnis.h.i.+ng of the soiled steel, a rest from the high tension. He would have given just such care to an automobile, or an engine, or any inanimate mechanism. He would have given much greater care to his horse.

But did he give it to himself? No. He had a ”deal” on of large proportions; that ”deal” must be consummated before attending to the mind and body that put it through. So the lever was pulled back another notch; the machine was driven to its highest burst of speed and power, and the ”deal” was a success.

Mark now what followed. The next day this splendid man did not feel very well--a headache. And on the following day there was an eternal end to all his ”deals.” I do not call that good business. Therefore, my friend, the sea, the mountains, the forests; therefore Nature, with her medicine for body and mind and soul.

”Turn yourself out to pasture,” said a wise old country doctor to an exhausted city man. Certainly, that's the thing to do--”turn yourself out to pasture.”

Singular advice for young men, you will say, this counseling of restraint, calmness, and the husbanding of his powers. Yes; but I would prevent you from exhausting yourself. No nervous prostration at forty; no arrested development at fifty; no mental vacuity at fifty-five. Too many Americans cease to count after middle life. They have wasted their ammunition and are sent to the rear--there is no longer use for them on the firing-line. Youth is so strong that it wastes power like a millionaire of vitality. But you will need all this dissipated energy later on--every ounce of it.

And so, while I would have you labor to the last limit of your strength while you are about your work, I would also have you regain the strength thus consumed. I would have you let Nature fill up your empty batteries. Hence the suggestion of vacations, a level mind, and books of serenity.

While you _do_ work, pour your full strength into every blow; but having done your best do not spoil it by lying awake over it. No half-heartedness in your task, however. If you try to save yourself while you are about your business--if you ”try to do things easy”--you will neither work well nor rest well nor do anything else well.

I know there are those who cannot, for long, quit work--those who ”have their noses to the grindstone,” to borrow one of those picture-sentences of the people. In the far off end to which evolution tends, civilization will doubtless reach the point where every human being may have his solid month of play, repose, and recuperation--though this cannot be, of course, while nation competes with nation. A universal industrial agreement alone can compa.s.s that happy end. And do we not here perceive, afar off, one of the vast and glorious tasks for the statesmen of the future?

Meanwhile, if every man may not have an entire season of holiday, he may have every day his hour of fun and rest. For every man that, at least, is possible. And, too, he whom necessity drives hardest owns--absolutely owns--for himself one day in seven. Not so bad after all, is it? Not the ideal condition, but still quite tolerable.

Fifty-two days in three hundred and sixty-five, nearly two months in the year, already given every man by the usage of our Christian civilization for the purpose of ”rest from all his work”; and with divine example encouraging and instructing him in its use.

A man can get along on these two months distributed at the intervals of one in every seven days. He can get along, that is, if he really rests--really gives himself up to the sane joy of normal repose. The humblest toiler, even in our greatest cities, can find physical renewal and soul's upliftment in forest, at river's side, or on the sh.o.r.e of lake or ocean--thanks to rapid transit and cheap fares.

So let us not get to pitying ourselves--we are pretty well circ.u.mstanced for the alternation of work and play, even in our state of partial development. It is for us to use the opportunity already afforded us; and, speaking by and large, ought we not to deserve more by using, without waste or worse than waste, what we already have? Is there not sound philosophy in the legend which Mr. Lewis tells us was inscribed on the headboard of Jack King, deceased: ”Life ain't in holding a good hand, but in playing a poor hand well”?

My suggestion of one or two months' outing in addition to our fifty-two Sundays and several holidays is to those who have poured out in brain-work and nervous strain more than the system can possibly replenish except by a period devoted exclusively to the manufacture of force to replace that which has been unnaturally expended. There are men who toil night and day. Mostly they are young men establis.h.i.+ng their business or getting their ”start.”

I know many young men who work twelve and even fourteen hours every day, and keep it up the year round. One of the greatest merchants of my acquaintance worked from five o'clock in the morning until twelve and one o'clock at night, and then slept in his little store. He was just building up his business. We all know men who literally will not stop work while awake, and when their task is near them. Such men must go away from their business and let Nature work on them awhile.

Have your doctor look you over every six months, no matter how well you feel--or oftener, if he thinks best. Have your regular physician.

Pick out a good one, and, especially, a man congenial to yourself.

Make him your friend as well as medical adviser. The true doctor is a marvelous person.

How astonis.h.i.+ng the accurate knowledge of the accomplished physician!

How miracle-like the dainty and beneficent skill of the modern surgeon. The peculiar ability of a great diagnostician amounts to divination. And he, whom Nature has fitted for this n.o.ble profession, is endowed with a sympathy for you and an intuitive understanding of you very much akin to the peculiar sixth sense of woman--that strange power by which she ”knows and understands.”