Part 8 (2/2)

Meal time is joy time; it's the get-together period of smiling faces.

In the house the breakfast table is merely a lunch station in the hurried trip from the bedroom to the office.

The sensitive wife of the house gets stinging remarks that abide with her after the lord and master of the house has departed.

In the home the family gets up plenty early enough, songs and jokes, kisses and love pats are found, the family is on time, and there is happiness all around.

Homes are sweet, because love is present. Houses built by gold are just hotels.

I've noticed the difference when a friend invites me to come to his home or his house; the word he uses, home or house, indicates to me what I will find when I go there.

In the house I meet a maid or butler at the door. I see conventional furniture, conventional rooms. I am shown into a conventional waiting room, and I wait conventionally for the hostess to come forward with a stiff backbone, a forced smile, and a languid hand shake.

When I go to a home built with love, I find a tidy dressed wife at the door, rosy children, and I get a warm old-fas.h.i.+oned hand clasp, and a beaming smiling face that spells welcome.

And the dinner, that too, tells the difference between the ”depend-on-the-cook” housewife and the ”wife-who-is-the-boss” home.

At the house is formality and frigidity; at the home is ease and enjoyment. The children of the home make breaks and we love them for it; it's natural instinct and frankness.

In the house is worry; in the home is happiness.

Verily there's a difference in the atmosphere of the house built with gold and the home built with love; one is worthless existence, the other worth-while living.

DIET RULES

Seven Sensible Simple Suggestions on Eating

I haven't time in this book to give reasons or show proofs for everything I suggest. I have explained much in detail regarding the matter of food, thought, habit and exercise in PEP, but I want right here to give you a few definite, short, positive, helpful rules that will pay you most wonderful dividends in health and happiness.

First--Drink two or three gla.s.ses of warm, not hot water the first thing when you arise.

Second--Repeat this resolve as you are drinking the water, ”I will be pleasant this morning until ten o'clock and the rest of the day will take care of itself.”

Third--Walk to your office or place of business unless it is over four miles, in which case walk the first three miles and ride the remainder of the distance.

Fourth--Eat one or two apples every day, and do not insult nature's proper adjustment by peeling the apple. You want the skin because it has things in it you need for your body, and especially for your brain, and you need especially the roughage the skin gives.

Fifth--Spend eight or nine hours a day in bed. I belong to the sixty-three hour club; that means nine hours a day rest, seven days in a week, which is sixty-three hours. If through business travel or other circ.u.mstances I stay up late one or two nights a week, I balance books before the week is up by taking a rest on Sunday afternoon or going to bed earlier one or two nights.

Sixth--Don't stay in bed Sunday morning. It will make you tired, loggy, stupid and cross. Get up Sunday, say, a half hour or an hour later than week days. Later in the day take a nap if you wish.

Seventh--Spend fifteen minutes just before going to bed in quiet, relaxed solitude. This is the time to slow down your tension, relax your muscles and soothe the nerves. These rules you can easily remember and if you follow them as I hope you will, the red blood will course in your veins and joy will be in your countenance and the halo of happiness will be around your face.

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