fortune very well when he is sick. He has no ambition; no incentive; no
force. Of course, there are those who have bad health and cannot help
it: you cannot expect that such persons can accumulate wealth, but there
are a great many in poor health who need not be so.
If, then, sound health is the foundation of success and happiness in
life, how important it is that we should study the laws of health, which
is but another expression for the laws of nature! The nearer we keep to
the laws of nature, the nearer we are to good health, and yet how many
persons there are who pay no attention to natural laws, but absolutely
transgress them, even against their own natural inclination. We ought to
know that the "sin of ignorance" is never winked at in regard to the
violation of nature's laws; their infraction always brings the penalty.
A child may thrust its finger into the flames without knowing it will
burn, and so suffers, repentance, even, will not stop the smart. Many of
our ancestors knew very little about the principle of ventilation. They
did not know much about oxygen, whatever other "gin" they might have
been acquainted with; and consequently they built their houses with
little seven-by-nine feet bedrooms, and these good old pious Puritans
would lock themselves up in one of these cells, say their prayers and go
to bed. In the morning they would devoutly return thanks for the
"preservation of their lives," during the night, and nobody had better
reason to be thankful. Probably some big crack in the window, or in the
door, let in a little fresh air, and thus saved them.
Many persons knowingly violate the laws of nature against their better
impulses, for the sake of fashion. For instance, there is one thing that
nothing living except a vile worm ever naturally loved, and that is
tobacco; yet how many persons there are who deliberately train an
unnatural appetite, and overcome this implanted aversion for tobacco, to
such a degree that they get to love it. They have got hold of a
poisonous, filthy weed, or rather that takes a firm hold of them. Here
are married men who run about spitting tobacco juice on the carpet and
floors, and sometimes even upon their wives besides. They do not kick
their wives out of doors like drunken men, but their wives, I have no
doubt, often wish they were outside of the house. Another perilous
feature is that this artificial appetite, like jealousy, "grows by what
|
