Chapter 100
"'But,' I said, 'do you not adjust your dress in this way on purpose to give us a chance to look?'
"She was greatly shocked at my way of putting it.
"'Well,' I said, 'this a.s.surance is perfectly stunning. You strip yourselves, go to a public party, parade yourselves for hours in a glare of gas-light, saying to the crowd, "Look here, gentlemen," and then you are shocked because we put your unmistakable actions into words.'
"In discussing this subject before an audience of ladies in this city (Boston), the other evening, I said, 'Ladies, suppose I had entered this hall with my arms and bust bare; what would you have done? You would have made a rush for the door, and, as you jostled against each other in hurrying out, you would have exclaimed to each other, "O, the unconscionable scallawag!" May I ask if it is not right that we should demand of you as much modesty as you demand of us?' But you exclaim, 'Custom! it is the custom, and fas.h.i.+on is everything.'" Again the author says,--
"This exposure of the naked bosom before men belongs not to the highest type of Christian civilization, but to those dark ages when women sought nothing higher than the gratification of the pa.s.sions of man, and were content to be mere slaves and toys.
"Boston contains its proportion of the refined women of the country. We have here a few score of the old families, inheriting culture and wealth, and who can take rank with the best. A matron who knows their habits a.s.sures me that she never saw a member of one of those families in 'low neck and short sleeves.'
"In the future free and Christian America, the very dress of women will proclaim a high, pure womanhood.... We shall then discard the costumes devised by the dissolute capitals of Europe.
"What a strange spectacle we witness in America to-day! Free, brave American women hold out to the world the Bible of social, political, and religious freedom, and anon we see them down on their knees, waiting the arrival of the latest steamer from France, to learn how they may dress their bodies for the next month."
Well, he does not censure ladies in the above manner all through; but yet, in a most earnest and interesting way he divulges the most startling truths, and even very young misses are delighted with the whole argument.
"Why, it's just like a story," exclaimed my twelve-year-old Katie on reading it.
What Dr. Lewis objects to on the score of immodesty, I also oppose on the ground of unhealthfulness. The idea of preventing or curing the laryngitis, or consumption, in a lady, when there is nothing but gauze, or a bit of ribbon and a galvanized bosom pin, between her neck and the cold and changeable atmosphere of the north or east, is ridiculously absurd. No doctors or doctors' pectorals can save such. "High necks," warm flannels, or make your wills.
HOW AND WHAT WE SHOULD BREATHE.
It would disgust the reader if I should enter into the details of telling him what people--respectable people, even, in nice houses--breathe over.
Air is life. The purer the air, the purer the life-stream that courses through our hearts. You cannot get too much of it. Take it in freely. Have only pure air in your houses, in your sleeping-rooms and cellars.
Particularly see that the children have the freedom of the air, day and night, at home, at school, everywhere. It is free--costs nothing!
THE FREEDOM OF THE STREET.
"I dwell amid the city, And hear the flow of souls; I do not hear the several contraries, I do not hear the separate tone that rolls In art or speech.
"For pomp or trade, for merry-make or folly, I hear the confidence and sum of each, And what is melancholy.
Thy voice is a complaint, O crowded city, The blue sky covering thee, like G.o.d's great pity."
"Heaven bless the freedom of the park," has exclaimed a child of song; and he might also have invoked the same blessing upon "the freedom of the street." The street is free to all; to high and low, young and old, rich and poor. It recognizes no distinctions or castes; it is the very expressiveness of democracy.
The child of fas.h.i.+on, arrayed in silks, ribbons, and furbelows; the child of penury and want, in rags, filth, and semi-nakedness; the shaver of notes and the shaver of faces; the college professor and the chiffonier, all mingle in common on the street. Now walking side by side, now brus.h.i.+ng past each other, now stopping to look at the same cause of excitement, now each jostled into the gutter. No distinction in wealth, birth, or intellect is recognized; no one dare attempt to restrict the freedom of the thoroughfare, and none dare say to another, "Stand aside, for I am better than thou."
The little boy trundles his hoop against the s.h.i.+ns of the thoughtful student; the little girl knocks the spectacles from the nose of the man of science with her rope, while the preacher runs against an awning-post to make way for a red-faced nurse with a willow carriage; the antiquated apple woman, and
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FREEDOM OF THE PARK.]
The street is a world in miniature, a Vanity Fair in motion, a s.h.i.+fting panorama of society, painted with the pencil of folly and fancy. It is the only plane upon which society, "the field which men sow thick with friends.h.i.+ps," meets on a common level. It does not flaunt in aristocracy, and never dares to be pretentious.
"KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AND MOUTHS CLOSED."
There's true philosophy in the above saying of a wise _savant_. But there is more wisdom in the latter clause than he even dreamed of in his philosophy.
The Book informs us that G.o.d breathed the breath of life (air) into man's _nostrils_. Nothing is more injurious, save continually breathing foul air, than the habit of breathing through the mouth. Keep the mouth closed.
A great many diseases of the teeth, mouth, throat, head, and lungs may be traced directly to the pernicious and general habit of breathing with the mouth open--inhaling and exhaling cold air directly into the mouth and throat, inflaming and chilling the mucous membrane and the blood. The nostrils are the only proper pa.s.sages for the air to the lungs. Here are filterers to exclude particles of dust and foreign matter, and various ramifications, whereby the air is properly warmed before reaching the lining of the throat and lungs. In infected air you are less injured, and less liable to contract contagious diseases, when inhaling only through the natural channel, the nostrils.
I think it was Dr. Good, of London, who wrote a book on the subject, which Carlyle p.r.o.nounced "a sane voice in a world of chaos."
George Catlin says he learned the secret of keeping the mouth closed while among the North American Indians. They would not allow themselves or their children to sleep with the mouth open (though their reasoning is questionable), because the evil spirit would creep in them at night. Hence the parent went around after the pappooses were asleep, and closed their mouths. Pulmonary diseases are seldom found in the "close-mouthed." Kant, the philosopher, claims to have cured himself of consumption by this discovery. Persons never snore except by breathing through the open mouth.
O, give us quiet, you snorers, by keeping your mouths shut, even at the expense of "keeping your eyes open" to watch yourself, and thus deliver the world from the disturbance of snoring.
THE LUNGS.--BREATHING.
All that live, down even to vegetables and trees, breathe, _must_ breathe, in order to live; live in proportion as they breathe; begin life's first function with breathing, and end its last in their last breath. And breathing is the _most important_ function of life, from first to last, because the grand stimulator and sustainer of all. Would you get and keep warm when cold, breathe copiously, for this renews that carbonic consumption all through the system which creates all animal warmth. Would you cool off, and keep cool, in hot weather, deep, copious breathing will burst open all those myriads of pores, each of which, by converting the water in the system into insensible perspiration, casts out heat, and refreshes mind and body. Would you labor long and hard, with intellect or muscle, without exhaustion or injury, breathe abundantly; for breath is the great re-invigorator of life and all its functions. Would you keep well, breath is your great preventive of fevers, of consumption, of "all the ills that flesh is heir to." Would you break up fevers, or colds, or unload the system of morbid matter, or save both your const.i.tution and doctor's fee, cover up warm, drink soft water--cold, if you have a robust const.i.tution sufficient to produce a reaction; if not, hot water should be used. Then let in the fresh air, and breathe, breathe, breathe, just as deep and much as possible, and in a few hours you can "forestall and prevent" the worst attack of disease you ever will have; for this will both unload disease at every pore of skin and lungs, and infuse into the system that _vis animae_ which will both grapple in with and expel disease in all its forms, and restore health, strength, and life.
Nature has no panacea like it. _Try the experiment_, and it will revolutionize your condition. And the longer you try, the more will it regenerate your body and your mind. Even if you have the blues, deep breathing will soon dispel them, especially if you add vigorous exercise.
Would you even put forth your greatest mental exertions in speaking or writing, keep your lungs clear up to their fullest, liveliest action.
Would you even breathe forth your highest, holiest orisons of thanksgiving and wors.h.i.+p, deepening your inspiration of fresh air will likewise deepen and quicken your _divine_ inspiration. Nor can even bodily pleasures be fully enjoyed except in and by copious breathing. In short, proper breathing is the alpha and omega of all physical, and thereby of all mental and moral function and enjoyment.
A MAN FULL OF HOLES.
Yes, made of holes!
A gentleman once told me a story, as follows. We were travelling on the Ohio River, on board of a steamer.
"You see that bank over opposite?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Well, thereby hangs a little story. I always laugh when I think of it, or pa.s.s the spot, which is often. A fellow sat looking at that spot, watching the thousands of swallows that were continually flitting to and fro, in and out of their nests, and laughing immoderately to himself. I approached, and ventured to inquire the cause of his mirth, that I might partake of it.
"Well, you see that bank and all them nests? Well, one day I went down on the boat and noticed them. When I came back, there had meantime been a heavy rain storm which washed the bank away, and left the holes all sticking out;" and the fellow continued to laugh as though he would split himself, probably from the _idea_ of the holes "sticking out." I wondered how he could see them if the bank around was washed away.
Still the man full of holes is a fact. According to Krause, quoted in Gray's and Wilson's works on anatomy, there are twenty-eight hundred (2800) pores in the skin of the human body to the square inch; and the number of square inches to an average-sized man is twenty-five hundred (2500). This would give some _seven million pores in the whole body_.
These pores, or tubes, are one fourth of an inch in length; hence, the entire length of them all is _twenty-eight miles_.
That part of the skin is the healthiest which is the most exposed to the air, as the face and hands. That part the most diseased from which the air is most excluded, as the _feet_. Three fourths of all persons over fourteen years of age have diseased feet; either corns, chilblains, or diseased joints or nails.
SEVEN MILLION MOUTHS TO FEED.
These seven million mouths must be fed daily and hourly. Their food is light and air. Man is not only fed and nourished through the portal of his mouth, but through all the pores of his body, by drawing in nutriment from the surrounding elements, even from the viewless air.
These little mouths also need moisture. This fact is revealed to the senses through the medium of the nerves; for, how grateful to the dry, parched skin, is a bath of cold water! or, if the blood is in a "low state,"--impoverished by disease,--let it be a tepid bath. Let it feel comfortable and grateful to the user. This is a good rule to direct you.
The little children love it--love to paddle and splash in it. If they cry and fight against was.h.i.+ng, it is usually because of the rudeness of the operator, who, with brawny palm or rough sponge takes the child unawares, nearly suffocating it, and briskly and rudely rubbing over the surface of the tender face, regardless of such small obstructions as nose, chin, and lips, and not unusually das.h.i.+ng a quant.i.ty of yellow soap suds into the infantile eyes. The next time the little fellow is requested to be washed, he, remembering the last _scouring_, naturally objects to a repet.i.tion of the unpleasant process.
As the nostrils inhale pure air beneficially, they also exhale impurities.
The pores also excrete, or throw off impurities. A healthy skin will throw out, by the pores, from two to three pounds of impure matter every twenty-four hours. To be sure a greater quant.i.ty of this impurity is a vapory substance, yet that holds in solution solid particles of corrupt matter, which greatly tend to clog the pores if left to obstruct free perspiration.