The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories Part 26

'Quite simple. Don't eat until you are hungry. If the food fails to taste good, fails to satisfy you, rejoice you, comfort you, don't eat again until you are very hungry. Then it will rejoice you--and do you good, too.'

'And I am to observe no regularity, as to hours?'

'When you are conquering a bad appet.i.te--no. After it is conquered, regularity is no harm, so long as the appet.i.te remains good. As soon as the appet.i.te wavers, apply the corrective again--which is starvation, long or short according to the needs of the case.'

'The best diet, I suppose--I mean the wholesomest--'

'All diets are wholesome. Some are wholesomer than others, but all the ordinary diets are wholesome enough for the people who use them. Whether the food be fine or coa.r.s.e it will taste good and it will nourish if a watch be kept upon the appet.i.te and a little starvation introduced every time it weakens. Nansen was used to fine fare, but when his meals were restricted to bear-meat months at a time he suffered no damage and no discomfort, because his appet.i.te was kept at par through the difficulty of getting his bear-meat regularly.'

'But doctors arrange carefully considered and delicate diets for invalids.'

'They can't help it. The invalid is full of inherited superst.i.tions and won't starve himself. He believes it would certainly kill him.'

'It would weaken him, wouldn't it?'

'Nothing to hurt. Look at the invalids in our s.h.i.+pwreck. They lived fifteen days on pinches of raw ham, a suck at sailor-boots, and general starvation. It weakened them, but it didn't hurt them. It put them in fine shape to eat heartily of hearty food and build themselves up to a condition of robust health. But they did not know enough to profit by that; they lost their opportunity; they remained invalids; it served them right. Do you know the trick that the health-resort doctors play?'

'What is it?'

'My system disguised--covert starvation. Grape-cure, bath-cure, mud-cure--it is all the same. The grape and the bath and the mud make a show and do a trifle of the work--the real work is done by the surrept.i.tious starvation. The patient accustomed to four meals and late hours--at both ends of the day--now consider what he has to do at a health resort. He gets up at 6 in the morning. Eats one egg. Tramps up and down a promenade two hours with the other fools. Eats a b.u.t.terfly.

Slowly drinks a gla.s.s of filtered sewage that smells like a buzzard's breath. Promenades another two hours, but alone; if you speak to him he says anxiously, "My water!--I am walking off my water!--please don't interrupt," and goes stumping along again. Eats a candied roseleaf. Lies at rest in the silence and solitude of his room for hours; mustn't read, mustn't smoke. The doctor comes and feels of his heart, now, and his pulse, and thumps his breast and his back and his stomach, and listens for results through a penny flageolet; then orders the man's bath--half a degree, Reaumur, cooler than yesterday. After the bath another egg.

A gla.s.s of sewage at three or four in the afternoon, and promenade solemnly with the other freaks. Dinner at 6--half a doughnut and a cup of tea. Walk again. Half-past 8, supper--more b.u.t.terfly; at 9, to bed.

Six weeks of this regime--think of it. It starves a man out and puts him in splendid condition. It would have the same effect in London, New York, Jericho--anywhere.'

'How long does it take to put a person in condition here?'

'It ought to take but a day or two; but in fact it takes from one to six weeks, according to the character and mentality of the patient.'

'How is that?'

'Do you see that crowd of women playing football, and boxing, and jumping fences yonder? They have been here six or seven weeks. They were spectral poor weaklings when they came. They were accustomed to nibbling at dainties and delicacies at set hours four times a day, and they had no appet.i.te for anything. I questioned them, and then locked them into their rooms--the frailest ones to starve nine or ten hours, the others twelve or fifteen. Before long they began to beg; and indeed they suffered a good deal. They complained of nausea, headache, and so on. It was good to see them eat when the time was up. They could not remember when the devouring of a meal had afforded them such rapture--that was their word. Now, then, that ought to have ended their cure, but it didn't. They were free to go to any meals in the house, and they chose their accustomed four. Within a day or two I had to interfere. Their appet.i.tes were weakening. I made them knock out a meal. That set them up again. Then they resumed the four. I begged them to learn to knock out a meal themselves, without waiting for me. Up to a fortnight ago they couldn't; they really hadn't manhood enough; but they were gaining it, and now I think they are safe. They drop out a meal every now and then of their own accord. They are in fine condition now, and they might safely go home, I think, but their confidence is not quite perfect yet, so they are waiting awhile.'

'Other cases are different?'

'Oh yes. Sometimes a man learns the whole trick in a week. Learns to regulate his appet.i.te and keep it in perfect order. Learns to drop out a meal with frequency and not mind it.'

'But why drop the entire meal out? Why not a part of it?'

'It's a poor device, and inadequate. If the stomach doesn't call vigorously--with a shout, as you may say--it is better not to pester it but just give it a real rest. Some people can eat more meals than others, and still thrive. There are all sorts of people, and all sorts of appet.i.tes. I will show you a man presently who was accustomed to nibble at eight meals a day. It was beyond the proper gait of his appet.i.te by two. I have got him down to six a day, now, and he is all right, and enjoys life. How many meals to you affect per day?'

'Formerly--for twenty-two years--a meal and a half; during the past two years, two and a half: coffee and a roll at 9, luncheon at 1, dinner at 7.30 or 8.'

'Formerly a meal and a half--that is, coffee and a roll at 9, dinner in the evening, nothing between--is that it?

'Yes.'

'Why did you add a meal?'

'It was the family's idea. They were uneasy. They thought I was killing myself.'

'You found a meal and a half per day enough, all through the twenty-two years?'

'Plenty.'

'Your present poor condition is due to the extra meal. Drop it out. You are trying to eat oftener than your stomach demands. You don't gain, you lose. You eat less food now, in a day, on two and a half meals, than you formerly ate on one and a half.'

'True--a good deal less; for in those olds days my dinner was a very sizeable thing.'

'Put yourself on a single meal a day, now--dinner--for a few days, till you secure a good, sound, regular, trustworthy appet.i.te, then take to your one and a half permanently, and don't listen to the family any more. When you have any ordinary ailment, particularly of a feverish sort, eat nothing at all during twenty-four hours. That will cure it. It will cure the stubbornest cold in the head, too. No cold in the head can survive twenty-four hours' unmodified starvation.'

I know it. I have proved it many a time.

CONCERNING THE JEWS

Some months ago I published a magazine article(1) descriptive of a remarkable scene in the Imperial Parliament in Vienna. Since then I have received from Jews in America several letters of inquiry. They were difficult letters to answer, for they were not very definite. But at last I have received a definite one. It is from a lawyer, and he really asks the questions which the other writers probably believed they were asking. By help of this text I will do the best I can to publicly answer this correspondent, and also the others--at the same time apologising for having failed to reply privately. The lawyer's letter reads as follows:

'I have read "Stirring Times in Austria." One point in particular is of vital import to not a few thousand people, including myself, being a point about which I have often wanted to address a question to some disinterested person. The show of military force in the Austrian Parliament, which precipitated the riots, was not introduced by any Jew. No Jew was a member of that body. No Jewish question was involved in the Ausgleich or in the language proposition. No Jew was insulting anybody. In short, no Jew was doing any mischief toward anybody whatsoever. In fact, the Jews were the only ones of the nineteen different races in Austria which did not have a party--they are absolute non-partic.i.p.ants. Yet in your article you say that in the rioting which followed, all cla.s.ses of people were unanimous only on one thing, viz., in being against the Jews. Now, will you kindly tell me why, in your judgment, the Jews have thus ever been, and are even now, in these days of supposed intelligence, the b.u.t.t of baseless, vicious animosities?

I dare say that for centuries there has been no more quiet, undisturbing, and well-behaving citizen, as a cla.s.s, than that same Jew. It seems to me that ignorance and fanaticism cannot alone account for these horrible and unjust persecutions.

'Tell me, therefore, from your vantage point of cold view, what in your mind is the cause. Can American Jews do anything to correct it either in America or abroad? Will it ever come to an end? Will a Jew be permitted to live honestly, decently, and peaceably like the rest of mankind? What has become of the Golden Rule?'

I will begin by saying that if I thought myself prejudiced against the Jew, I should hold it fairest to leave this subject to a person not crippled in that way. But I think I have no such prejudice. A few years ago a Jew observed to me that there was no uncourteous reference to his people in my books, and asked how it happened. It happened because the disposition was lacking. I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no colour prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being--that is enough for me; he can't be any worse. I have no special regard for Satan; but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue Bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; it is French. Without this precedent Dreyfus could not have been condemned. Of course Satan has some kind of a case, it goes without saying. It may be a poor one, but that is nothing; that can be said about any of us. As soon as I can get at the facts I will undertake his rehabilitation myself, if I can find an unpolitic publisher. It is a thing which we ought to be willing to do for any one who is under a cloud. We may not pay Satan reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.

A person who has during all time maintained the imposing position of spiritual head of four-fifths of the human race, and political head of the whole of it, must be granted the possession of executive abilities of the loftiest order. In his large presence the other popes and politicians shrink to midges for the microscope. I would like to see him. I would rather see him and shake him by the tail than any other member of the European Concert. In the present paper I shall allow myself to use the word Jew as if it stood for both religion and race.

It is handy; and, besides, that is what the term means to the general world.

In the above letter one notes these points:

1. The Jew is a well-behaved citizen.

2. Can ignorance and fanaticism alone account for his unjust treatment?

3. Can Jews do anything to improve the situation?

4. The Jews have no party; they are non-partic.i.p.ants.

5. Will the persecution ever come to an end?

6. What has become of the Golden Rule?

Point No. 1.--We must grant proposition No. 1, for several sufficient reasons. The Jew is not a disturber of the peace of any country. Even his enemies will concede that. He is not a loafer, he is not a sot, he is not noisy, he is not a brawler nor a rioter, he is not quarrelsome.

In the statistics of crime his presence is conspicuously rare--in all countries. With murder and other crimes of violence he has but little to do: he is a stranger to the hangman. In the police court's daily long roll of 'a.s.saults' and 'drunk and disorderlies' his name seldom appears.

That the Jewish home is a home in the truest sense is a fact which no one will dispute. The family is knitted together by the strongest affections; its members show each other every due respect; and reverence for the elders is an inviolate law of the house. The Jew is not a burden on the charities of the state nor of the city; these could cease from their functions without affecting him. When he is well enough, he works; when he is incapacitated, his own people take care of him. And not in a poor and stingy way, but with a fine and large benevolence. His race is ent.i.tled to be called the most benevolent of all the races of men.

A Jewish beggar is not impossible, perhaps; such a thing may exist, but there are few men that can say they have seen that spectacle. The Jew has been staged in many uncomplimentary forms, but, so far as I know, no dramatist has done him the injustice to stage him as a beggar. Whenever a Jew has real need to beg, his people save him from the necessity of doing it. The charitable inst.i.tutions of the Jews are supported by Jewish money, and amply. The Jews make no noise about it; it is done quietly; they do not nag and pester and hara.s.s us for contributions; they give us peace, and set us an example--an example which he have not found ourselves able to follow; for by nature we are not free givers, and have to be patiently and persistently hunted down in the interest of the unfortunate.