FEVER-FACTORIES. 151 



him to indulge in a body and soul destroying poison, but that appetite 

 has been artificially and painfully acquired, and in spite of the earnest 

 protests of Nature, which teach a child by the unmistakable testimony 

 of its senses that alcohol and all fermented drinks are disgusting, and 

 consequently injurious. But cold water, cold sweet milk, lemonade, 

 and cider fresh from the press, are agreeable to every undepraved 

 palate, and of these and similar beverages we might drink our fill on 

 the hottest day, without any fear of having to repent the gratification 

 of a natural appetite. Persons, like Baron Brisse, who frankly admit 

 that their only object in life is to diminish its tedium, act at least con- 

 sistently if they adopt the most effectual means to shorten its duration, 

 but housekeepers who, from motives of economy, grudge their children 

 a handful of apples or an excursion to a shady picnic-ground, should 

 not boast of their annual savings before they have deducted the doc- 

 tor's bill. 



To take plenty of rest after meals is another health rule which 

 we might adopt on the authority of our instinct-guided fellow-creatures, 

 if not of our sensible ancestors, who surpassed us in physical vigor and 

 hygienic insight as much as we exceed them in mechanical or astro- 

 nomical knowledge. In obedience to an urgent instinct, wild animals 

 retire to their hiding-places after a hearty feed, and digest in peace ; 

 and the ancient Greeks, as well as the Romans cf the ante-Caesarean 

 era, contented themselves with one daily meal, which they ate leisurely 

 in the cool of the afternoon after completing their day's work. The 

 rest of the evening they devoted to music, conversation, dances, and 

 light gymnastics, and had thus all night, besides the larger part of the 

 following day, for digestion, could assimilate their food, and probably 

 derived more enjoyment from that one meal than we do from our hur- 

 ried dinners, late suppers, luncheons, and " Christian breakfasts" — true 

 dejeuners dinatoires, that dull our brains and limbs during the first 

 three or four post-prandial business-hours. 



For a quarter of a year, at least, we might get along with two daily 

 meals, one at noon, after finishing the larger and harder half of our 

 day's work, on au " empty stomach " (which custom would soon make 

 a resigned and very comfortable stomach), then a siesta of three or 

 four hours ; work till sunset, and then a bath, followed by a leisurely 

 symposium and such domestic amusements as our tastes and oppor- 

 tunities might suggest ; and since it is probably true that sleep should 

 not follow too close upon a large meal, we might prolong our amuse- 

 ments or dolce far nientes through the first third of the night, on 

 Saturdays even till after midnight, without fear of thereby violating 

 any law of Nature. The habits of our next relations among the children 

 of the wilderness, the mammals, and vertebrate reptiles, become semi- 

 nocturnal during the warm season : deer, buffaloes, antelopes, and kan- 

 garoos, graze in moonshine ; bears and foxes leave their dens after dark 

 and rest through the warmer part of the day; alligators wander about 



