THE WANTON LOSSES OF VITALITY that were discussed in the preceding lesson were those that related to physical losses. There is another class that may be called hygienic, because they relate to the loss of health, and consequently to the weakening of the sources of magnetism.

Ice Water.—The use of ice water if taken slowly and allowed to warm in the mouth, a little at a time, will not do injury to the health; but the pouring of a half glass or more at one time into the stomach will quickly decrease the action of the heart, check respiration, contract the stomach so that it will force out some of its contents undigested, and lessen the magnetic heat of the nervous system. We recall several cases where speakers were deprived of their usual magnetic powers by drinking ice water just before making their addresses. One of our students, a lawyer of national reputation, wrote the following assertion in a letter to a friend which was forwarded to us for criticism: "I have had success in my jury trials whenever I have held magnetic sway over the court and jury. I have learned that food and drink have something to do with magnetism. 1 am fond of ice cream when I am heated, and often partake just before going to court in the afternoon. I have noticed that my vitality is less and my magnetism is very much unpaired for speaking after I have taken either ice water or ice cream, or any chilling food or fluid." The experience is a common one if care is taken to watch results.

Excess of Water.—This is injurious just before an attempt to use the magnetic powers. The best time to drink water is when the stomach is empty. Thirst should not invite great floods of fluid to the stomach. The more water one drinks in the courses of twenty-four hours, if taken in small quantities at a time, the better will the machinery of the functions do their work. This method of drinking prevents the stomach from carrying more water than the blood can take up, and hence it is not hurtful.

There is a widespread belief that the use of stimulants will develop magnetism. They burn up the magnetism in the body, and during the very brief period of this burning, they seem to set free the power they are destroying. This is wholly artificial and wasteful, for every reaction leaves the person weaker than before the taking of the supposed aid.

That is a stimulant which seeks to make some foreign matter do the work of Nature, and arouse a failing power or bring to life a dead vitality. Tea, coffee, alcohol, and the many concoctions that are sold as hot winter drinks or cold summer beverages, are indulged in, with the result that the fires of magnetism are burned out. There is much discussion on both sides of the question, some persons claiming that stimulants are necessary. The author can speak of his own experience, and say that he has never used tobacco, tea, coffee, alcohol, or stimulant of any kind, since he was born. He can also speak with authority of many persons who have held magnetic sway for decades, and who have not used any of the things named.

A very important law of life comes into play in this attempt to substitute the artificial for the natural; and it is this:

Nature will not carry on the process of generating vitality, energy or magnetism, while some foreign agency is employed as a substitute for that purpose.

The same law is seen at work in the supply of natural heat. The warmer the room in which you live, the less heat will be generated in the body; the colder the outside conditions, the warmer will the surface of the body become. If you toast your feet, as the saying goes, over a grate, or at a stove, or supply artificial heat, nature will not develop as much natural heat within the body. In a person of normal health, the best way to get the feet warm is to bathe them in cold water, wipe them very dry, then bathe the upper part of the chest in cold water.

The feet will be in a glow in a short time, and will remain warm. quickest way to get confirmed cold feet is to form the habit of warming them at some stove or heater that furnishes artificial warmth.

This law runs through everything.

In the study of magnetism, no greater mistake can ever be made than to seek power through stimulants; for the best stimulantcan do nothing more than burn up in a more rapid manner what power is already on hand. Some speakers get so far down in vitality that they can do nothing until they take whiskey or other stimulant; but their fires are soon burned out, as has been proved in hundreds of well known cases. The magnetic speaker or actor, needs no fluid in the mouth from the time he begins until he is done. The few exceptions to this rule are in cases where careers of usefulness are on the wane. Two generations and more ago, the three most magnetic men alive were Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate and Junius Booth. Not one ever used water or fluid of any kind during a public effort; there was no pitcher and glass on the stand to supply them with moisture. All three were great because of their excess of magnetic vitality, and all three have left names that will live for ages. Yet Webster and Booth, in later life only, were victims of the alcohol habit; but not one of them made any fame during that period. Booth had achieved all he was capable of during his years of ambition when he wholly ignored wines and liquors, as his son, Edwin, has so well stated. Success turned his head, and his career was erratic and downward. Yet he was not a drunkard.

Webster was not a drinking man during the years that he climbed to the pinnacle of success. He was afraid to touch any beverage that was not clear, cool water. Success and acceptance of social attentions dethroned him; and, in the latter years of his life, when his work was done, although he was only in the early sixties, he stood before the American public, "a failure in every department of life," as one of his greatest friends has declared in a printed work; and he was later on described as a magnificent ruin.

Magnetism brings success. Success brings social attentions.

Rufus Choate, the ruler of the twelve, was a man of the highest morality in personal habits. He had but one love, and that was triumph in his profession. He worked himself into a state of nervous collapse, and then became an excessive tea drinker, But his work had been accomplished long before he took up habit. The tea broke down his health. He ignored all laws of diet and soon his stomach was a wreck. Death came to him while yet in the prime of active life. Many young men have been misled by the statement, so often made, that Choate's magnetism was the result of his tea-drinking habit; and we know of men who have sought the power by the use of this beverage, and have wondered why it failed them.

In our efforts to ascertain the facts, for facts are very important in this study, we at first were led to believe that Choate built up his magnetism by tea. Many experiments with scores of men, proved that no one else could do the same thing. We left no stone unturned to get at the true origin of the story that has so often been printed to the effect that he was an inveterate tea drinker all his life; and we found no proof of that; nor did his historian have any proof of it except the well known fact that he drank tea to excess in the latter part of his life; and only when his health had begun to fail did his friends and relatives know of the habit. His favorite beverage in the first forty years of his life was water.

No grander example of magnetism was ever seen than that displayed by John B. Gough, who was personally known to us for many years. After he had discarded his early alcoholic habits, his power developed, and not before. For all his years of public triumph he used chiefly cold water as a beverage. One man who had attended him on his tours for eight months, stated in the most positive terms: "I have not missed a meal during all this time, having been at the table with Mr. Gough day in and day out, three times a day, and having partaken of his lunches when the regular meals were not to be had. We were companions in eating. I personally know that no fluid passed his lips except cold water. He had used coffee and tea, as he told me, but only in small quantities. During the severe tax of a prolonged lecture tour he depended solely on cold water. I am told that, later in life, he used both coffee and tea in moderation, but not when his health was at its best. Plain food and cold water gave him his best powers." Gough once made the assertion that he could get along on a diet of bread and wafer and yet maintain his public work.