"If this bowl of coffee, or chowder, or soup is counted as one meal, the working man who wishes to keep in order will have five meals a day, besides the morning cup of coffee, or of coffee colored with milk, which he has before breakfast. Breakfast is one; this extended lunch is another; dinner is the third, say at half-past two; tea is the fourth, at six or seven; and, what is too apt to be forgotten, a sufficient supper before bedtime is the fifth. This last may be as light as you please, but let it be sufficient,—a few oysters, a slice of hot toast, clam chowder again, or a bowl of soup. Never go to bed in any danger of being hungry. People are kept awake by hunger quite as much as by a bad conscience.
"Remembering that sleep is the essential force with which the whole scheme starts, decline tea or coffee within the last six hours before going to bed. If the women kind insist, you may have your milk and water at the tea-table, colored with tea; but the less the better.
"Avoid all mathematics or intricate study of any sort in the last six hours. This is the stuff dreams are made of, and hot heads, and the nuisances of waking hours.
"Keep your conscience clear. Remember that because the work of life is infinite you cannot do the whole of it in any limited period of time, and that, therefore, you may just as well leave off in one place as another.
"No work of any kind should be done in the hour after dinner. After any substantial meal, observe, you need all your vital force for the beginning of digestion. For my part, I always go to sleep after dinner and sleep for exactly an hour, if people will only stay away; and I am much more fond of the people who keep away from me at that time than I am of the people who visit me."
XIV.
A Humorist's Regimen.
Robert Barr (whose pseudonym, "Luke Sharp," is familiar to the readers of the Detroit Free Press) has written an article on "How a Literary Man Should Live," which may be cited in conclusion:—
"I am not," he says, "an advocate of early rising. I believe, however, that every literary man should have fixed hours for getting up. I am very firm with myself on that score. I make it a rule to rise every morning in winter between the hours of six and eleven, and in summer from half-past five until ten. A person is often tempted to sleep later than the limit I tie myself to, but a little resolution with a person's self at first will be amply repaid by the time thus gained, and the feeling one has of having conquered a tendency to indolence. I believe that a literary man can get all the sleep he needs between eight o'clock at night and eleven in the morning. I know, of course, that some eminent authorities disagree with me, but I am only stating my own experience in the matter, and don't propose to enter into any controversy about it.
"On rising I avoid all stimulating drinks, such as tea or coffee. They are apt to set the brain working, and I object to work, even in its most disguised forms. A simple glass of hot Scotch, say half a pint or so, serves to tide over the period between getting up and breakfast-time. Many literary men work before breakfast, but this I regard as a very dangerous habit. I try to avoid it, and so far have been reasonably successful. I rest until breakfast-time. This gives the person a zest for the morning meal.