No System At All To The Human System

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Title:     No System At All To The Human System
Author: Robert Cortes Holliday [More Titles by Holliday]

I think I'll tell you about myself. Maybe it's the same way with you. Anyhow, it's a mighty queer thing. And we ought to try to get some light on the matter--why there is, apparently, no reason or logic at all about our systems.

You see, I go along a pretty fair amount of the time feeling all right; nothing wrong with my system; nothing, at any rate, that I can notice. Everybody says: "How well you're looking! Great color, you've got." And so on.

Then, maybe, I see in the paper that there is an epidemic scheduled to devastate the city pretty soon. This news lays hold of me right off. The paper goes on to say that it behooves all citizens to take thought to fortify their systems against the ravages of this terrible disease which is rapidly approaching.

Or I read, say, that Thrift Week was such an enormous success (for everybody else) that a campaign is under way to inaugurate a Health Week, which (I read) will greatly reduce the mortality in the community. The way to reduce my own mortality (I read with considerable attention) is for me to Stop, Look and Listen in the matter of my health. And To Do It Now! I don't like those profane words, like mortality. They disturb me. And occasionally get me into no end of trouble--as you'll see.

Or, perhaps, I notice around in cars and places an unusual number of advertisements instructing you what firm to consult in order to "safeguard the interests of your heirs." A died (one of these cards may say) and left his estate to B, his widow, naming C as executor. C died suddenly shortly afterward. B (the widow) met E, with oil lands in Hawaii--and so on. The advertisement winds up: Are you A?

Not yet; I'm not! But I'd better watch out. I know this is a good advertisement because it gets into my mind the way it does.

Or, again, perhaps there are just a number of little things that I come across. A gentleman one day tells me at luncheon, we'll say, that he can't drink tea because it gives him uric acid so bad. Good gracious! And I (maybe) subject to uric acid!

An octogenarian (we'll suppose) is interviewed. He attributes his longevity to abstemiousness in the use of inexpensive cigarettes. (I at once put mine out.)

A chemist (very likely) gets a lot of publicity by declaring that you are to Look Before You Leap in the matter of drinking water. (And but the night before I drank from the spout in the kitchen!) And so on. Well, things such as these set one to thinking.

I say to myself when I get that way (to thinking, I mean) a stitch in time saves nine; there's no loss so bad as the loss of your health, because if you have that you can obtain aught else; a word to the wise is sufficient; make hay while the sun shines; little drops of water wear away the stone; take heed for the morrow while it is yet May; be not like unto the foolish virgin who spilt the beans. And many other things of this kind, which (doubtless in wise measure) are both good and true.

Well, in short, I determine to "build up," to get myself in thoroughly "good shape."

I swear off smoking. I put away the home brew. I do not eat fresh bread. I procure myself overshoes against the rain. I rise with the lark. I (religiously eating an apple first) go to bed betimes. I walk so many miles a day--also skip a rope. I shun all delicacies of the table. I take those horrid extra cold baths, for the circulation. I do "deep breathing." I "relax" for twelve minutes each day. I shun the death-dealing demon "worry." I "fix my mind on cheerful thoughts." I "take up a hobby," philately, or something like that. I eat the skins of potatoes. I watch the thermometer at the office, and monkey continually with the steam radiator. Everything like that.

When you undertake a thing (even if it's only shelling peas) be thorough in it, that's my motto. I don't, indeed, in this regimen get much work done, but it's better to be slow and sure.

Well, what happens?

When I set out to build up this is what happens to me: First thing, maybe, I get pimples. No; no maybe about it. I sure get pimples. Then, very likely, I get a carbuncle. (I have just asked my assistant how you spell that word. She inquires if I mean the gem, or--or the other. I have told her I mean the other.)

Next, very probably, I "contract" (as they say) a cough. This cough "develops" into a cold.... You have (I trust) had that sort of cold which hangs on for months. Nothing recommended is of any help to you. You become resigned (more or less) to the idea--just as a man who has lost a leg (or his mind) must resolve to do the best he can with the rest of his life without his leg (or his mind), so must you adapt yourself to the stern condition imposed by Fate of always having a cold. That's the kind of a cold I mean that I get. (Only worse!)

My cold branches out into several little side lines, such as acute neuralgia and inflammatory rheumatism. Stiff joints impede my agility in getting down the hill to my morning train to the city. I slip on the ice and break my glasses.

Not having my glasses causes me at the office to greet Mr. Sloover as Mr. Rundle, and this sort of error breathes a chill upon the nice nuances of business.

Or in my personal correspondence (if I were that kind of a person) I might put my letter for Penelope into the envelope for Pauline. This, when I had discovered the calamity, would doubtless perturb my thoughts. My thoughts being perturbed, I might walk out of the restaurant without my change of three dollars and eighty cents. Thoroughly upset by now, I walk under a ladder. Realizing that I have done this, my nervousness is the occasion of my dropping my watch. Enough! I recognize that there is no use in my going back to the office that afternoon. I telephone in that I have gone home to bed with my cold.

On coming out of the cigar store where the telephone booth is, I see Christopher Morley, Don Marquis and Franklin P. Adams walking down the street arm in arm. (I can see very little without my glasses, but well enough to recognize such a spectacle as that.) Something, I say, must be on. And I cheer up considerably. Some cheering up certainly is just what I need. I overhaul the company. And I ask it (the company) where it is bound. It says: "For 'Mecca.' Come along." Don hands me a pocket flask (largely empty), Chris presents me with a large green cigar, and Frank gives me a match. It is agreed that we roll a little pool for a few hours while waiting for the cab.

Well, you see, I've been led to abandon the idea of building up my health--but I don't care, one may as well die happy.

I have a great time at that show. (My cold is immensely better.) I fix on one eye-glass so as to see something desirable. And I cut up a lot.

But--when we turn to leave I discover the president of my company going out just ahead of me. Well, I suppose I'll have to take what is coming to me tomorrow.

That one good meal, anyhow (after the pool), has strengthened my spirit immensely. I plan to have a regular, genuine breakfast in the morning. The kind I used to enjoy before I started in to get myself in fine shape. A breakfast of sliced pineapple, eggs, steak, fried potatoes, cottage-cheese, hot rolls, and two pots of good strong coffee. A pipe afterward.

When I get out to the house I find that my uncle (from whom I had been estranged for years) has died, and left me his fine, ninety carat, forty jewel, repeater watch.

I wake up bursting with joyous life. The girl tells me that those especially handsome glasses I lost last New Year's Eve have been found. Down at the station the station-master comes out to greet me. He says so many people have slipped on our hill that next week the railroad is going to install a free coach service. I see by the morning paper that the horse I took a twelve to one shot on in the Buenos Aires derby came out the length of the stretch to the good. On the train into town I smoke a couple of packages of cigarettes--as I become a bit bothered about the situation at the office.

A girder, or something, had fallen across the track. The train is held up. For a couple of hours it stands there. I become more than decidedly nervous. Now this is awful bad doings. Everything had been coming so right again. It seems as if there is no reward in this world for anything. Here for a whole month or so I had been subjecting myself to the most rigorous and unpleasant kind of discipline solely in order to make myself more efficient in my work, and so more valuable to the house. Nothing else. Then by an accident I am kept away from the office one afternoon, and this has to go and happen just to keep me away probably the whole of the forenoon. Everything will, of course, be misunderstood and misinterpreted. Instead of getting just credit for what I've done, I'll probably get bounced. If anyone wants to have the moral of this story pointed out to him: it is that there is not much use in trying, you can see that.

When I do get to the office my secretary is in quite a flurry. She tells me that Mr. Equity, the president, has been inquiring for me. In fact--she hesitates--wants me to step in to see him as soon as I arrive.

So, there you are!

Mr. Equity (a most unusual thing in any circumstances) shakes my hand with great cordiality. He smiles, not benignantly but rather deferentially. Says that he has recognized for some little time that I have not had a salary commensurate with my services. Times, however, are not of the best. Would I be willing to continue with the firm at--a pause--well, double my present salary? Everything, he adds, would be made as pleasant for me as possible.

His secretary whispers to me in an outer office: "He has been so flustered. He was scared you weren't ever coming back."

I discussed this matter of the strange workings of the human system with a friend of mine outside the office. "Ah!" he said, "you didn't persevere long enough in looking after yourself. If you had kept it up for a year instead of only a month, you'd be a well man today. And," he added seriously, "a successful man, too."

[The end]
Robert Cortes Holliday's essay: No System At All To The Human System

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