misused stomachs into wholesome ways,
but if we are persistent and intelligent we can surely do it, and the
relief to the overstrained stomach--as I have said--means relief to the
whole body.

Resting before and after meals amounts to very little, however, if we
eat food that is not nourishing.

Some people are so far out of the normal way of eating that they have
lost a wholesome sense of what is good for them, and live in a chronic
state of disordered stomach, which means a chronic state of disordered
nerves and disposition. If such persons could for one minute literally
experience the freedom of a woman whose body was truly and thoroughly
nourished, the contrast from the abnormal to the normal would make them
dizzy. If, however, they stayed in the normal place long enough to get
over the dizziness, the freedom of health would be so great a delight
that food that was not nourishing would be nauseous to them.

Most of us are near enough the normal to know the food that is best for
us, through experience of suffering from food which is not best for us,
as well as through good natural instinct.

If we would learn from the normal working of the involuntary action of
our organs, it might help us greatly toward working more wholesomely in
all our voluntary actions.

If every woman who reads this article would study not to interfere with
the most healthy action of her own stomach, her reward after a few
weeks' persistent care would be not only a greater power for work, but
a greater power for good, healthy, recuperative rest.

CHAPTER XVIII

_About Faces_

WATCH the faces as you walk along the street! If you get the habit of
noticing, your observations will grow keener. It is surprising to see
how seldom we find a really quiet face. I do not mean that there should
be no lines in the face. We are here in this world at school and we
cannot have any real schooling unless we have real experiences. We
cannot have real experiences without suffering, and suffering which
comes from the discipline of life and results in character leaves lines
in our faces. It is the lines made by unnecessary strain to which I
refer.

Strange to say the unquiet faces come mostly from shallow feeling.
Usually the deeper the feeling the less strain there is on the face. A
face may look troubled, it may be full of pain, without a touch of that
strain which comes from shallow worry or excitement.

The strained expression takes charact