104

IX. The Secret of Content 112

I

MENTAL EFFICIENCY

THE APPEAL

If there is any virtue in advertisements--and a journalist should be
the last person to say that there is not--the American nation is
rapidly reaching a state of physical efficiency of which the world has
probably not seen the like since Sparta. In all the American
newspapers and all the American monthlies are innumerable illustrated
announcements of "physical-culture specialists," who guarantee to make
all the organs of the body perform their duties with the mighty
precision of a 60 h.p. motor-car that never breaks down. I saw a book
the other day written by one of these specialists, to show how perfect
health could be attained by devoting a quarter of an hour a day to
certain exercises. The advertisements multiply and increase in size.
They cost a great deal of money. Therefore they must bring in a great
deal of business. Therefore vast numbers of people must be worried
about the non-efficiency of their bodies, and on the way to achieve
efficiency. In our more modest British fashion, we have the same
phenomenon in England. And it is growing. Our muscles are growing
also. Surprise a man in his bedroom of a morning, and you will find
him lying on his back on the floor, or standing on his head, or
whirling clubs, in pursuit of physical efficiency. I remember that
once I "went in" for physical efficiency myself. I, too, lay on the
floor, my delicate epidermis separated from the carpet by only the
thinnest of garments, and I contorted myself according to the fifteen
diagrams of a large chart (believed to be the _magna charta_ of
physical efficiency) daily after shaving. In three weeks my collars
would not meet round my prize-fighter's neck; my hosier reaped immense
profits, and I came to the conclusion that I had carried physical
efficiency quite far enough.

A strange thing--was it not?--that I never had the idea of devoting a
quarter of an hour a day after shaving to the pursuit of mental
efficiency. The average body is a pretty complicated affair, sadly
out of order, but happily susceptible to culture. The average mind is
vastly more complicated, not less sadly out of order, but perhaps even
more susceptible to culture. We compare our arms to the arms of the
gentleman illustrated in the physical efficiency advertisement, and we
murmur to ourselves the classic phrase: "This will ne