I

N our father's time long hours of hard work and close attention to business was the keynote of success. They worked and worked in a slow, plodding manner, and in the end retired with nerves unshattered and health unimpaired.

To-day things are different. We are living in the age of speed, the mile-a-minute life. In the words of Dr. Eugene Lyman Fisk, head of the Life Extension Institute, "We Americans are rushing madly toward the grave, flogging ourselves with stimulants as we gallop through life." Success comes only to those who can endure the terrific nerve tension of modern business methods, and most men who retire after having achieved success have not enough vitality and nerve force left to enjoy the fruits of their years of labor and nerve strain. In other words, the main requirement of success to-day is abundant nerve force.

In his

This, in brief, is the opinion of Paul von Boeckmann, who has devoted more than twenty-five years to the study of nerve strain and its evil consequences. writings and lectures on health he emphasizes the dangers of our present-day nerve wrecking mode of living.

This man, who has analyzed the cause of nervous prostration in over 300,000 people, told the writer at his office, 110 West Fortieth Street, "People do not realize that there is a limit to the strain the nerves can endure. The vital organs can produce just so much nerve force and no more. If we expend this precious nerve force more rapidly than it is accumulated, we become nerve bankrupts-neurasthenics.

"The great war proved how very sensitive our nerves are to mental strain. One-third of all the hospital cases were nerve cases. The strongest men, after a few days of exposure at the front, were semi-paralyzed so that they could not eat, sleep, and in many cases, even stand or speak; thousands lost their reason. Over 135 cases from New York alone are now in asylums for the insane."

The writer asked Mr. von Boeckmann whether he was immune to nerve strain himself, since he teaches nerve culture and is known to be one of the strongest men in the world to-day. "No," he replied. "Some years ago I tried to crowd ten years of work into one, and my nerves failed me. To-day, of course, my nerves are normal again, and I shall never again have to suffer the tortures which come from nerve exhaustion. No one, who has not had deranged nerves, can understand the meaning of it. it is hell, that's all. At first you are afraid you will die, and then you are afraid that you will not die. A sickening sensation of fear creeps upon

to lag in their activity, the most common symptoms being digestive disturbances, deranged blood circulation, high and low blood pressure; and, in the more advanced stages, serious organic disturbances are manifested, and most distressing mental strains show this in, for instance, undue fears, sleeplessness, melancholia, inability to concentrate; and the final breakdown may lead to insanity.

"Of course, all this is not new. Every physician will tell you that most of his patients owe their ailments to nerve exhaustion, either directly or indirectly. I agree fully with Dr. Alfred T. Schofield, the noted British authority on the nerves, who says, 'It is my belief that the greatest

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single factor in the maintenance of health is that the nerves be in order.'

"Years ago I applied only physical methods in building up 'run-down' men and women. To-day I concentrate upon the nerves and mind, employing perhaps only 10 per cent physical methods, and as a result I am successful in practically every case."

When asked to cite examples of how people overtax their nerves, Mr. von Boeckmann said: "That is difficult to explain in a few words. Briefly, men strain their nerves through worry in business, excessive mental concentration, anger, excitement and so forth. Of course, excesses and vices of various kinds are often the direct cause. Women, on the other hand, strain their nerves through the emotions, although they, too, have worries over economical problems. Many people are born with supersensitive nerves which fly to pieces under the slightest strain."

Mr. von Boeckmann informed the writer that far over a million of his various books had been sold and that he had given over 100,000 courses of instruction during the last twenty-five years. His pupils or patients included many of the foremost American physicians, statesmen, business men, college professors and ministers of national renown. His clientele is found mainly among people who are naturally high strung and people with over-active brains, who do not know that there is a limit to their reserve of nerve force.

Mr. von Boeckmann concluded: "I would say, as general advice to all business men (in fact, to every man and woman): Rest and relax whenever you can. Do what you must do, and do that well, but do not waste your nerve force in directions that are not necessary, applying it to affairs and persons that do not directly concern you. Help others, yes, but do not wreck your own health in doing so. Many people must be made to change their entire outlook of life in order to avoid nerve strain. That is an important part of my system of instruction."

Note: Mr. von Boeckmann publishes a 64page book entitled "Nerve Force," a book that is essentially intended to teach how to care for the nerves and how to apply simple methods for their restoration. The cost is only 25c, coin or stamps, and will be mailed under plain cover by addressing him at Studio 335, 110 West 40th St., New York, N. Y. This book is not an advertisement. The facts presented will prove a revelation to you, and the advice will be of incalculable value, whether you have had trouble with your nerves or not.

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GE

ERTRUDE M. RIDGWAY, of Birmingham, England, admits that from her early school days she preferred to haunt the old book-shops than to study or to play. At the age of seventeen her ambition was to write the history of the world through the medium of literature. Since

that time she has written more or less regularly for syndicates and magazines both in England and in this country. For the past four years in New York she has devoted her time to the more techni

cal side of literature, namely, the study of bibliography.

R

New York newsOBERT J. COLE is paper man. A graduate of Columbia University, where he specialized in literature and art, he was for a while associated with the publicity work of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway. Later he served as art critic of the New York "Evening Sun," and then became literary editor of the New York "Herald." Lately he has been "free-lancing" in his specialties. To our great regret we have learned that Mr. Cole was dangerously injured by an automobile soon after he finished the appreciation of the work of George W. Bellows which we publish in this issue.

Poe in Philadelphia

THE following narrative is sent to The

Outlook by Mary Bartlett Harris, sister of the narrator. Both have been

in times past contributors to this journal. She accompanies the article with the following explanation of the way in which it came to be written: "My sister and I had some English friends who were living in Philadelphia at the time Poe was, and they (the daughters) belonged to a society that helped needy persons, and one day they told my sister about Poe, 'poor Edgar Poe,' and she took down what they said, and at her death it came into my possession, and now that there is so much said about Poe, I think it is a good time to publish it."

Roxbury, January 16, 1852. Anna and Bessie Pedder have this afternoon been telling me about Poepoor Edgar Poe and his beautiful wife. Anna said "the first knowledge of Poe was through the Ladies Repository at Philadelphia-an association of which there were sixteen ladies as managers. It was calculated, not for the poorer or middling classes, but for those who had been accustomed to luxury, wealth, and refinement, and who were forced to part with articles. By depositing them there we understood at once that they were in need of necessaries, and the ladies gave them assistance immediately on the case being represented to them. We both had the care of the repository at the time, and the first that we knew of them was by Mrs. Clemon, the mother of Mrs. Poe, depositing there a silver pencil, a