BRAIN FOOD.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3538, 28 April 1880, Page 2

BRAIN FOOD.

Authors, says a smart literary man, do not diet themselves properly, I am convinced. The quality of a man's work^ dopends to. a great extent upon what h** 1 feeds on at the time-he is doing it. After years of study devoted to the subject, I have ascertained that the the rery boat incentive to brain work is fish.. But let not the reader run away with the idea that any fish will do for any work. On the contrary, a poem written on codfish and oyster sauce might ba excellent, .a sermon written on the same would be idiotic. If you wish to write a good drama, turbot is the best fish; for poetical work, comic, sprats; serious, codfish and oyster sauce; for a romantic story, boiled soles; for a leading article, whelks; for sermons, periwinkles. For writing essays upon pure or applied sciences I have always found bloaters the best food. No man could do anything on salmon, unless it were to make his will or write an action* able letter to his enemy. It will be remembered that Mark Twain shares the well-established belief that fish is good for literary men. In replying to a young author who had forwarded him some M.SS. for publication, he informs the latter that " a couple of small whales would do him for the present/

The longest sentence on record was pronounced by a Western judge. He sentenced a murderer to imprisonment for life, and afterwards added two more lyears to the sentence because the prisoner called him no gentlemau.

Good humor is rightly reckoned a most valuable aid to a happy home life. An equally good and useful faculty is a sonse of humor, or the capacity to have a little fun along with the humdrum • cares and work of life. We all know how it brightens up things generally to have a lively, witty companion, wlio sees the ridiculous points of things, and who can turn, an annoyance into a fit of laughter. It does a groat deal better to laugh over some domestic mishaps than to scold or cry over them. Many homes and lives are dull berause they are allowed to become too deeply impressed with a sense of the cares and responsilities of life to recognise ils bright and mirthful side. Into such a household, good, but dull, the advent of a witty, humorous friend is like sunshine on a cloudy d y.