I would come, in these pages, as the glorious sun, bringing warmth, healing, and purification. I would come as the stimulating breeze that vivifies and refreshes—the breeze that has its birth on the vast Pacific where all impurities are scrubbed out of it in a thousand miles of storms, then floats gently over the orange and lemon groves, the rose gardens and violet beds, the sweet scented blossoms of ten thousand times ten thousand shrubs of California; then, laden with sweet odors and charged with the bromine and ozone of the ocean, climbs over the steep Sierran heights and becomes cool and filtered through the vast pine and juniper forests, and adds the balsams of health and strength, distilled from a million trees and shrubs, ere it falls to the desert and is there rendered aseptic and antiseptic. Like such a health-laden breeze would I come to weary men and women, tired and exhausted with the battle of life, sick of its complexities and frivolities, longing for spiritual as well as physical health, and seeking the happiness that comes alone when we live for the happiness of others.
My desire is to send forth a message that will bless body, mind, and soul, just as a triple song, whose melodies blend in perfect harmony, carries healing, strength, and inspiration. For he indeed is thrice blessed who knows the joy of life in its threefold manifestation, who has a body that is vigorous and healthy, a mind alert and active, quick to observe and reflect, to discern and classify, and a soul whose emotions and aspirations are ever to help, encourage, comfort, and purify humanity.
The conditions for such a life are in the "Everywhere" waiting to be born into the "Here," and God's time is now.
Many of these chapters originally appeared in the pages of Physical Culture Magazine, and to my good friends, its editor and founder, Bernarr Macfadden, and the present editor, John Brennan, I tender my cordial thanks for the privilege of reprinting which they have generously accorded.
George Wharton James
Pasadena, Calif.
PRAYER
OH, ALMIGHTY GOD, Thou radiant source of all power, life and love, Thou free giver of sun and earth, clouds and wind, flowers and trees, fruits and birds, bees and butterflies, work and play, tenderness and unselfishness, sympathy and love, so fill us with Thyself that we shall become radiant beings like Thyself. Make us innocent as little children, simple as the young animals of the hills and fields, beautiful in soul as are the flowers, heaven-aspiring as are the trees, soothing as are the gentle breezes of night, warming as is the sun, fluid to meet all needs as water, restful as night, eager for work as the dawn, joyous in all life as the birds, and thankful for labor as the busy bees. Give us the needy to bless, the loveless to love, the sinful to stimulate and encourage to goodness, purity, and truth, the orphan to father, the degraded to uplift, and at the same time the wise to be our teachers and the serene to lead us into peace. Be Thou our Constant Vision, longing and aspiration—nay, be Thou our never-failing companion, counselor and friend. So shall we become radiant, true children of Thine, possessed of Thy likeness and radiating the glory and beauty of Thyself.
—Amen.
LIVING THE RADIANT LIFE
CHAPTER I
THE RADIANCIES OF NATURE
Everything in Nature is radiant. Use the term in its broad sense and there is nothing to which it does not apply. The sun radiates light and heat, and without it life would be impossible. The moon radiates light, but practically no heat. Its light is reflected and of an entirely different character from that of the sun, so that no one ever mistakes the one for the other. The stars have a light all their own which they, though so many millions of miles away from us, radiate in varying intensities. And many of these stars are so individualistic in their radiancies that each one, though perfect, is different from each other one, and may readily be detected by its own peculiarities. Every flower that grows, from the night-blooming cereus on the desert to the most perfect amaryllis developed by Burbank, radiates its own colors, odors, and general appearance. One familiar with them may close his eyes and detect in a moment, by the odor of each—the violet, rose, lily, cosmos, verbena, and a thousand others, and there are those whose olfactory nerves are highly sensitive who can discern, by smell alone, the varieties of each flower.
Every species of tree radiates its own qualities, so that, to the student, they become growingly wonderful in what they give out. A distinguished botanist whom I know is so familiar with the radiancies of the various pines of the Pacific Slope that he can sketch and perfectly describe the complete tree as soon as he sees the cone, or, blindfolded, smells its odor.
Every rock has its own radiancies of color, texture, weight, and density. One of John Ruskin's most useful and beautiful books is his Ethics of the Dust, and those who have not read it should do so to understand how many things a wise and good man has felt radiated from the rocks.
Shakspere felt the potency of this truth or he would never have written that he saw "tongues in trees; books in the running brooks; sermons in stones, and good in everything."
Every landscape radiates its own personality. Some are quietly pastoral, as the valleys in Connecticut. The prairies of Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska are wide and impressive; the wastes of the Colorado Desert are vast and appalling; the varied colorings of the Painted Desert are weird and startling. The orange, lemon, and other orchards of Southern California delight the senses, the forests of the north and the High Sierras stir the soul by their expansiveness, and the groves of Big Trees overpower by their height and size. The ocean is restless and resistless; the stars pitiless at times, soothing at others. Each scene, whether pastoral, picturesque, wild, rugged, grand, or weird, has its peculiar radiancies, and some scenes possess many qualities, all of which are felt or perceived by the sensitive onlooker. For instance, as one stands on the rim of the Grand Canyon he feels the radiancies of overwhelming vastness, profound depth, far-reaching length, expansive width, vivid and extraordinary coloring, bizarre and strange carvings, and, in the lower depths of the Inner Gorge, where flows the solemn and sullen Colorado, a strangeness and mystery found nowhere else in the known world.
In his Kreutzer Sonata, Tolstoi contends that certain music radiates damning influences, and though I do not agree with him (perhaps because I have never felt or seen such evil), his attitude of mind serves as a further illustration of my proposition. We all are aware of certain radiancies of certain kinds of music, even though unaccompanied with words. The Dead March in Saul; the Threnody in Bach's Passion Music; the Death of the King in Grieg's Peer Gynt, and Chopin's Funeral March, all radiate the solemnity and sadness of death, while Sousa's various marches, Chopin's March Militaire, and a hundred other similar compositions radiate the arousement either of active life or passionate war. The Glorias of Mozart and Pergolesi, and Handel's Hallelujah Chorus speak—even though the words are unheard—of the joy of the world at the Savior's birth, and the Requiems of Verdi, Bach, and Gounod of the sadness of soul felt at His cruel death.
Every picture radiates the spirit of its artist at the period of creation, and every piece of music the influences that overpower the soul of the composer; and even every piece of furniture radiates to some extent the spirit of the age in which it was created, or the animating spirit of its creator.
It should not be overlooked that, although these radiant properties are possessed for all persons alike, they are not discerned by all alike. All people are not equally receptive, equally sensitive, equally apperceptive. Human beings are like