by Elsie Lincoln Benedict
Available in 98 free installments
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These thinkers have a difficult time of it. They preach to deaf ears. And often they die in poverty. But at last posterity comes around to their way of thinking, abandons the old ruts and follows the trails they have blazed. Therefore many great thinkers who were unknown while alive became famous after death. More often than not, "Fame is the food of the tomb."
¶ A wise man it was who said, "Let me see a man's surroundings and I will tell you what he is." The Cerebral does not really live in his house but in his head, and for that reason does not feel as great an urge to decorate, amplify or even furnish the place in which he dwells.
Step into the room of any little-bodied large-headed man and you will be struck by two facts?that he has fewer jimcracks and more journals lying around than the rest of your friends.
In the room of the Alimentive you will find cushions, sofas and "eats;" in that of the Thoracic you will find colorful, unusual things; the Muscular will have durable, solid, plain things; the Osseous will have fewer of everything but what he does have will be in order.
But the pure Cerebral's furnishings?if he is responsible for them?will be an indifferent array, with no two pieces matching. Furthermore, everything will be piled with newspapers, magazines, books and clippings.
¶ "The good die young" is an old saying which may or may not be true. But there is no doubt that the extreme Cerebral type of individual often dies at an early age.
The reason is clear. An efficient but controlled assimilative system is the first requisite for long life, and the pure Cerebral does not have an efficient one. Moreover, he is prone to neglect what nutritive mechanism he does have, by irregular eating, by being too poor to afford wholesome foods, and by forgetting to eat at all.
¶ By reason of his deficient physicality the Cerebral can not be said to possess any decided physical assets. But two tendencies which help decidedly to prolong life are under-eating and his refusal to dissipate.
It has been said many times by the best known experts that "more deaths are caused annually in America by over-eating than by any other two causes." Under-eating is a very necessary precaution but the Cerebral carries it too far.
The Cerebral, lacking a large alimentary system, is not tempted to overload his stomach or overtax his vital organs. And because he is a highly evolved type, possessing little of the instincts which are at the bottom of most dissipation, he is not addicted to late hours, wine, women or excitement.
¶ Nervous diseases of all kinds most frequently afflict this type. His nervous system is supersensitive. It breaks down more easily and more completely than that of the more elemental types, just as a high-powered car is more easily wrecked than a truck.
¶ "Highbrow" music is kept alive mostly by highbrows. While the other types cultivate a taste for grand opera or simulate it because it is supposedly proper, the Cerebral really enjoys it. In the top gallery at any good concert you will find many Cerebrals.
¶ The serious drama and educational lectures are other favorite entertainments of the Cerebral. He cares little for vaudeville, girl-shows, or clap-trap farces.
The kind of program that keeps the fat man's smile spread from ear to ear takes the Cerebral to the box office for his money.
¶ The Cerebral goes to the movies more than any other type save the fat man, but not for the same reasons. The large-brained, small-bodied man cares nothing for most of the recreations with which the other types amuse themselves, so the theater is almost his only diversion. It is oftentimes the only kind of entertainment within the reach of his purse; and it deals with many different subjects, in almost all of which the pure Cerebral has some interest.
¶ But if you will notice next time you go to a movie it will be clear to you that the fat people and the large-headed people do not laugh at the same things. The pie-throwing and Cutey Coquette that convulse the two-hundred-pounder fail to so much as turn up the corners of the other man's mouth.
