How to Add Ten Years to Your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions

189 Pages·2010·0.58 MB·English

by  S. S. Curry

HOW TO ADD TEN YEARS
TO YOUR LIFE AND TO
DOUBLE ITS
SATISFACTIONS
* * *
S. S. CURRY
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*
How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its
Satisfactions
From a 1915 edition.
ISBN 978-1-775410-39-3
© 2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.
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Contents
*
Why and Wherefore
I - Significance of Morning
II - Supposed Secrets of Health and Long Life
III - What is an Exercise?
IV - Program of Exercises
V - How to Practice the Exercises
VI - Actions of Every-Day Life
VII - Work and Play
VIII - Significance of Night and Sleep
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*
Can you wake as wake the birds?
In their joy and singing share?
Stretch your limbs as do the herds,
And drink as deep the morning air?
Quick as larks on upward wing,
Can you shun the demon's wiles,
Promptly as the robins sing,
Can you change all frowns to smiles?
Can you spurn fear's coward whine,
Meet each day with joyous song?
Then will angels guard your shrine,
Joys be deep and life be long.
To Those Who Loyally Responded to The Dream And to
Those Who By Thought, Word or Act Will Aid The
School of Expression To Perform Its Important Function
In Education.
QUI TRANSTULIT SUSTINET
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As ancient exile at the close of day,
Paused on his country's farthest hills to
view
Those valleys sinking in the distant blue
Where all the joys and hopes of childhood
lay;
So now across the years our thoughts will
stray
To those whose hearts were ever brave
and true,
Who gave the hope and faith from which
we drew
The strength to climb thus far upon our
way.
As he amid the rocks and twilight gray,
Saw rocks and steeps transform to stairs,
and knew
He wandered not alone; so may we too
See this, our tentless crag where wild
winds play
A Bethel rise, and we here wake to know
That down and upward angels come and
go.
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Why and Wherefore
*
When over eighty years of age, the poet Bryant said that
he had added more than ten years to his life by taking a
simple exercise while dressing in the morning. Those
who knew Bryant and the facts of his life never doubted
the truth of this statement.
I have made inquiries lately among men who are eighty
years of age, as to their method of waking up. Almost
without exception, I find that they have been in the habit
of taking simple exercise upon rising and also before
retiring.
While studying voice in Paris, over thirty years ago, my
teacher was so busy that he had to take me before
breakfast at an hour which, to a Parisian, was a very
early one.
"Vocal exercises may be more difficult at this time," he
said, "but it is the best time. If we can start the day with
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the right exercise of the voice, the use of it all through
the day will be additional right practice."
Later, when I studied with the elder Lamperti in Italy, I
requested and secured an early hour in the morning for
my lessons.
In teaching I have always urged students to take their
exercises the first thing in the morning. Those who have
taken my advice have later been grateful for the
suggestion.
If my own morning exercises are neglected, I feel as if I
had missed a meal or had lost much sleep. I was never
what is called physically strong; in fact, physicians have
continually prophesied my downfall, yet all my life I
have performed about three men's work, and by the use
of a few exercises have probably doubled the length of
my life.
The subject of human development has always been of
great interest to me. I have tried to investigate the various
systems of gymnastics in all countries; and, teaching, as I
have, about ten thousand the use of the voice and body in
expression, I have studied training from a different point
of view from that of most men.
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I have discovered that the voice cannot be adequately
trained without also improving the body; that the
improvement of the voice can be doubly accelerated if
the body is considered a factor.
I have also found, what is more important, that true
exercises are all mental and emotional and not physical,
and that both body and voice can never be truly
improved except by right thinking and feeling.
I, therefore, long ago came to certain conclusions which
are not in accordance with common views. My
convictions, however, have been the result, not only of
experience, but of wide study and investigation.
This book embodies a few points about health; without
going deeply into the principles involved, a short
programme is given, the practice of which has already
accomplished marvelous results. The book embodies my
own experiences, and obeys the scientific principles
involved in training.
It is meant to be a guide for home study and practice.
The principles are applicable to everyone. It requires at
first, patience, perseverance, and resolution at that
moment in the day when we are most liable to be
indifferent and negative, if not irresolute and
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discouraged. Whoever resolutely undertakes to obey the
suggestions will never regret doing so. In fact, it is not
too much to claim that he will not only lengthen his life
but double its satisfactions.
Every reader of the book is requested to become a
member of the Morning League, and whosoever does so
and makes a report or writes to me fully about special
weaknesses, habits, "besetting sins," or conditions will
receive a letter of suggestions.
This book and its companion, "The Smile," are published
as a part of the great work undertaken by the friends of
the School of Expression; the net receipts from the sale
will go to the Endowment Fund of the institution.
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