How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions | Page 2

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 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.

HOW TO ADD TEN YEARS TO YOUR LIFE

I
SIGNIFICANCE OF MORNING
"The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in his heaven-- All's right with the world!"
Song from "Pippa Passes" Robert Browning
Browning's "Pippa Passes" is a parable or allegory of human life.
Though called a drama by its author, it embodies, like all plays of the highest type, other than dramatic elements. In exalted poetry the allegoric, lyric, epic and dramatic seem to be blended. An effort to separate them often seems academic and mechanical.
Pippa, a poor little silk-winding girl, who has never known father or mother, opens the poem. It is the early morning and she wakes with joyous anticipation of her holiday, her only one. She goes forth, and we hear her singing and we see her influencing, from her humble position in the background, "Asolo's four happiest ones," who are brought by the action of the drama into the foreground.
Her character and that of the other persons of the play are well-defined; but the real theme of the poem is the unconscious influence that she exerts upon others. The primary element of dramatic art is the meeting of people and the influence they exert upon each other. There is no direct influence seemingly exerted upon Pippa herself save at one point and even that is scarcely a conscious one.
We feel that she is a type of the human soul. Specific scenes, though intensely dramatic, are entirely separated from one another.
Accordingly if it is a drama, it is a drama of an unusual type. It regards the events of only one day; still that day is not literal; it is a symbol of the life of everyone. It is New Year's Day, but every day is the beginning of a new year. It is a holiday, yet all life, when normally lived, is dominated by love and sympathetic service, and is full of happiness.
Pippa sings as everyone should sing with the spirit of thanksgiving and love. She welcomes the day with joy as everyone should welcome life and its opportunities. She lies down to sleep at night, as we all do; her sun drops into a "black cloud" and she knows nothing of what she has really accomplished or of the revelation that is coming on the morrow.
Moreover, observe that the link of unity in the play is found in the songs of Pippa. One might easily conceive her beautiful character as embodying the very soul of lyric poetry. Hence, in reading the poem, we are impressed from the first with allegoric, lyric and epic, as well as dramatic elements.
Observe more closely her awakening. Note the beautiful description, the gradually lengthening lines, indicative of the coming morning. [See page 16.]
She expresses joy as she meditates over her New Year's hymn. Into this devotional lyric Browning has breathed the spirit of all true life and service.
"Now wait!--even I already seem to share In God's love: what does New-year's hymn declare? What other meaning do these verses bear?
All service ranks the same with God: If now, as formerly he trod Paradise, his presence fills Our