Daily Training
BY
E. F. BENSON
and
EUSTACE H. MILES.
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & CO.
31, West Twenty-Third Street
1903{iv}
PRINTED BY
KELLY’S DIRECTORIES LTD.,
LONDON AND KINGSTON.{v}
P R E F A C E.
The following pages contain certain rules and suggestions concerninghealth, and certain simple and sensible ways in which it may, we hope,be acquired and maintained at a very small expense of time andself-denial, by a large number of people who are naturally accustomed tofeel not very well. The book is founded on notes made by its two authorswho, though they lead for the most part very different lives, are agreedon certain broad principles of health herein set forth. One of them, forinstance, eats largely of flesh-foods every day, the other has scarcelytouched meat for years. But both are accustomed to feel extremely welland to undertake considerable exertion either of mind or body withoutexperiencing any fatigue. One of them takes regular exercise, that is tosay he plays an out-door game on most days of his life, while the otherwho abstains from flesh-foods has little practice of the sort. He willtake no out-of-door exercise for several days, work very hard, and findhimself perfectly fit for some severe physical test at the end. But theyare both{vi} agreed that if the one abandoned flesh-foods (which he doesnot propose to do) he would cease to require regular exercise, and thatif the other took flesh-foods (which he does not propose to do) he wouldnot only be very ill, but would also require regular exercise. One againis seldom seen without some appliance of tobacco in his mouth, becausehe finds it agreeable and after an experiment of abstinence from itfound that it did not make any difference, as far as he could make out,in his general health. The other never smokes at all. One again takes acold bath in the morning, the other a hot one followed by cold sponging.
But both are absolutely in accord on far more main points than those onwhich their practice, at any rate, differs, and they have found itperfectly easy to write this book together without wrangling, on whichaccount they wish to express a pious hope that the very fact that theydiffer in so many things may have saved them from dogmatism. For it hashelped them to realize that even when they are agreed on any point itwould be a sheer stupidity to hint that they were therefore right, andin consequence they only put forward the points on which they are agreedas suggestions, hoping that others after trial may also agree with them.For universal laws on an empirical matter like health are rare, and theconstitutions of men are various. One ma{vii}n’s meat, in fact, is literallyanother man’s poison. But in the main the two authors are agr