How to live to be 200-Stephen Leacock

Osmania University I yr-Sem 3

Unit -2 Prose

 How to live to be 200

Stephen Leacock

Video Lesson

Summary:-

Stephen Butler Leacock(1869–1944) was born in England,  At the age of 6, he immigrated to Canada with his parents.His books Literary Lapses (1910) and Nonsense Novels (1911) are very popular. The present essay is from Literary Lapses

Stephen Leacock, a Canadian author, wrote this satirical and humorous essay. The writer brings out the follies, especially the young men of his time, who wanted to keep them fit and live long.The title is exaggerating. The writer makes fun of health maniacs and advises youth not to follow fitness freaks. 

The writer satirizes health freaks. He ridicules health habits and calls them maniacs. He elaborates on his views about health freaks, giving an example of Jiggins’ life. Jiggins represents many youth, who unnecessarily do excessive exercises to keep them fit. Jiggins wanted to live strong, healthy, and for a long time. He used to take a cold bath and a hot bath every morning, by which he could open and shut his skin pores. He used to breathe through an open window in order to expand his lungs as much as possible.He even does different kinds of exercises in his spare time. Despite his severe workouts and breathing exercises, he died at a young age. He dumb-belled  himself to death. Many young men are following his health habits. 

The youth wake up in the early hours to go for a marathon run before breakfast. The writer gives an elaborate description of young men's obsession with health exercises. They search for ozone and avoid meat because it contains too much nitrogen. They also do not eat fruit because it does not have nitrogen. They avoid some foods and drinks, stating various reasons. The writer comments that these young people are on the wrong track, and they do not live long.

 The writer advises the health maniacs to stop doing all this nonsense. Furthermore, he offers some insightful advice. He suggests we get up in the morning at our convenience. There isn't any ozone. If there is, buy a Thermos bottle full for five cents and put it on a shelf in the cupboard. 

 Leacock makes fun of cold-bathing because it's something we never did as boys. Instead of a cold bath, take one in warm water.

Next, the author discusses germs and bacteria. We shouldn't be scared of them, because they are not harmful. Then he gives a piece of advice on food. The author suggests that we should not avoid certain food items, citing health reasons. He suggests that we eat whatever we like, until we can't pay anymore. Leacock humorously presents his views, saying, There is no such thing as starch, albumen, gluten, or nitrogen. Even though we want to, we should go to the laundry and get a bag of starch, eat it, drink glue after it, and take a spoonful of Portland cement. That will make one feel healthy and solid.

 Leacock talks about fresh air and exercise. Unlike Jiggins, we should give some rest to our lungs. As long as we have others to play baseball for us, run races, and perform gymnastics while we watch the games in the shade, we shouldn't worry about exercising.

 How to Live to be 200 (americanliterature.com)

Audiobook. 

TEXT

Twenty years ago, I knew a man called Jiggins who had the Health Habit.

He used to take a cold plunge every morning. He said it opened his pores. After it he took a hot sponge. He said it closed the pores. He got so that he could open and shut his pores at will.

Jiggins used to stand and breathe at an open window for half an hour before dressing. He

said it expanded his lungs. He might, of course, have had it done in a shoe-store with a boot

stretcher, but after all it cost him nothing this way, and what is half an hour?

After he had got his undershirt on, Jiggins used to hitch himself up like a dog in harness and do Sandow exercises. He did them forwards, backwards, and hind-side up.

He could have got a job as a dog anywhere. He spent all his time at this kind of thing. In his spare time at the office, he used to lie on his stomach on the floor and see if he could lift himself up with his knuckles. If he could, then he tried some other way until he found one that he couldn't do. Then he would spend the rest of his lunch hour on his stomach, perfectly happy.

In the evenings in his room, he used to lift iron bars, cannon-balls, heave dumb-bells, and haul himself up to the ceiling with his teeth. You could hear the thumps half a mile. He liked it.

He spent half the night slinging himself around his room. He said it made his brain clear. When he got his brain perfectly clear, he went to bed and slept. As soon as he woke, he began clearing it again.

Jiggins is dead. He was, of course, a pioneer, but the fact that he dumb-belled himself to death at an early age does not prevent a whole generation of young men from following in his path.

They are ridden by the Health Mania.

They make themselves a nuisance.

They get up at impossible hours. They go out in silly little suits and run marathon heats be- fore breakfast. They chase around barefoot to get the dew on their feet. They hunt for ozone. They bother about pepsin. They won't eat meat because it has too much nitrogen. They won't

eat fruit because it hasn't any. They prefer albumen and starch and nitrogen to huckleberry pie and doughnuts. They won't drink water out of a tap. They won't eat sardines out of a can. They won't use oysters out of a pail. They won't drink milk out of a glass. They are afraid of alcohol in any shape. Yes, sir, afraid. 'Cowards'

And after all their fuss they presently incur some simple old-fashioned illness and die anybody else.

Now people of this sort have no chance to attain any great age. They are on wrong track.

Listen. Do you want to live to be really old, to enjoy a grand, green, exuberant, boastful age and to make yourself a nuisance to your whole neighbourhood with your reminiscenc

Then cut out all this nonsense. Cut it out. Get up in the morning at a sensible hour time to get up is when you have to, not before. If your office opens at eleven, get up at ten- ty. Take your chance on ozone. There isn't any such thing anyway. Or, if there is, you can buy Thermos bottle full for five cents, and put it on a shelf in your cupboard. If your work beg at seven in the morning, get up at ten minutes to, but don't be liar enough to say that you it. It isn't exhilarating, and you know it. Also, drop all that cold-bath business. You never did it when you were a boy. Don't be

fool now. If you must take a bath (you don't really need to), take it warm. The pleasure of an

ting out of a cold bed and creeping into a hot bath beats a cold plunge to death. In any cas

stop gassing about your tub and your 'shower', as if you were the only man who ever washed

So much for that point. Next, take the question of germs and bacilli. Don't be scared of them. That's all. That's th whole thing, and if you once get on to that you never need to worry again.

If you see a bacilli, walk right up to it, and look it in the eye. If one flies into your room strike at it with your hat or with a towel. Hit it as hard as you can between the neck and the thorax. It will soon get sick of that.

But as a matter of fact, a bacilli is perfectly quiet and harmless if you are not afraid of t Speak to it. Call out to it to 'lie down. It will understand. I had a bacilli once, called Fido, the would come and lie at my feet while I was working. I never knew a more affectionate com panion, and when it was run over by an automobile, I buried it in the garden with genu

sorrow.

(I admit this is an exaggeration. I don't really remember its name; it may ha been Robert.)

Understand that it is only a fad of modern medicine to say that cholera and typhoid diphtheria are caused by bacilli and germs; nonsense. Cholera is caused by a frightful pain the stomach, and diphtheria is caused by trying to cure a sore throat. Now take the question of food.

Eat what you want. Eat lots of it. Yes, eat too much of it. Eat till you can just stagger ac the room with it and prop it up against a sofa cushion. Eat everything that you like until can't eat any more. The only test is, can you pay for it? If you can't pay for it, don't eat it. A listen-don't worry as to whether your food contains starch, or albumen, or gluten, or trogen. If you are a damn fool enough to want these things, go and buy them and eat all want of them. Go to a laundry and get a bag of starch, and eat your fill of it. Eat it, and take INSPIRING ENGLISH

a good long drink of glue after it, and a spoonful of Portland cement. That will gluten you, good and solid.

If you like nitrogen, go and get a druggist to give you a canful of it at the soda counter, and let you sip it with a straw. Only don't think that you can mix all these things up with your food. There isn't any nitrogen or phosphorus or albumen in ordinary things to eat. In any decent household all that sort of stuff is washed out in the kitchen sink before the food is put on the table.

And just one word about fresh air and exercise. Don't bother with either of them. Get your room full of good air, then shut up the windows and keep it. It will keep for years. Anyway, don't keep using your lungs all the time. Let them rest. As for exercise, if you have to take it, take it and put up with it. But as long as you have the price of a hack and can hire other people to play baseball for you and run races and do gymnastics when you sit in the shade and smoke and watch them-great heavens, what more do you want?

POST-READING QUESTIONS

Leacock describes Jiggins as a 'maniac'-an obsessed person.

1. Why, do you think, people become obsessed about something?

2. Apart from one's health, what other things can people become obsessed about?

3. Are obsessions always bad?

GLOSSARY

plunge:-a quick dip or swim

boot stretcher :- a device used to stretch a leather shoe to make it comfortable

hitch up in harness :-to tie (an animal) to a vehicle by using a hook, rope or strap

Sandow exercises:- bodybuilding exercises (a reference to Eugen Sandow, who popularised bodybuilding in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries)

hind:- located at the back

haul:-to pull with great effort

thump:- the sound of a heavy body hitting a surface

sling:-to hang freely or to make something swing

pioneer :-the first person to do (or develop, or use, or discover) something

mania:- obsession; excessive enthusiasm for something

nuisance:-someone or something that causes annoyance or inconvenience. 

impossible :- (here) annoying or difficult to deal with

heats :-a preliminary race which shortlists those who will compete in the main event

ozone:- (here) clean and pleasant air

pepsin:-a digestive enzyme in the stomach

albumen :- the white part of an egg