Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/139

 for life, purchasing into the bargain independence of character and health.

Sir Henry Thomson goes so far as to say that "our eating is more injurious than our drinking", and who does not know that we are more apt to over-eat than under-eat? To carry out what has been mapped out above, nothing but a stern will is required. Given that one thing, the way is smooth. A little experience will accustom you to that mode of life. "Adopt that course of life which is best and custom will render it delightful." I cannot do better than close this chapter with the following lines from Dr. Nichol's How to Live on Six Pence a Day:

The case of Louis Cornaro so often quoted is a very remarkable instance of the effects of a very temperate and simple diet in producing health, cheerfulness and longevity. At the age of 40, his constitution seemed ruined by what is called free living. He changed all his habits and lived on 12 ounces of food a day and his health became so perfect that for half a century he was never ill. When past ninety, in deference to his friends, he increased his food to 14 ounces a day instead of 12 and this trifling addition nearly cost him his life. He became sad and dispirited, everything vexed him and he was attacked with a pain in the stomach which compelled him to return to his former diet and even to diminish it. Writing at the age of ninety-five, he describes his life as one of great serenity and enjoyment. He wrote plays, he assisted in fortifying and embellishing Venice. He enjoyed what he called his beautiful life. He writes: "I have attained my ninety-fifth year and find myself as healthy, merry and happy as if I were but twenty-five." At this age, and even on to a hundred years, his senses, memory, heart, judgment and voice were perfect. He wrote seven or eight hours a day, walked, enjoyed society and music and sang and played delightfully. His grand-niece writes of him: "He continued healthy and even vigorous until he was a hundred years old. His mind did not at all decline. He never required spectacles. He did not become deaf. His voice remained so strong and harmonious that, at the close of his life, he sang with as much power and delight as he did at twenty."

The reader will find in the appendix how I lived on 4 per month during the last year of my stay in England. In the above estimates no mention is made of expenses on account of newspapers which are found to be an absolute necessity, a daily food as it were. There are now in almost all the parts of London free public libraries, where are to be found all the leading daily and weekly papers. These institutions are visited by hundreds