Title page from Keeping Fit.
Published in 1914, Orison Swett Marden’s Keeping Fit is a part-handbook, part-sermon, and part-“to do” list.
Marden himself was a leading exponent of “New Thought” in the late 19th and early 20th century. “New Thought” believers argued that thought had a direct influence on life: if you thought you were happy, successful, and well-liked, the odds were in favor of all three of those things being true. “New Thought” also had some similarity with Christian Science insofar as the philosophy held that sickness was a matter of wrong thinking and bodily infirmity could be cured with proper mental effort.
Marden, born in New England and educated at Boston University, Andover Theological Seminary, and Harvard, was heavily influenced by British author Samuel Smiles’ volume Self-Help, a very popular book in the late Victorian West. (You can have a look at Self-Help for yourself on Project Gutenberg.)
The title is somewhat misleading: Keeping Fit has less to do with exercise or physical activity than it has to do with correct eating habits. Marden argues that the proper — or improper — diet and lifestyle have immediate adverse or positive effects. Eat poorly, rush your food, and stay up late and you are bound to be a failure; eat well, take your time, and get up early, and you will be a success. While the argument often seems overly simplistic (poor nutrition leads to criminality) and it is hard to imagine an audience that would enjoy Marden’s sometimes hectoring style, he was also giving valuable advice on the choice of foodstuffs and the value of a vegetarian or mainly vegetarian diet.
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