Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/171

146 have unconsciously contracted a habit of deep-breathing for the remainder of your life.

One of the misfortunes of New England is the rarity of horseback-riding as an exercise. "The saddle is the seat of health," says Dr. Smiles; "riding may be regarded as the concentrated essence of exercise."

"Who is your doctor?" said some one to Carlyle. "My best doctor," he replied, "is a horse."

The Puritan finds it hard to believe, though, that "idleness is not all idleness." Cicero said: "No one seems to me to be free who does not sometimes do nothing." And elsewhere he says:*"There should be a haven to which we could fly from time to time, not of sloth and laziness, but of moderate and honest leisure."

Every American, young, middle-aged, ay, and old, ought to take from two to four weeks at least, every summer, for rest and sport. Shooting, fishing, driving tours, walking tours. We can all enjoy one or more of these exercises. George Stephenson knew the folly of trying to take too much out of one's self. When he found his friend Lindley exhausted and depressed by too excessive application to engineering, he said to him: "Now, Lindley, I see what you are after—you are trying to get thirty shillings out of