Page:How to Get Strong (1899).pdf/82

 sick child, who for much of the night will not let him sleep. Such taxes as this, coming to one already run down and weak, cannot be braved frequently with impunity. Unless the five or six miles a day of Tom Brown and his fellow-Englishmen's "constitutional," or some equivalent, is resorted to, and the man kept well toned-up; one of these sudden calls may prove too severe, and do serious if not fatal injury. This toning-up is not all. If the bodily exercise is such as to get all the muscles strong, and keep them so; the very work that would otherwise overdo and exhaust, now has no such effect; but is gone through with spirit and ease. There is that consciousness of strength which is equal to all such trifles.

The very nervousness and worry which used to be so wearing, at the sudden and ceaseless calls of the day, have gone; and for the reason that strong nerves and strong muscles are very liable to go together, and not to mind these things. What does the athlete at the top of his condition know about nervousness? He is blithe as a lark all the day long.

Dr. Mitchell says: