How to Get Strong and how to Stay SoHarper, 1879 - 296 pages |
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apparatus athletic better biceps bitted horse body Bowdoin College brain brain-work bring Bryant called calves carriage chest cise cles daily exercise dumb-bells elbows equal ercise especially exer Farini feet foot forearm four front girl girth gradually gymnasium gymnast half hands hard head and neck hearty heavy hollow chest hour hundred inches increase instance keep knees legs look lungs Maclaren matter ment mental miles minutes months muscles muscular nearly never once pace parallel bars person physi physical exercise play pounds practice pulley-weights pupil Radley College ratus rowing rowing-weight running Sargent scarcely shoulders side sleep soon sort stooping straight strength strengthen strong sure tell thighs thin thing thor tired Tom Brown triceps upper arm vigorous waist walking weak week weight whole woman women York city young
Popular passages
Page 118 - The body is the temple of the living God. . . . There has always seemed to me something impious in the neglect of personal health, strength, and beauty which the religious, and sometimes clergymen, of this day affect. It is very often a mere form of laziness and untidiness ! . . . I should be ashamed of being weak ; I could not do half the little good I do here if it were not for that strength and activity which some consider coarse and degrading.
Page 60 - Post, nearly three miles distant, and after about three hours, return, always walking, whatever be the weather or the state of the streets. In the country I am engaged in my literary tasks till a feeling of weariness drives me out into the open air, and I go upon my farm or into the garden and prune the trees, or perform some other work about them which they need, and then go back to my books.
Page 59 - I have reached a pretty advanced period of life without the usual infirmities of old age, and, with my strength, activity, and bodily faculties generally in pretty good preservation. How far this may be the effect of my way of life, adopted long ago, and steadily adhered to, is perhaps uncertain. " I rise early — at this time of the year, about half-past five ; in summer, half an hour, or even an hour, earlier.
Page 57 - Men care little for erudition in women; but very much for physical beauty, good nature, and sound sense. How many conquests does the blue-stocking make through her extensive knowledge of history? What man ever fell in love with a woman because she understood Italian? Where is the Edwin who was brought to Angelina's feet by her German? But rosy cheeks and laughing eyes are great attractions.
Page 34 - ... chest were so great as to have absolutely a ludicrous and embarrassing result, for before the fourth month several of the men could not get into their uniforms, jackets and tunics, without assistance, and when they had got them on they could not get them to meet down the middle by a hand's breadth. In a month more they could not get into them at all, and new clothing had to be procured, pending the arrival of which the men had to go to and from the gymnasium in their great coats. One of these...
Page 59 - I promised some time since to give you some account of my habits of life, so far at least as regards diet, exercise, and occupation. I am not sure that it will be of any use to you, although the system which I have for many years observed seems to answer my purpose very well. I have reached a pretty advanced period of life without the usual infirmities of old age, and, with my strength, activity, and bodily faculties generally in pretty good preservation. How far this may be the effect of my way...
Page 59 - I immediately, with very little incumbrance of clothing, begin a series of exercises, for the most part designed to expand the chest, and at the same time call into action all the muscles and articulations of the body. These are performed with dumb-bells, the very lightest, covered with flannel; with a pole, a horizontal bar, and a light chair swung around my head. "After a full hour, and sometimes more, passed in this manner, I bathe from head to foot. When at my place in the country, I sometimes...
Page 57 - London drawing-rooms, we see the effect of merciless application unrelieved by- youthful sports ; and this physical degeneracy exhibited by them hinders their welfare far more than their many accomplishments aid it. Mammas anxious to make their daughters attractive could scarcely choose a course more fatal than this which sacrifices the body to the mind. Either they disregard the tastes of the opposite sex, or else their conception of those tastes is erroneous.
Page 60 - I go upon my farm, or into the garden and prune the fruit-trees, or perform some other work about them which they need, and then go back to my books. I do not often drive out, preferring to walk. In the country I dine early ; and it is only at that meal that I take either meat or fish, and of these but a moderate quantity, making my dinner mostly of vegetables. At the meal which is called tea I take only a little bread and butter, with fruit if it be on the table.
Page 79 - The man who lives an outdoor life, who sleeps with the stars visible above him, who wins his bodily subsistence at first-hand from the earth and waters, is a being who defies rain and sun, has a strange sense of elastic strength, may drink if he likes, and may smoke all day long, and feel none the worse for it. Some such return to the earth for the means of life is what gives vigor and developing power to the colonist of an older race cast on a land like ours. A few generations of men living in such...