BRIEF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE
dred times for severe in-door or out-door life; for the quiet plodding at the desk; or the stormy days and nights of the ocean or the bivouac. Who is going to do better brain-work: he whose brain is steadily fed with vigorous, rich blood, made by machinery kept constantly in excellent order; never cramped; aided daily by judicious and vigorous exercise; tending directly to rest and build him up? or he who overworks his brain; gets it once clogged with blood; and for many hours of the day, keeps it clogged; who does nothing to draw the blood out of his brain for a while; and put more of it in the muscles; who, perhaps, in the very midst of his work, rushes out, dashes down a full meal; and hurries back to work; and at once sets his brain to doing wellnigh its utmost?
Well, but is not the work which will effect such swift changes very severe, and so a hazardous one to attempt? That is just what it is not. Is there anything very formidable in wooden dumb~bells weighing only two and a half pounds each, or clubs of three and a half pounds, or pulley-weights of from ten to fifteen pounds? or is any great danger likely to result from their use? And yet they were Sargent's weapons with his two hundred.[1] Nothing in Maclaren's work, so far as he points out what it is, is nearly so dangerous as a sudden run to boat or train; taken by one all out of the way of running; perhaps who has never learned. There a heart, unused to swift work, is suddenly forced to beat at a tremendous rate; lungs, ordinarily half-used, are strained to their utmost; and all without one jot of preparation.
But here, by the most careful and judicious system; the result of long study and much practical application;
- ↑ See Appendix II.
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