Seward, as keen as Phillips, as stalwart as Beecher; he is Garibaldi, he is Kit Carson, he is Blondin; he is as complete as the steamboat Metropolis, as Steers’s yacht, as Singer’s sewing-machine, as Colt’s revolver, as the steam-plough, as Civilization.” You wish to be so ranked among the people and things that lead the age; — consider the qualities you must have, and while you consider, keep your eye on Richard Wade, for he has them all in perfection.
First, — of your physical qualities. You must have lungs, not bellows; and an active heart, not an assortment of sluggish auricles and ventricles. You must have legs, not shanks. Their shape is unimportant, except that they must not interfere at the knee. You must have muscles, not flabbiness; sinews like wire; nerves like sunbeams; and a thin layer of flesh to cushion the gable-ends, where you will strike, if you tumble, — which, once for all be it said, you must never do. You must be all momentum, and no inertia. You must be one part grace, one force, one agility, and the rest caoutchouc, Manilla hemp, and watch-spring. Your machine, your body, must be thoroughly obedient. It must go just so far and no farther. You have got to be as unerring as a planet holding its own, emphatically, between forces centripetal and centrifugal. Your aplomb must be as absolute as the pounce of a falcon.
So much for a few of the physical qualities necessary to be a Great Artist in Skating. See Wade, how he shows them!
