Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/164

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
THE CURSE OF THE CLOSED WINDOWS.
130

in books. Stones and trees will teach you that which you will never learn from masters."

"There is no riches above a sound body" says Ecclesiasticus, "and no joy above the joy of the heart."

"Life is only life when blessed with health," says Martial.

"It is the misfortune of the young," says Sydney Smith, "to be early thrown out of perfect tune by the indiscreet efforts of their parents to force their minds into action earlier than Nature intended. The result is dissonance, want of harmony, and derangement of function. The nervous system is over-excited, while the physical system is neglected. The brain has too much work to do, and the bodily organs too little. The mind may be fed, but the appetite is lost, and society is filled with pale-faced dyspeptics."

"The ancient Greeks," says Dr. Samuel Smiles, "among their various wisdom, had an almost worshipful reverence for the body as being the habitation of the soul. They gave their body recreation as well as their mind."

"And what thinkest thou," said Socrates to Aristodemus, "of this continual love of life, this dread of dissolution, which takes possession of us from the moment that we are conscious of existence?"—"I think of it," he answered, "as the