Page:How to Get Strong (1899).pdf/68

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

HOW TO GET STRONG

up the weaker muscles by special effort, calling them at once into vigorous action; and to restore to its proper position the shoulder, back, chest, or other part which has been so long allowed to remain out of place. The symmetry once gained, then equal work for all the muscles, taken daily, and in such quantities as are found to suit best.

The variety of exercises open to woman, especially out-of—doors, is almost as great as to man. Every one knows some graceful horsewoman, and it is a pity there were not a hundred where there is one. One of the most expert of our acquaintance is the mother of one of the most gifted metaphysicians in the land, and he already is a middle-aged man. There are a few ladies in this country, and a good many in England, who think nothing of a five or six mile walk daily; and an occasional one of twice that length. Indeed at Smith and Wellesley there are always a few girls who can walk twenty miles a day for several days together. And we knew of one lady, wife of a New York editor, who in the White Mountains walked two hundred miles in a week; yet she had a son twenty-one years old. Once in a while a married woman here will do some long-distance skating. In Holland, in the season, it is with many an every-day affair. Some of the best swimmers and floaters at the watering-places are women, and happily there are far more of them than there used to be; and they certainly do not look much troubled with nervousness. More than one woman has distinguished herself in Alpine climbing. The writer once saw a woman, apparently about twenty-eight, a handsome, vigorous, rosy Englishwoman, row her father from Putney to Mortlake, on the Thames, a distance of four miles and three furlongs; not at racing pace, to be sure, but at a lively

42