The skeleton is laid of a man mighty in strength, but
the filling-in is wanting. Broad-jointed bones swing listlessly in their
sockets, the head projects, and the shoulders bend, under the influence
of a sedentary life. The laboring and mechanical classes bring certain
groups of muscles to perfection in development and dexterity, but
present few instances of an harmonious organization. Commercial and
professional men do not accomplish even a limited muscular development.
For the other sex, Nature seems to have provided a certain immunity from
the necessity of active exercise for the rounding and completion of
their bodies. The lack of fresh air, however, soon tells with them a
fatal story of fading complexions and departing bloom. That ethereal
beauty which peculiarly marks the American woman is also the earliest to
decay. As they are the prettiest, so are they the soonest _passees_ of
any Northern nation. Could they but realize that exercise in the open
air is Nature's great and only cosmetic, the reproach of early old age
would cease. Nothing will give that peach-bloom to the cheek and that
peculiar sweetness to the eye which a long walk through the fields, of a
clear October day, bestows unbought.
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