unconcerned at such perfection. Oh the excellent creature! she is as inimitable to all women as she is inaccessible to all men." I found my friend begin to rave, and insensibly led him towards the house, that we might be joined by 5 some other company; and am convinced that the Widow is the secret cause of all that inconsistency which appears in some parts of my friend's discourse; though he has so much command of himself as not directly to mention her, yet according to that [passage] of Martial, which one knows not how to render in English, Dum tacet hanc loquitur. I shall end this paper with that whole epigram, which represents with much humor my honest friend's condition. Quicquid agit Rufus, nihil est, nisi Nævia Rufo, Let Rufus weep, rejoice, stand, sit, or walk, "I am, my lovely Nævia, ever thine." ΙΟ 15 20 25 X. BODILY EXERCISE. BODILY labor is of two kinds, either that which a man submits to for his livelihood, or that which he undergoes for his pleasure. The latter of them generally changes the name of labor for that of exercise, 5 but differs only from ordinary labor as it rises from another motive. A country life abounds in both these kinds of labor, and for that reason gives a man a greater stock of health, and consequently a more perfect enjoyment of 10 himself, than any other way of life. I consider the body as a system of tubes and glands, or, to use a more rustic phrase, a bundle of pipes and strainers, fitted to one another after so wonderful a manner as to make a proper engine for the soul to work with. 15 This description does not only comprehend the bowels, bones, tendons, veins, nerves, and arteries, but every muscle and every ligature, which is a composition of fibres, that are so many imperceptible tubes or pipes interwoven on all sides with invisible glands or 20 strainers. This general idea of a human body, without considering it in its niceties of anatomy, lets us see how absolutely necessary labor is for the right preservation of it. There must be frequent motions and agitations, to mix, digest, and separate the juices contained in it, as well as to clear and cleanse that infinitude of pipes and strainers of which it is composed, and to give their solid parts a more firm and lasting tone. Labor 5 or exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off. redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness. ΤΟ I might here mention the effects which this has upon all the faculties of the mind, by keeping the understanding clear, the imagination untroubled, and refining those spirits that are necessary for the proper exertion of our intellectual faculties, during the pres- 15 ent laws of union between soul and body. It is to a neglect in this particular that we must ascribe the spleen which is so frequent in men of studious and sedentary tempers, as well as the vapors to which those of the other sex are so often subject. 20 Had not exercise been absolutely necessary for cur well-being, nature would not have made the body so proper for it, by giving such an activity to the limbs, and such a pliancy to every part as necessarily produce those compressions, extensions, contortions, dilatations, and 25 all other kinds of motions that are necessary for the preservation of such a system of tubes and glands as has been before mentioned. And that we might not want inducements to engage us in such an exercise of 3 the body as is proper for its welfare, it is so ordered that nothing valuable can be procured without it. Not to mention riches and honor, even food and raiment are not to be come at without the toil of the hands and sweat of the brows. Providence fur10 nishes materials, but expects that we should work them up ourselves. The earth must be labored before it gives its increase, and when it is forced into its several products, how many hands must they pass through before they are fit for use! Manufactures, 15 trade, and agriculture naturally employ more than nineteen parts of the species in twenty: and as for those who are not obliged to labor, by the condition in which they are born, they are more miserable than the rest of mankind unless they indulge themselves in 20 that voluntary labor which goes by the name of exercise. My friend Sir Roger has been an indefatigable man in business of this kind, and has hung several parts of his house with the trophies of his former labors. The walls of his great hall are covered with the horns of 25 several kinds of deer that he has killed in the chase, 5 which he thinks the most valuable furniture of his house, as they afford him frequent topics of discourse, and show that he has not been idle. At the lower end of the hall is a large otter's skin stuffed with hay, which his mother ordered to be hung up in that manner, and the Knight looks upon with great satisfaction, because it seems he was but nine years old when his dog killed him. A little room adjoining to the hall is a kind of arsenal filled with guns of several sizes and inventions, with which the Knight has made great 10 havoc in the woods, and destroyed many thousands of pheasants, partridges, and woodcocks. His stable doors are patched with noses that belonged to foxes of the Knight's own hunting down. Sir Roger showed me one of them that for distinction's sake has a brass 15 nail struck through it, which cost him about fifteen hours' riding, carried him through half a dozen counties, killed him a brace of geldings, and lost about half his dogs. This the Knight looks upon as one of the greatest exploits of his life. The perverse Widow, 20 whom I have given some account of, was the death of several foxes; for Sir Roger has told me that in the course of his amours he patched the western door of his stable. Whenever the Widow was cruel, the foxes were sure to pay for it. In proportion as his passion 25 |