THE AGE OF GYMNASTICS. 137 



estant, but a gloomy ascetic nevertheless, passed the last week of his 

 life on the mountain-farm of his brother, an honest farmer, who had 

 never left the paternal manse. One evening, two days before the 

 chancellor's death, his biographer tells us, the brothers were sitting on 

 a rustic bench, on the edge of a mountain-lawn, where the boys of the 

 farmer were disporting themselves, running races, shouting in the joy 

 of exuberant health, or resting arm-in-arm at the foot of an old beech- 

 tree, in the interacts of their play. While the chancellor watched their 

 sports, a vision was haunting his inner eye: the dreary college of 

 Upsala, and two pale-faced students, whose features resembled or had 

 resembled his own. Staggering suddenly to his feet he drew a dagger 

 from its sheath and handed it to his brother, with the words, " Cut my 

 throat, Hendrick I cannot stand that any longer ! " " What's the 

 matter ? " said the old farmer, smiling ; " are you in such a hurry to go 

 to h ? If Dr. Hochstratten " (a Catholic controversialist) "is right, 

 you will get there soon enough ! " " Better be there," said the chan- 

 cellor, grimly, " than in the other place, where I might meet my sons. 

 How can I answer for the earthly paradise they have lost through my 

 fault ? What have I robbed them of ! " 



Open-air labor is the most effective cosmetic, an almost infallible 

 panacea against all kinds of bodily deformity. But the remedial virtue 

 of labor, i. e., sound bodily exercise, is greater than that of open-air life 

 per se, for among the rustic population of Scandinavia, Scotland, and 

 Northern Germany, who perform a large portion of their hard work 

 in-doors, we frequently find models of health and vigor ; far more fre- 

 quently than among the inhabitants of Italy, Spain, etc., who pass the 

 greater part of their indolent lives in open air. 



But, besides all this, athletic exercises have a moral value, which our 

 social reformers have strangely failed to recognize ; they afford a diver- 

 sion and a vent to those animal energies which otherwise are sure to 

 explode in debauch and all kind of vicious excesses. The sympathetic 

 thrill by which the mind accompanies a daring gymnastic feat and the 

 enthusiasm of athletic contests form the most salutary and perhaps the 

 only normal gratification of that love of excitement which is either the 

 legitimate manifestation of a healthy instinct, or else a wholly irreme- 

 diable disease of our nature. The soul needs emotions as the body 

 needs exercise, and the exciting sports of the pahestra met both wants 

 at once. We try to suppress these instincts, but their motives remain, 

 and if thwarted in their normal manifestations they assert themselves 

 in some abnormal way, chemically instead of mechanically, as Dr. 

 Boerhaave would say ; by convulsing the organs of digestion, since the 

 organs of motion are kept in unbearable inactivity. In times of scarcity 

 the paupers of China and Siam silence the clamors of their hungry chil- 

 dren by dosing them with opium ; and for analogous reasons millions 

 of our fellow-citizens seek relief in alcohol : they want to benumb a 

 feeling which they cannot satisfy in a healthier way. 



