128 BEST TIME FOR TAKING EXERCISfi* 



we eat. heartily as appetite suggests, and then enter 

 the coach, restlessness, flushing, and fatigue are in- 

 evitable ; whereas, by eating sparingly, the journey 

 may be continued for two or three days and nights, 

 with less weariness than is felt during one-fourth of 

 the time under full feeding. I observed this when 

 travelling as an invalid on rather low diet, and was 

 surprised to find myself less fatigued at the end of 

 seventy-two hours than I had previously been wnen 

 in health and living fully, with half the journey ; and 

 1 have heard the same remark made by others, also 

 from experience. 



It is the custom in many families and schools, 

 apparently for the purpose of saving time, to take 

 young people out to walk about the close of the day, 

 because there is not light enough to do any thing in 

 the house. Nothing can be more injudicious than 

 this plan, for, in the first place, exercise once a day 

 is very insufficient for the young, and even sup- 

 posing that it were enough, the air is then more 

 loaded with moisture, colder, and proportionably 

 more unhealthy than at any other time ; and the ab- 

 sence of the beneficial stimulus of the solar light 

 diminishes not a little its invigorating influence. 

 For those, consequently, who are so little out of 

 doors as the inmates of boarding-schools and chil- 

 dren living in towns, and who are all at the period 

 of growth, the very best times of the day ought to 

 be chosen for exercise, particularly as in-door occu- 

 pations are, after nightfall, more in accordance with 

 the order of nature. 



By devoting part of the forenoon also to exercise, 

 another obvious advantage is gained. If the weather 

 prove unfavourable at an early hour, it may clear 

 up in time to admit of going out later in the day; 

 whereas, if the afternoon alone be allotted to exer- 

 cise, and the weather proves bad, the day is alto- 

 gether lost. In winter, indeed, it is not unusual for 

 girls to be thus confined from Sunday to Sunday, 



