196 THE OPEN AIR. 



found: now and then one is known to exceed that, 

 and there is said to he one that has not moved for six 

 hundred. Granting the stock in its origin to have 

 heen fairly well proportioned, and to have heen subject 

 for such a lapse of time to favourable conditions, the 

 rise of beauty becomes intelligible. 



Cities labour under every disadvantage. First, 

 families have no stationary home, but constantly 

 move, so that it is rare to find one occupying a house 

 fifty years, and will probably become much rarer in 

 the future. Secondly, the absence of fresh air, and 

 that volatile essence, as it were, of woods, and fields, 

 and hills, which can be felt but not fixed. Thirdly, 

 the sedentary employment. Let a family be never so 

 robust, these must ultimately affect the constitution. 

 If beauty appears it is too often of the unhealthy 

 order; there is no physique, no vigour, no richness 

 of blood. Beauty of the highest order is inseparable 

 from health; ifc is the outcome of health — centuries 

 of health — and a really beautiful woman is, in pro- 

 portion, stronger than a man. It is astonishing 

 with what persistence a type of beauty once estab- 

 lished in the country will struggle to perpetuate itself 

 against all the drawbacks of town life after the 

 family has removed thither. 



When such results are produced under favourable 

 conditions at the yeoman's homestead, no difficulty 

 arises in explaining why loveliness so frequently 

 appears in the houses of landed proprietors. En- 

 tailed estates fix the family in one spot, and tend, 

 by intermarriage, to deepen any original physical 

 excellence. Constant out-of-door exercise, riding, 



