Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Track Athletics it that people miss entirely the excitement of the sprints, and the long-drawn-out struggle of the distance runs. We have in mind running for running's sake, freed from theatric settings, and without the stimulus of fighting for victory- the mere striding down the cinder path, or roughing it 'cross country. This is the sort of thing that too few understand,-and failing to understand, must fail to en joy. The golden age is not gone, and there is just as much poetry in the world now as there once was, but we have lost a good deal of our boyishness and simplicity. There is a poetry of straight limbs and sunshine that we hear too little of nowadays, and the clothes with which we have so laboriously covered ourselves have shut our eyes to the beauty of our bodies. Really to love so simple a pleasure as running, one must have, of course, a healthy body and a mind at ease. He must have in him something of the savage and a sort of pagan delight in phys– ical grace and happy strength. Unless the spirit of the chase runs in his blood, he will not see anything in toiling mile after mile through brush– wood and meadow, and if civilization has too completely house-broken him he will not feel the thrill that comes from merely denying for the moment the tyranny of clothes and of streets, and striding out into the open country, except for his shoes and a few wisps of clothing, free