The Pedestrian's Record

28 the pedestrian's record. well by itself as it will in combination with the other; and reports have been handed down informing us how intellectual men have been forced by the prompt­ ings of Nature, as it were, to take bodily exercise. Dr. Samuel Clarke would leap over chairs and tables; Cardinal Mazarin was in the habit of shutting himself up in his room and jumping over chairs set in various positions, according to the degree of difficulty in clearing them ; Cardinal de Richelieu was often dis­ covered jumping with his servant over stone walls ; Douglas Jerrold and Charles Dickens loveda game of bowls ; and many more instances of a like nature could be cited, proving that by one way or another our wisest and most eminent men have found relief by blending physical exertion with mental labour : the stern side oflife demands recreation, or, as Seneca puts it, "a continuity of labour deadens the soul," the mind must unbend itself by certain amusements. It has been our endeavour in the preceding chapter to prove the necessity for perfection of form in men about to toe the cinder-path, and that this alone can be obtained by running and taking continual exercise at our gymnasia ; moreover, that every tissue of the animal should be in harmonious health the one with the other, and as the great commanding tissues exist in the brain—the nervous centres and nerves—and as these cannot be trained by any bodily exertion, but by reading, observation, and thought, so it is evident that study shouldbe persisted in, and form a part of the athlete's education. If the nervous system is in