Out of nothing, comes
nothing. See, my hands are as soft as any lady's in Belgravia. I
could not, to save my life, lift a hundredweight a foot off the
ground; while you have been a wild man of the woods, a leaper of
ditches, a rower of races, and a wanton destroyer of all animal life:
and yet--'
'You would hint politely that you are as open as me to all noble, and
chivalrous, and truly manly emotions?'
'What think you?'
'That you are far worthier in such matters than I, friend. But do
not forget that it may be your intellect, and your profession--in one
word, Heaven's mercy--which have steered you clear of shoals upon
which you will find the mass of our class founder. Woe to the class
or the nation which has no manly physical training! Look at the
manners, the morals, the faces of the young men of the shopkeeping
classes, if you wish to see the effects of utterly neglecting the
physical development of man; {235} of fancying that all the muscular
activity he requires under the sun is to be able to stand behind a
counter, or sit on a desk-stool without tumbling off.
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