CHAPTER X.

WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD.

While the endeavor has been made to point out the value of plain and simple exercise--for, in a later chapter, particular work will be designated which, if followed systematically and persistently, will correct many physical defects, substituting good working health and vigor for weakness--the reply may be made, "Yes, these are well enough for the young and active, but they will not avail a fleshy person, or a slim one, or one well up in years."

Let us see about this. Take, first, those burdened with flesh which seems to do them little or no good, and which is often a hinderance, dulling and slackening their energies, preventing them from doing much which they could, and which they believe they would do with alacrity were they once freed from this unwelcome burden. There are some persons with whom the reduction of flesh becomes a necessity. They have a certain physical task to perform, and they know they cannot have either the strength or the wind to get through with it creditably, unless they first rid themselves of considerable superfluous flesh.

Take the man, for instance, who wants to walk a race of several miles, or to run or row one. He has often heard of men getting their weight down to a certain figure for a similar purpose. He has seen some one who did it, and he is confident that he can do it. He sets about it, takes much and severe physical work daily, warmly clad, perspiring freely, while he subjects his skin to much friction from coarse towels. He does without certain food which he understands makes fat, and only eats that which he believes makes mainly bone and muscle. He sticks to his work, and gradually makes that work harder and faster. To his gratification, he finds that not only has his wind improved, so that, in the place of the old panting after a slight effort--walking briskly up an ordinary flight of stairs, for instance--he can now breathe as easily and quietly, and can stick to it as long, as any of his leaner companions. By race-day he is down ten, fifteen, or twenty pounds, or even more, as the case may be. While he has thus reduced himself, and is far stronger and more enduring than he was before, he is not the only one who has lost flesh, if there have been a number working with him, as in a boat-crew. Notice the lists of our university crews and their weights, published when they commence strict training, say a month before the race, and compare them with those of the same men on race-day, particularly in hot weather. The reduction is very marked all through the crew. In the English university eights it is even more striking, the large and stalwart fellows, who fill their thwarts, often coming down in a month an average of over a dozen pounds per man.

We have seen a student, after weighing himself on scales in the gymnasium, sit down at a fifty-five pound rowing weight, pull forty-five full strokes a minute for twenty minutes, then, clad exactly as before, weigh again on the same scales, and find he was just one pound lighter than he was twenty minutes earlier.

But the difference is more marked in more matured men, who naturally run to flesh, than in students. A prize-fighter, for instance, in changing from a life of indulgence and immoderate drinking, will often come down as much as thirty, or even forty pounds, in preparing for his contest. It should be remembered that, besides other advantages of his being thin, it is of great importance that his face should be so lean that a blow on his cheek shall not puff it up, and swell it so as to shut up his eye, and put him at his enemy's mercy.

But most people do not care to take such severe and arduous work as either the amateur athlete or the prize-fighter. If they could hit on some comparatively light and easy way of restoring themselves physically to a hard-muscle basis, and could so shake off their burden of flesh without interfering seriously with their business, they would be glad to try it. Let us see if this can be done.

In the summer of 1877 the writer met a gentleman of middle age, whom he had known for years, and who has been long connected with one of the United States departments in New York city. A very steady, hard-working officer, his occupation was a sedentary one. Remembering him as a man, till recently, of immense bulk, and being struck with his evident and great shrinkage, we inquired if he had been ill. He replied that he had not been ill, that for years he had not enjoyed better health. Questioning him as to his altered appearance, he said that, on the eighteenth day of January, 1877, he weighed three hundred and five pounds; that, having become so unwieldy, his flesh was a source of great hinderance and annoyance to him. Then he had determined, if possible, to get rid of some of it. Having to be at work all day, he could only effect his purpose in the evenings, or not at all. So, making no especial change in his diet, he took to walking, and soon began to average from three to five miles an evening, and at the best pace he could make. In the cold months he says that he often perspired so that small icicles would form on the ends of his hair. Asking if it did not come a little stiff sometimes, on stormy nights or when he was very tired, and whether he did not omit his exercise at such times, he said no, but, on the contrary, added two miles, which shows the timber the man was made of. On the eighteenth of June of the same year, just five months from the start, he weighed but two hundred and fifteen pounds, _having actually taken off ninety pounds_, and had so altered that his former clothes would not fit him at all. Since that time we have again seen him, and he says he is now down to two hundred, and that he has taken to horseback-riding, as he is fond of that. He looks to-day a large, strong, hearty man of about five feet ten, of rather phlegmatic temperament, but no one would ever think of him as a fat man.

Now here is a man well known to hundreds of the lawyers of the New York Bar, a living example of what a little energy and determination will accomplish for a person who sets about his task as if he meant to perform it.

During the war, M----, a member of the Boston Police force, known to the writer, was said to weigh three hundred and fifteen pounds, and was certainly an enormously large man. He went South, served for some time as stoker on a gunboat, and an intimate friend of his informed us that he had reduced his weight to one hundred and eighty-four.

A girl of fifteen or sixteen, and inclined to be fleshy, found that, by a good deal of horseback-riding daily, she lost twenty-five pounds in one year--so a physician familiar with her case informed us.

Brisk walking, and being on the feet much of the day--as Americans, for instance, find it necessary to do when they try to see the Parisian galleries and many other of Europe's attractions all in a very few weeks--will tell decidedly on the weight of fleshy people, and dispose them to move more quickly. When you can do it, this is perhaps not such a bad way to reduce yourself.

Now, if so many have found that vigorous muscular exercise, taken daily and assiduously, accomplished the desired end for them, does it not look as if a similar course, combined with a little strength of purpose, would bring similar benefit to others? In any case, such a course has this advantage: begun easily, and followed up with gradually increasing vigor, it will be sure to tone up and strengthen one, and add to the spring and quickness of movement, whether it reduces one's flesh or not. But it is a sort of work where free perspiration must be encouraged, not hindered, for this is plainly a prominent element in effecting the desired purpose.

But, while many of us know instances where fat people have, by exercise, been reduced to a normal weight, is it possible for a thin person to become stouter? A thin person may have a large frame or a slender one. Is there any work which will increase the weight of each, and bring desirable roundness and plumpness of trunk and limb?

Take, first, the slim man. Follow him for a day, or even an hour, and you will usually find that, while often active--indeed, too active--still he does no work which a person of his height need be really strong to do. Put him beside such a person who is not merely large, but really strong and in equally good condition, and correspondingly skilful, and let the two train for an athletic feat of some sort--row together, for instance, or some other work where each must carry other weight in addition to his own. The first mile they can go well together, and one will do about as much as the other. But as the second wears along, the good strength begins to tell; and the slim man, while, perhaps, sustaining his form pretty well, and going through the motions, is not quite doing the work, and his friend is gradually drawing away from him. At the third mile the disparity grows very marked, and the stronger fellow has it all his own way, while at the end he also finds that he has not taken as much out of him as his slender rival. He has had more to carry, both in his boat's greater weight, and especially in his own, but his carrying power was more than enough to make up for the difference. Measure the slim man where you will, about his arm or shoulders, chest or thigh or calf, and the other outmeasures him; the only girth where he is up, and perhaps ahead, is that of his head--for thin fellows often have big heads. The muscles of the stronger youth are larger as well as stronger.

Now, take the slim fellow, and set him to making so many efforts a day with any given muscle or muscles, say those of his upper left arm, for instance. Put some reward before him which he would like greatly to have--say a hundred thousand dollars--if in one year from date he will increase the girth of that same upper left arm two honest inches. Now, watch him, if he has any spirit and stuff, as thin fellows very often have, and see what he does. Insist, too, that whatever he does shall in no way interfere with his business or regular duties, whatever they may be, but that he must find other time for it. And what will he do? Why, he will leave no stone unturned to find just what work uses the muscles in question, and at that work he will go, with a resolution which no obstacle will balk. He is simply showing the truth of Emerson's broad rule, that "in all human action those faculties will be strong which are used;" and of Maclaren's, "Where the activity is, there will be the development."

The new work flushes the muscles in question with far more blood than before, while the wear and tear being greater, the call for new material corresponds, and more and more hearty food is eaten and assimilated. The quarter-inch or more of gain the first fortnight often becomes the whole inch in less than two months, and long before the year is out the coveted two inches have come. And, in acquiring them, his whole left arm and shoulder have had correspondingly new strength added, quite going past his right, though it was the larger at first, if meanwhile he has practically let it alone.

There are some men, either at the college or city gymnasiums, every year, who are practically getting to themselves such an increase in the strength and size of some particular muscles.

We knew one at college who, on entering, stood hardly five feet four, weighed but about one hundred and fifteen pounds, and was small and rather spare. For four years he worked with great steadiness in the gymnasium, afoot and on the water, and he graduated a five-foot-eight man, splendidly built, and weighing a hundred and sixty-eight pounds--every pound a good one, for he was one of the best bow-oarsmen his university ever saw.

Another, tall and very slender, but with a large head and a very bright mind, was an habitual fault-finder at everything on the table, no matter if it was fit for a prince. A friend got him, for awhile, into a little athletic work--walking, running, and sparring--until he could trot three miles fairly, and till one day he walked forty-five--pretty well used up, to be sure, but he walked it. Well, his appetite went up like a rocket. Where the daintiest food would not tempt him before, he would now promptly hide a beefsteak weighing a clean pound at a meal, and that no matter if cooked in some roadside eating-house, where nothing was neat or tidy, and flies abounded almost as they did once in Egypt in Pharaoh's day. His friends frequently spoke of his improved temper, and how much easier it was to get on with him. But after a while his efforts slackened, and his poor stomach returned to its old vices, at least in part. Had he kept at what was doing so much for him, it would have continued to prove a many-sided blessing.

If steady and vigorous use of one set of muscles gradually increases their size, why should not a similar allowance, distributed to each, do the same for all? See (Appendix V.) what it did in four months and twelve days for Maclaren's pupil of nineteen, whose upper arm not only gained a whole inch and a half (think how that would add to the beauty alone of many a woman's arm, to say nothing of its strength), and whose chest enlarged five inches and a quarter, _but whose weight went up eight pounds_! Or what it did (see Appendix IV.) for Sargent's pupil of nineteen, who in just one year, besides making an inch and a half of upper arm, and three and a half of chest, went up from a hundred and forty-five pounds to a hundred and sixty, or _a clean gain of fifteen pounds_. Or (see Appendix VI.) for Maclaren's man, fully twenty-eight years old, who, in seven months and nineteen days, made _sixteen pounds_; or (Appendix VII.) for his youth of sixteen, who in just one year increased his weight _full twenty-one pounds_!

These facts certainly show pretty clearly whether sensible bodily exercise, taken regularly, and aimed at the weak spots, will not tell, and tell pretty rapidly, on the thin man wanting to stouten, and tell, too, in the way he wants.

It will make one eat heartily, it will make him sleep hard and long. Every ounce of the food is now digested, and the long sleep is just what he needed. Indeed, if, after a hearty dinner, a man would daily take a nap, and later in the day enough hard work to make sure of being thoroughly tired when bedtime came, he would doubtless find the flesh coming in a way to which he was a stranger. Many thin persons do not rest enough. They are constantly on the go, and the lack of phlegm in their make-up rather increases this activity, though they do not necessarily accomplish more than those who take care to sit and lie still more.

The writer, at nineteen, spent four weeks on a farm behind the Catskills, in Delaware County, New York. It was harvest-time, and, full of athletic ardor, and eager to return to college the better for the visit, we took a hand with the men. All the farm-hands were uniformly on the field at six o'clock in the morning, and it would average nearly or quite eight at night before the last load was snugly housed away in the mow. It was sharp, hard work all day long, with a tough, wiry, square-loined fellow in the leading swath all the morning. But to follow him we were bound to or drop, while the pitchfork or rake never rested from noon till sunset. Breakfast was served at five-thirty; dinner at eleven; supper at four; and a generous bowl of bread-and-milk--or two bowls, if you wanted them--at nine o'clock, just before bedtime, with plenty of spring-water between meals; while the fare itself was good and substantial, just what you would find on any well-to-do farmer's table. And such an appetite, and such sleep! Solomon must have tried some similar adventure when he wrote that "the sleep of the laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much." Well, when we returned to college and got on the scales again, the one hundred and forty-three pounds at starting had somehow become a hundred and fifty-six! And with them such a grip, and such a splendid feeling! We have rowed many a race since, but there was as hard work done by some of that little squad on that old mountain farm as any man in our boat ever did, and there was not much attention paid to any one's training rules either.

It is notorious, among those used to training for athletic contests, that thin men, if judiciously held in, and not allowed to do too much work, generally "train up," or gain decidedly in weight, almost as much, in fact, as the fleshy ones lose.

Now, were the object simply to train up as much as possible, unusual care could be taken to insure careful and deliberate eating, with a generous share of the fat and flesh making sorts of food, and quiet rest always for awhile after each meal, to aid the digestive organs at their work. Slow, deep, abdominal breathing is a great ally to this latter process; indeed, works direct benefit to many of the vital organs, and so to the whole man. All the sleep the man can possibly take at night would also tell in the right way. So would everything that would tend to prevent fret and worry, or which would cultivate the ability to bear them philosophically. But most thin people do not keep still enough, do not take matters leisurely, and do not rest enough; while, if their work is muscular, they do too much daily in proportion to their strength.

They are very likely also to be inerect, with flat, thin chests, and contracted stomach and abdomen. Now the habit of constantly keeping erect, whether sitting, standing, or walking, combined with this same deep, abdominal breathing, soon tends to expand not only the lower ribs and lower part of the lungs, but the waist as well, so giving the digestive organs more room and freer play. Like the lungs, or any other organ, they do their work best when in no way constrained. Better yet, if the person will also habituate himself, no matter what he is at, whether in motion or sitting still, to not only breathing the lower half of the lungs full, but the whole lungs as well, and at each inspiration hold the air in his chest as long as he comfortably can, he will speedily find a quickened and more vigorous circulation, which will be shown, for instance, by the veins in his hands becoming larger, and the hands themselves growing warmer if the air be cold; he will also feel a mild and agreeable exhilaration such as he has seldom before experienced. Some of these are little things, and for that reason they are the easier to do; but in this business, as in many others, little things often turn the scale. Of two brothers, equally thin, equally over-active, as much alike as possible--if one early formed these simple habits of slow and thorough mastication, deep and full breathing, resting awhile after meals, carrying his body uniformly erect, and sleeping plentifully, and his brother all the while cared for none of these things, it is highly probable that these little attentions would, in a few years, tell very decidedly in favor of him who practised them, and gradually bring to him that greater breadth, depth, and serenity, and the accompanying greater weight of the broad, full, and hearty man.

And what about the old people? Take a person of sixty. You don't want him to turn gymnast, surely. No; not to turn gymnast, but to set aside a small portion of each day for taking such body as he or she now has, and making the best of it.

But how can that be done? and is it practicable at all for a person sixty years old, or more? Well, let us see what one, not merely sixty, but eighty, and more too, had to say on this point. Shortly after the death of the late William Cullen Bryant, the New York _Evening Post_, of which he had long been editor, published in its semi-weekly issue of June 14th, 1878, the following letter:

"MR. BRYANT'S MODE OF LIFE.

"The following letter, written by Mr. Bryant several years ago, describing the habits of his life, to which he partly ascribed the wonderful preservation of his physical and mental vigor, will be read with interest now:

"'New York, March 30, 1871. "_'To Joseph H. Richards, Esq._:

"'MY DEAR SIR,--I promised some time since to give you some account of my habits of life, so far at least as regards diet, exercise, and occupations. I am not sure that it will be of any use to you, although the system which I have for many years observed seems to answer my purpose very well. I have reached a pretty advanced period of life, _without the usual infirmities of old age_, and with my strength, activity, and bodily faculties generally, in pretty good preservation. How far this may be the effect of my way of life, adopted long ago and steadily adhered to, is perhaps uncertain.

"'I rise early; at this time of the year about half-past five; in summer, half an hour or even an hour earlier. Immediately, with very little encumbrance of clothing, I begin a series of exercises, for the most part designed to expand the chest, and at the same time call into action all the muscles and articulations of the body. These are performed with dumb-bells, the very lightest, covered with flannel, with a pole, a horizontal bar, and a light chair swung around my head. After a full hour, and sometimes more, passed in this manner, I bathe from head to foot. When at my place in the country, I sometimes shorten my exercises in the chamber, and, going out, occupy myself for half an hour or more in some work which requires brisk exercise. After my bath, if breakfast be not ready, I sit down to my studies till I am called.

* * * * *

"'After breakfast I occupy myself for awhile with my studies, and then, when in town, I walk down to the office of the _Evening Post, nearly three miles distant_, and, after about three hours, return, always walking, _whatever be the weather or the state of the streets_. In the country, I am engaged in my literary tasks till a feeling of weariness drives me out into the open air, and I go upon my farm or into the garden and prune the fruit-trees, or perform some other work about them which they need, and then go back to my books. I _do not often drive out, preferring to walk_.

* * * * *

"'I am, sir, truly yours, "'W.C. BRYANT.'"

The same paper also contained the following:

"REMINISCENCES OF A FORMER BUSINESS ASSOCIATE.

"Mr. William G. Boggs, who knew Mr. Bryant intimately for many years, has given the following reminiscences to a representative of the _Evening Post_:

"'During the _forty years that I have known him, Mr. Bryant has never been ill--never been confined to his bed, except on the occasion of his last accident. His health has always been good_.

"'Mr. Bryant was a great walker. In earlier years he would think nothing of walking to Paterson Falls and back, with Alfred Pell and James Lawson, after office hours. _He always walked from his home to his place of business, even in his eighty-fourth year._ At first he wouldn't ride in the elevator. He would never wait for it, if it was not ready for the ascent immediately on his arrival in the building. Of gymnastic exercises he was very fond. Every morning, for half an hour, he would go through a series of evolutions on the backs of two chairs placed side by side. He would hang on the door of his bedroom, pulling himself up and down an indefinite number of times. He would skirmish around the apartment after all fashions, and once he told me even "_under the table_." Breakfast followed, then a walk down town; and then _he was in the best of spirits_ for the writing of his editorial article for that day.

* * * * *

"'He was a constant student. His daily leading editorial constituted, and was for many years, the _Evening Post_. Sometimes he would not get it written until one o'clock. "Can't I have it earlier?" I asked him one day. "Why not write it the evening before?" "Ah," he replied, "if I should empty out the keg in that way, it would soon be exhausted." He wanted his evenings for study. "Well, then, can't you get down earlier in the morning?" He said, "Oh yes." A few months afterward he exclaimed, with reference to the change: "I like it. _I go through my gymnastics, walk all the way down_, and when I get here I feel like work. I like it."'"

Mr. Boggs also tells us that Mr. Bryant's sight and hearing were scarcely impaired even up to his death.

How remarkable these facts seem! Here a man, known to the whole civilized world, says at seventy-seven that he "has reached a pretty advanced period of life without the usual infirmities of old age, and with his strength, activity, and bodily faculties generally in pretty good preservation." Wouldn't most of us like to do that? Are there not men who would promptly give millions, not "for an inch of time," but to be able to reach seventy-seven, and to say of themselves what Mr. Bryant could say of himself at that age? Nor at seventy-seven only, but at eighty-four, for his friend tells the same thing of him then.

And notice what he did: "Every morning," not for two or three minutes only, but "for half an hour, he would go through a series of evolutions on the backs of two chairs placed side by side." The "dips" which have been recommended in another place,[K] and which are so excellent for making the chest strong and keeping it so, are doubtless the "evolutions" meant; and as the great majority of men, whether young or old, have not strength of triceps and pectorals enough to even struggle through one of them, some conception can be formed of how wonderfully wiry and strong this large-headed, spare-bodied, illustrious old man was, to say nothing of the strength of purpose which would keep him so rigidly up to his work at an age when most men would have thought it their unquestionable duty to coddle themselves. Just think of a man over eighty "pulling himself up and down"--evidently on the "horizontal bar" he mentions--"an indefinite number of times!" Or "always walking" down to the office of the _Evening Post_, nearly three miles distant, and, after three hours, return, always walking, whatever be the weather or the state of the streets! Or of never waiting for the elevator if it was not ready, but always walking up the _nine flights_ from the street to his office! And the writer has often seen him going up the top flight, and, instead of his step being faltering and feeble, it was uniformly _a trot_!

See what two other old men did--in some ways even a more remarkable thing than Mr. Bryant's great activity. The following despatch is from the _New York Herald_ of February 23d, 1879:

"THE OLD MEN'S WALK.

"New Haven, Conn., Feb. 22, 1879.

"The walk between Thomas Carey, of the New York Cotton Exchange, and Joseph Y. Marsh, of this city, terminated to-night at a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, Marsh withdrawing. Carey had walked 211 miles and a fraction, to 209 miles and a corresponding fraction for Marsh. After the walk Marsh said that he was convinced that he had been beaten, and Carey made a speech expressing satisfaction with the manner in which he had been treated. The walk began on Wednesday of the present week, at eleven o'clock, and terminated at forty-five minutes past ten to-night. Carey is a great-grandfather, and is sixty-four years old, and Marsh sixty-three. Both had trained for the walk. It is understood that they will walk again in New York."

Sixty miles a day for three days and a half, and by a great-grandfather at that! Any man, or any horse, might well hold that a good day's work.

This activity among men so far on in years seems surprising. And why? Because, as people get past middle-life, often from becoming engrossed in business, and out of the way of anything to induce them to continue their muscular activity, oftener from increasing caution, and fear that some effort, formerly easy, may now prove hazardous to them, they purposely avoid even ordinary exercise--riding when they might, and indeed ought to, walk, and, instead of walking their six miles a day, and looking after their arms and chests besides, as Bryant did, gradually come to do nothing each day worthy of the name of exercise. Then the joints grow dry and stiff, and snap and crack as they work. The old ease of action is gone, and disinclination takes its place. The man makes up his mind that he is growing old and stiff--often before he is sixty--and that there is no help for that stiffness.

Well, letting the machinery alone works a good deal the same whether it is made of iron and steel, and driven by steam, or of flesh and blood and bones, and driven by the human heart. Maclaren cleverly compares this stiffening of the joints to the working of hinges, which, when "left unused and unoiled for any length of time, grate and creak, and move stiffly. The hinges of the human body do just the same thing, and from the same cause; and they not only require frequent oiling to enable them to move easily, but they _are_ oiled every time they are put in motion, _and when they are put in motion only_. The membrane which secretes this oil, and pours it forth over the opposing surfaces of the bones and the overlying ligaments, is stimulated to activity only by the motion of the joint itself." Had Bryant spared himself as most men do, would he have been such a springy, easy walker, and so strong and handy at eighty-four? Does it not look as if the half-hour at the dumb-bells, and chairs, and horizontal bar, and the twelve or fifteen thousand steps which he took each day, had much to do with this spring and activity in such a green old age? Does it not look almost as if he had, half a century ago, read something not unlike the following from Maclaren:

"The first course of the system may be freely and almost unconditionally recommended to men throughout what may be called middle life, care being taken to use a bell and bar well within the physical capacity. The best time for this practice is in the early morning, immediately after the bath, and, when regularly taken, it need not extend over more than a few minutes."

Whether Bryant had ever seen these rules or not, the bell, the bar, and the morning-time for exercise make a noticeable coincidence.

Looking at the benefit daily exercise brought in the instances mentioned, would it not be well for every man who begins to feel his age to at once adopt some equally moderate and sensible course of daily exercise, and to enter on it with a good share of his own former energy and vigor? He does not need to live in the country to effect it, nor in the city. He can readily secure the few bits of apparatus suggested elsewhere[L] for his own home, wherever that home is, and so take care of his arms and chest. For foot-work there is always the road. Is it not worth while to make the effort? He can begin very mildly, and yet in a month reach quite a creditable degree of activity, and then keep that up. And if, as Mr. Bryant did, he should last till well past eighty, and, like him, keep free from deafness and dimness of vision, from stiffness and shortness of breath, from gout, rheumatism, paralysis, and other senile ailments, as he put it himself, "without the usual infirmities of old age"--indeed, with his "strength, activity, and bodily faculties generally in pretty good preservation," and all that time could attend promptly to all the daily duties of an active business as he did, as Vanderbilt did, as Palmerston did, as Thiers did--is not the effort truly worth the making? And who knows what he can do till he tries?

FOOTNOTES:

[K] See page 240.

[L] See page 91.