After fifteen minutes of mock running take an invigorating, tepid sponge bath with just a dash of benzoin in the water. After that comes vigorous friction with a rough towel. Then take a nap if you can spare the time. Of course one must guard against exposure to cold after one is heated by the exertion of exercise.
Dancing would be one of the best of exercises were it not for the close, ill-ventilated rooms, the tight clothes, the exposed shoulders and the nervous strain which is always on hand at large social affairs.
As for skating, there is nothing better. It makes a woman feel like a new man. I say that quite consciously, as, in my opinion, to feel like a new woman—that poor, long-ridiculed creature—would be more humiliating than joyful. Don't you think so?
Horseback riding is questionable exercise. The side saddle is apt to increase the tendency to curvature of the spine, while tight corsets prevent the good that would come to the heart and lungs and digestive organs. Swimming is good, particularly for nervous, high-strung persons. And the wheel? Well, that best of all exercises—for it is the best when indulged in by the wise woman, not the crooked-back, scorching, silly—is a story in itself.
STOOPED SHOULDERS
"Her grace of motion and of look, the smooth
And swimming majesty of step and tread,
The symmetry of form and feature, set
The soul afloat, even like delicious airs