But if, as the nursery doggerel wisely declares,
"Early to bed and early to rise,
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,"
there must be united with this rational habit, others each equally important to the full advantage to be derived from all combined.
Among these, Exercise holds a prominent
rank. As with the bath, this is most effectually employed for health before the system is exhausted by mental labor.
Among the numerous modes of exercise, none is so completely at command at all times and under all circumstances, as walking. But the full benefit of this exercise, is not often enjoyed by the inhabitants of cities, by reason of the impure air that is almost necessarily inhaled in connection with it. Still, it is not impossible to obviate this difficulty by a little pains. The early riser and the rapid pedestrian may in general, easily secure time to seek daily one of the few and limited breathing-places that, though in this regard we are vastly inferior to Europeans in taste and good sense, even our American cities supply, either, like what they indeed are, lungs, in the very centre of activity, or at no unapproachable distance from it. Do not forget that vegetation, while it sends forth noxious influences at night, exales oxygen and other needful food for vitality, in the morning, especially; nor that an erect carriage, which alone gives unobstructed play to the organs of respiration and digestion, is requisite, together with considerable activity of movement, to secure the legitimate results of walking.
Students, and others whose occupations are of a sedentary character, sometimes adopt the practice of taking a long walk periodically. This is, no doubt, promotive of health, provided it is not at first carried to an extreme. All such habits should be gradually formed, and their formation commenced and pursued with due respect for physiological rules. Mr. Combe, the distinguished phrenologist—in his "Constitution of Man," I think, relates an instance of a young person, in infirm health and unaccustomed to such exertion, who undertook a walk of twenty miles, to be accomplished without interruption. The first seven or eight miles were achieved with ease and pleasure to the pedestrian, but thenceforth discomfort and final exhaustion should have been a sufficient warning to the tyro to desist from his self-appointed task. A severe illness was the consequence and punishment of his ignorant violation of physiological laws.
By the way, I cannot too strongly recommend to your careful perusal the various works of Dr. Andrew Combe, long the physician of the amiable King of Belgium, in relation to that and kindred subjects. His "Physiology as applied to Mental Health," is replete with practical suggestions and advice of the most instructive and important nature, as are also his "Dietetics," etc.
Himself an incurable invalid, he maintained the vital forces through many years of eminent usefulness to others, only by dint of the most strenuous adherence to the strictest requirements of the Science of the Physique. The writings of his brother, Mr. George Combe, and especially the work I have just mentioned, the "Constitution of Man," also abound in lessons of practical usefulness, which may be adopted irrespective of his peculiar phrenological views. In the multitude of newer publications these admirable books are already half-forgotten, but my limited reading has afforded me no knowledge of anything superior to them, as text-books for the young.
Riding and driving need no recommendation to insure their popularity, as means of exercise. Both have many pleasure and health-giving attractions.