Spooks and phantoms hover about the undeveloped and diseased, as vultures sail above the dead.
Our ancestors had the idea that they ought to be spiritual, and that good health was inconsistent with the highest forms of piety. This heresy crept into the minds even of secular writers, and the novelists described their heroines as weak and languishing, pale as lilies, and in the place of health's brave flag they put the hectic flush.
Weakness was interesting, and fainting captured the hearts of all. Nothing was so attractive as a society belle with a drug-store attachment.
People became ashamed of labor, and consequently, of the evidences of labor. They avoided "sun-burnt mirth"—were proud of pallor, and regarded small, white hands as proof that they had noble blood within their veins. It was a joy to be too weak to work, too languishing to labor.
The tide has turned. People are becoming sensible enough to desire health, to admire physical development, symmetry of form, and we now know that a race with little feet and hands has passed the climax and is traveling toward the eternal night.
When the central force is strong, men and women are full of life to the finger tips. When the fires burn low, they begin to shrivel at the extremities—the hands and feet grow small, and the mental flame wavers and wanes.
To be self-respecting we must be self-supporting.
Nobility is a question of character, not of birth.
Honor cannot be received as alms—it must be earned.
It is the brow that makes the wreath of glory green.