Thomas Guthrie, first tying one hand behind him, with the other could whip any man in Oxford who would also fight one-handed. Who doubts that the vigor so evinced had much to do with the faithful, arduous life's work he did, and did so well that all Scotland is to-day justly proud of him?
Have the magnificent breadth and depth of Spurgeon's chest, and his splendid outfit of vital organs, no connection with his great power and influence as a preacher of world-wide renown? Have the splendid physique and abounding vitality of Henry Ward Beecher—greater almost than that of any man in a hundred thousand—nothing to do with his ability to attend to his duties as pastor, author, lecturer, and editor—work enough to kill half a dozen ordinary men—and with the tireless industry which must precede his marked success in them all? Are not the towering form, the ruddy health, and grand, manly vigor of Dr. John Hall weighty elements, first in putting together, and then in driving home, the honest, earnest, fearless words which all remember who ever heard him speak? Have not the great bodies of those two young giants of the American pulpit, Phillips Brooks and Joseph Cook, proved most valuable accessories to their great brains?
Is there anything feeble about any of these? Put the tape-measure around them anywhere you like, and see how generous nature has been with them. Is it all a mere chance that they happen to have splendid bodies? Why is it that we never hear of such as these having "ministers' sore throat," and "blue Mondays," and having to be sent by their congregations, every now and then, away to a foreign land to recruit their health and keep them up to their work? Do sound and sturdy bodies, and due attention daily to keeping them in good repair, have nothing to do with their ability to cope at all times with the duty lying next to them—and with their attention to it, too, in such a way as to make them so much more effective than other men in their great life's work?
That the physician himself needs sound health and plentiful strength, few will question; and yet, does he, from his calling alone, do anything to insure it? Dragged from his bed at all hours of the night, thrown daily, almost hourly, in contact with deadly disease—often so contagious that others shrink from going where he goes, like the brave man he must be to face such dangers—would not that general toned-up condition of the thoroughly sound and healthy man prove a most valuable boon to him—indeed, often save his life? And yet, does his daily occupation insure him that boon, even though it does enable him to get out-of-doors far more than most men who earn their living by mental labor? Witness one of their own number, Dr. Mitchell, on this point; for he says, "The doctor, who is supposed to get a large share of exercise, in reality gets very little after he grows too busy to walk, and has then only the incidental exposure to out-door air." Would not a sensible course of physical exercise daily pay him—especially when pretty much all the muscular work he gets of any account is for his forearms and a little of his back, and then only when he drives a hard-bitted horse?
And does not a lawyer need a good body, and one kept in good order? After the first few years, when his practice is once well established, he finds that, unlike men in most other callings, his evenings are not his own, and that, if he is going to read any law, and to attempt to keep up with the new decisions every year, even in his own State, what between court work, the preparation of his cases, drawing papers, consultation, correspondence, and the other matters which fill up the daily round of the lawyer in active practice, that reading will have to be done out of office-hours often, or not done at all. Even in his evenings his business is too pressing to allow any time for reading. Here, then, is a man who is in serious danger of being cut off from that rest and recreation which most other men can have. The long, steady strain, day and evening, often breaks him down, where an hour's active exercise daily on the road or on the water, with his business for the time scrupulously forgotten, together with from a quarter to half an hour, on rising and retiring, in strengthening his arms and chest, would have kept him as tough and fresh as they did Bryant, not simply up to sixty, or even seventy, but clear up to his eighty-fourth year. Every lawyer who has been in active practice in any of our large cities for a dozen years can point to members of his Bar who have either broken clean down, and gone to a premature grave from neglecting their bodily health, or who are now far on the road in that same direction. This happens notwithstanding the fact that in many places the courts do not sit once during the whole summer, and lawyers can hence get longer vacations and go farther from home than most men.
Let any one read the life of Rufus Choate, and say whether there was any need of his dying an old man at fifty-five. He started not with a weak body, but one decidedly strong. So little care did he take of it that, as he himself well put it, "latterly he hadn't much of any constitution, but simply lived under the by-laws." Did it hinder his distinguished compeer, Daniel Webster, from magnificent success at the bar because he took many a good play-spell with a fishing-rod in his hand? because he not only knew but regarded the advantage and wisdom of keeping his body toned-up and hearty, and so regarded it that he died, not at fifty-five, but at the end of the full threescore years and ten? And did grand physical presence, the most impressive which ever graced American forum or senate-chamber—so striking, in fact, that, as he walked the streets of Liverpool, the laboring men stopped work and backed their admiring gaze by concluding that he must be a king—did these qualities not contribute to that same magnificent success? Daniel O'Connell was a man of sturdier body even than Webster, of whom Wendell Phillips says: "He was the greatest orator that ever spoke English. A little O'Connell would have been no O'Connell. Every attitude was beauty, every gesture grace. There was a magnetism that melted every will into his."
Had not this wonderful man much to thank these same qualities for? Had they not something to do with the stretching of his vigorous life, not merely up to fifty-five, or even to seventy, but clear up to seventy-three? How many men has the world ever seen who filled, and well filled, more high offices than Henry Brougham, and who, no matter where he was, was always a tireless worker? One biographer says that, as a boy, he was the fleetest runner in the neighborhood, and this man, "as an orator, second in his time only to Canning;" this man, who once spoke in Parliament for seven days consecutively, who, even when upward of seventy, showed his zeal for reform by urging the introduction into England of the New York Code of Procedure—this one of England's most famous Lord Chancellors took such care of his body that he never ceased from his labors until he was eighty-nine.
Let us look at but one more instance of the way a powerful mind and an uncommonly strong body blend and aid their possessor to his purposes. A recent writer in "Blackwood" says of Bismarck: "He is a powerful man. That is what strikes at once every one who sees him for the first time. He is very tall and of enormous weight, but not ungainly. Every part of his gigantic frame is well-proportioned—the large round head, the massive neck, the broad shoulders, and the vigorous limbs. He is now more than sixty-three, and the burden he has had to bear has been usually heavy; but though his step has become slow and ponderous, he carries his head high—looking down, even, on those who are as tall as himself—and his figure is still erect. During these latter years he has suffered frequent and severe bodily pain, but no one could look upon him as an old man, or as one to be pitied. On the contrary, everybody who sees him feels that Prince Bismarck is still in possession of immense physical power."
And what holds good as to professional men in this respect of course will apply with equal force to busy brain-workers in any other line as well. It is nowhere claimed here that there have not been in many callings great men whose bodies were indifferent affairs, but endeavor has been made to show, not only that a great mind and a vigorous body can go together, but that the latter is, not to the man of unusual mental power alone, but to every man, a most valuable acquisition, and one that he should, if he does not possess it already, take prompt steps to secure, and then, once acquiring it, should use the means, as Bryant did, to retain it.
In the 1877-'78 annual report of Harvard College, President Eliot, who has been exceptionally well-placed to observe several thousand young men, and to know what helps and what hinders their intellectual progress, adds his valuable testimony to the importance of vigorous health and regular physical exercise to all who have, or expect to have, steady and severe mental work to do. Busy professional men may well heed his words. Speaking of the value of scholarships to poor but deserving young men, he says: "If sound health were one of the requisitions for the enjoyment of scholarships, parents who expected to need aid in educating their boys would have their attention directed in an effective way to the wise regimen of health; while young men who had their own education to get would see that it was only prudent for them to secure a wholesome diet, plenty of fresh air, and regular exercise. A singular notion prevails, especially in the country, that it is the feeble, sickly children who should be sent to school and college, since they are apparently unfit for hard work. The fact that, in the history of literature, a few cases can be pointed out in which genius was lodged in a weak or diseased body, is sometimes adduced in support of the strange proposition that physical vigor is not necessary for professional men. But all experience contradicts these notions. To attain success and length of service in any of the learned professions, including that of teaching, a vigorous body is well-nigh essential. A busy lawyer, editor, minister, physician, or teacher has need of greater physical endurance than a farmer, trader, manufacturer, or mechanic. All professional biography teaches that to win lasting distinction in sedentary, in-door occupations, which task the brain and the nervous system, extraordinary toughness of body must accompany extraordinary mental powers."