ent, may have
arranged this for you.

Do not think that a robust organization is any warrant of long life, nor
that a frail and slight bodily constitution necessarily means scanty
length of days. Many a strong-limbed young man and many a blooming young
woman have I seen failing and dropping away in or before middle life, and
many a delicate and slightly constituted person outliving the athletes
and the beauties of their generation. Whether the excessive development
of the muscular system is compatible with the best condition of general
health is, I think, more than doubtful. The muscles are great sponges
that suck up and make use of large quantities of blood, and the other
organs must be liable to suffer for want of their share.

One of the Seven Wise Men of Greece boiled his wisdom down into two
words,--NOTHING TOO MUCH. It is a rule which will apply to food,
exercise, labor, sleep, and, in short, to every part of life. This is
not so very difficult a matter if one begins in good season and forms
regular habits. But what if I should lay down the rule, Be cheerful;
take all the troubles and trials of life with perfect equanimity and a
smiling countenance? Admirable directions! Your friend, the
curly-haired blonde, with florid complexion, round cheeks, the best
possible digestion and respiration, the stomach of an ostrich and the
lungs of a pearl-diver, finds it perfectly easy to carry them into
practice. You, of leaden complexion, with black and lank hair, lean,
hollow-eyed, dyspeptic, nervous, find it not so easy to be always
hilarious and happy. The truth is that the persons of that buoyant
disposition which comes always heralded by a smile, as a yacht driven by
a favoring breeze carries a wreath of sparkling foam before her, are born
with their happiness ready made. They cannot help being cheerful any
more than their saturnine fellow-mortal can help seeing everything
through the cloud he carries with him. I give you the precept, then, Be
cheerful, for just what it is worth, as I would recommend to you to be
six feet, or at least five feet ten, in stature. You cannot settle that
matter for yourself, but you can stand up straight, and give your five
feet five its--full value. You can help along a little by wearing
high-heeled shoes. So you can do something to encourage yourself in
serenity of aspect and demeanor, keeping your infirmities and troubles in
the background instead of making them the staple of your conversa