e next fifteen minutes, into more moderate
exercises, which he still makes immoderate by his awkward way of doing
them. Nevertheless, he goes home, cheerful under difficulties, and will
try again to-morrow. To-morrow finds him stiff, lame, and wretched; he
cannot lift his arm to his face to shave, nor lower it sufficiently to
pull his boots on; his little daughter must help him with his shoes,
and the indignant wife of his bosom must put on his hat, with that
ineffectual one-sidedness to which alone the best-regulated female mind
can attain, in this difficult part of costuming. His sorrows increase
as the day passes; the gymnasium alone can relieve them, but his soul
shudders at the remedy; and he can conceive of nothing so absurd as a
first gymnastic lesson, except a second one. But had he been wise enough
to place himself under an experienced adviser at the very beginning, he
would have been put through a few simple movements which would have sent
him home glowing and refreshed and fancying himself half-way back to
boyhood again; the slight ache and weariness of next day would have
been cured by next day's exercise; and after six months' patience, by a
progress almost imperceptible, he would have found himself, in respect
to strength and activity, a transformed man.

Most of these discomforts, of course, are spared to boys; their frames
are more elastic and less liable to ache and strain. They learn
gymnastics, as they learn everything else, more readily than their
elders. Begin with a boy early enough, and if he be of a suitable
temperament, he can learn in the gymnasium all the feats usually seen in
the circus-ring, and could even acquire more difficult ones, if it were
worth his while to try them. This is true even of the air-somersets and
hand-springs which are not so commonly cultivated by gymnasts; but it is
especially true of all exercises with apparatus. It is astonishing how
readily our classes pick up any novelty brought into town by a strolling
company,--holding the body out horizontally from an upright pole, or
hanging by the back of the head, or touching the head to the heels,
though this last is oftener tried than accomplished. They may be seen
practising these antics, at all spare moments, for weeks, until some
later hobby drives them away. From Blondin downwards, the public feats
derive a large part of their wonder from the imposing height in the air
at which they are done. Many a young man who can swin