hrough all opposing influences. Perfect health
supposes not a state of mere quiescence, but of positive enjoyment in
living. See that little fellow, as his nurse turns him out in the
morning, fresh from his bath, his hair newly curled, and his cheeks
polished like apples. Every step is a spring or a dance; he runs, he
laughs, he shouts, his face breaks into a thousand dimpling smiles at
a word. His breakfast of plain bread and milk is swallowed with an
eager and incredible delight,--it is so good that he stops to laugh or
thump the table now and then in expression of his ecstasy. All day
long he runs and frisks and plays; and when at night the little head
seeks the pillow, down go the eye-curtains, and sleep comes without a
dream. In the morning his first note is a laugh and a crow, as he sits
up in his crib and tries to pull papa's eyes open with his fat
fingers. He is an embodied joy,--he is sunshine and music and laughter
for all the house. With what a magnificent generosity does the Author
of life endow a little mortal pilgrim in giving him at the outset of
his career such a body as this! How miserable it is to look forward
twenty years, when the same child, now grown a man, wakes in the
morning with a dull, heavy head, the consequence of smoking and
studying till twelve or one the night before; when he rises languidly
to a late breakfast, and turns from this and tries that,--wants a
deviled bone, or a cutlet with Worcestershire sauce, to make eating
possible; and then, with slow and plodding step, finds his way to his
office and his books. Verily the shades of the prison-house gather
round the growing boy; for, surely, no one will deny that life often
begins with health little less perfect than that of the angels.

But the man who habitually wakes sodden, headachy, and a little
stupid, and who needs a cup of strong coffee and various stimulating
condiments to coax his bodily system into something like fair working
order, does not suppose he is out of health. He says, "Very well, I
thank you," to your inquiries,--merely because he has entirely
forgotten what good health is. He is well, not because of any
particular pleasure in physical existence, but well simply because he
is not a subject for prescriptions. Yet there is no store of vitality,
no buoyancy, no superabundant vigor, to resist the strain and pressure
to which life puts him. A checked perspiration, a draught of air
ill-timed, a crisis of perplexing busine