onze lamp in my
outstretched right hand for a minute and then held it in my left hand
for half a minute. I know of one man who skipped the rope one hundred
times every morning. Within four months he had lost three and a half
pounds, and driven the family in the flat below into nervous
prostration. I have even been told that there are systems of exercise
which show how physical perfection may be attained by scientifically
manipulating, for fifteen minutes every day, a couple of fountain pens
and a paper cutter. But I cannot reconcile myself to such methods
because of the confusion they introduce into the world of common things.
A table is no longer something to write upon or to eat upon, but
something to lie down upon while one flings out his arms and legs fifty
times in four contrary directions. A broom-stick is an instrument for
strengthening the shoulder muscles. When I see a transom, I find myself
estimating the number of times I could chin it.

The intimate connection between the hygienic life and the temptation to
tell lies is a delicate subject to touch upon; but the facts may as well
be brought out now as later. People of otherwise irreproachable conduct
will lose all sense of truthfulness when they speak of physical culture
and fresh air. They will exaggerate the number of inches they keep their
bedroom windows raised in midwinter; they will quote ridiculous
estimates of the doctors' bills they have saved; they will represent
themselves as being in the most incredibly perfect health. I know one
sober, intelligent business-man who not only habitually understates, by
ten degrees, the temperature of his morning tub, but gives an
altogether distorted impression of the alacrity with which he leaps into
his bath every morning, and the reluctance with which he leaves it. This
same man asserts that he can now walk from the Chambers Street ferry to
his office in Wall Street in astonishing time. And not only that, but
since he took to walking as much as he could, he has cut down his daily
number of cigars to one-fourth (which is untrue). And not only that, but
since he has gone in for exercise and fresh air and has given up
smoking, his income has increased by at least 50 per cent., owing to his
improved health and clearer mental vision. But that again, as I happen
to know, is untrue.

But there is another, much more subtle form of prevarication. Smith
meets you in the street and remarks upon your flabby appearance. He