This contributes to that healthful ardor with which, in these exercises, a man forgets the things which are behind and presses forward to fresh achievements.  This perpetually saves from vanity; for everything seems a trifle, when you have once attained to it.  The aim which yesterday filled your whole gymnastic horizon you overtake and pass as a boat passes a buoy:  until passed, it was a goal; when passed, a mere speck in the horizon.  Yesterday you could swing yourself three rounds upon the horizontal ladder; to-day, after weeks of effort, you have suddenly attained to the fourth, and instantly all that long laborious effort vanishes, to be formed again between you and the fifth round:  five, five is the only goal for heroic labor to-day; and when five is attained, there will be six, and so on while the Arabic numerals hold out.  A childish aim, no doubt; but is not this what we all recognize as the privilege of childhood, to obtain exaggerated enjoyment from little things?  When you have come to the really difficult feats of the gymnasium,—­when you have conquered the “barber’s curl” and the “peg-pole,”—­when you can draw yourself up by one arm, and perform the “giant’s swing” over and over, without changing hands, and vault the horizontal bar as high as you can reach it,—­when you can vault across the high parallel bars between your hands backward, or walk through them on your palms with your feet in the vicinity of the ceiling,—­then you will reap the reward of your past labors, and may begin to call yourself a gymnast.

It is pleasant to think, that, so great is the variety of exercises in the gymnasium, even physical deficiencies and deformities do not wholly exclude from its benefits.  I have seen an invalid girl, so lame from childhood that she could not stand without support, whose general health had been restored, and her bust and arms made a study for a sculptor, by means of gymnastics.  Nay, there are odd compensations of Nature by which even exceptional formations may turn to account in athletic exercises.  A squinting eye is a treasure to a boxer, a left-handed batter is a prize in a cricketing eleven, and one of the best gymnasts in Chicago is an individual with a wooden leg, which he takes off at the commencement of affairs, thus economizing weight and stowage, and performing achievements impossible except to unipeds.

In the enthusiasm created by this emulation, there is necessarily some danger of excess.  Dr. Windship approves of exercising only every other day in the gymnasium; but as most persons take their work in a more diluted form than his, they can afford to repeat it daily, unless warned by headache or languor that they are exceeding their allowance.  There is no good in excess; our constitutions cannot be hurried.  The law is universal, that exercise strengthens as long as nutrition balances it, but afterwards wastes the very forces it should increase.  We cannot make bricks faster than Nature supplies us with straw.