But even if it were possible, it would not be desirable that all human beings should live in dwellings like Hamilton Palace or Arundel Castle; and it would serve no good end at all, certainly no end worth the cost, to have all educated men muscular as Tom Sayers, or swift of hand as Robert Houdin.  Practical efficiency is what is wanted for the business of this world, not absolute perfection:  life is too short to allow any but exceptional individuals, few and far between, to acquire the power of playing at rackets as well as rackets can possibly be played.  We are obliged to have a great number of irons in the fire:  it is needful that we should do decently well a great number of things; and we must not devote ourselves to one thing, to the exclusion of all the rest.  And accordingly, though we may desire to be reasonably muscular and reasonably active, it will not disturb us to think that in both these respects we are people of whom more might have been made.  It may here be said that probably there is hardly an influence which tends so powerfully to produce extreme self-complacency as the conviction, that, as regards some one physical accomplishment, one is a person of whom more could not have been made.  It is a proud thing to think that you stand decidedly ahead of all mankind:  that Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere; even in the matter of keeping up six balls at once, or of noting and remembering twenty different objects in a shop-window as you walk past it at five miles an hour.  I do not think I ever beheld a human being whose aspect was of such unutterable pride as a man I lately saw playing the drum as one of a certain splendid military band.  He was playing in a piece in which the drum music was very conspicuous; and even an unskilled observer could remark that his playing was absolute perfection.  He had the thorough mastery of his instrument.  He did the most difficult things not only with admirable precision, but without the least appearance of effort.  He was a great, tall fellow:  and it was really a fine sight to see him standing very upright, and immovable save as to his arms, looking fixedly into distance, and his bosom swelling with the lofty belief, that, out of four or five thousand persons who were present, there was not one who, to save his life, could have done what he was doing so easily.

So much of physical dexterity.  As for physical grace, it will be admitted that in that respect more might be made of most human beings.  It is not merely that they are ugly and awkward naturally, but that they are ugly and awkward artificially.  Sir Bulwer Lytton, in his earlier writings, was accustomed to maintain, that, just as it is a man’s duty to cultivate his mental powers, so is it his duty to cultivate his bodily appearance.  And doubtless all the gifts of Nature are talents committed to us to be improved; they are things intrusted to us to make the best of.  It may be difficult to fix the point at which the care of personal appearance