physical necessity. All our natures need something more than mere bodily
exertion; they need bodily enjoyment. There is, or ought to be, in all
of us a touch of untamed gypsy nature, which should be trained, not
crushed. We need, in the very midst of civilization, something which
gives a little of the zest of savage life; and athletic exercises
furnish the means. The young man who is caught down the bay in a sudden
storm, alone in his boat, with wind and tide against him, has all the
sensations of a Norway sea-king,--sensations thoroughly uncomfortable,
if you please, but for the thrill and glow they bring. Swim out after a
storm at Dove Harbor, topping the low crests, diving through the high
ones, and you feel yourself as veritable a South-Sea Islander as if you
were to dine that day on missionary instead of mutton. Tramp, for a
whole day, across hill, marsh, and pasture, with gun, rod, or whatever
the excuse may be, and camp where you find yourself at evening, and
you are as essentially an Indian on the Blue Hills as among the Rocky
Mountains. Less depends upon circumstances than we fancy, and more upon
our personal temperament and will. All the enjoyments of Browning's
"Saul," those "wild joys of living" which make us happy with their
freshness as we read of them, are within the reach of all, and make us
happier still when enacted. Every one, in proportion as he develops his
own physical resources, puts himself in harmony with the universe, and
contributes something to it; even as Mr. Pecksniff, exulting in his
digestive machinery, felt a pious delight after dinner in the thought
that this wonderful apparatus was wound up and going.

A young person can no more have too much love of adventure than a mill
can have too much water-power; only it needs to be worked, not wasted.
Physical exercises give to energy and daring a legitimate channel,
supply the place of war, gambling, licentiousness, highway-robbery, and
office-seeking. De Quincey, in like manner, says that Wordsworth made