reference is to wind and limb. The soundness of a horse is to the
philosophic and stable mind suggestive of good legs, shoulders, and
hoofs; of uncongested lungs and free air-passages; of efficient eyes
and entire freedom from staggers. It is the existence of something
wrong in these matters which constitutes the unsound horse, or
screw.

But though the great thing about rational and immortal man is
the soul: and though accordingly the most important soundness or
unsoundness about him is that which has its seat THERE; still, let
it be said that even as regards physical soundness there are few
men whom a veterinary surgeon would pass, if they were horses. Most
educated men are physically in very poor condition. And particularly
the cleverest of our race, in whom intellect is most developed and
cultivated, are for the most part in a very unsatisfactory state as
regards bodily soundness. They rub on: they manage somehow to get
through their work in life; but they never feel brisk or buoyant.
They never know high health, with its attendant cheerfulness. It
is a rare case to find such a combination of muscle and intellect
as existed in Christopher North: the commoner type is the shambling
Wordsworth, whom even his partial sister thought so mean-looking
when she saw him walking with a handsome man. Let it be repeated,
most civilized men are physically unsound. For one thing, most
educated men are broken-winded. They could not trot a quarter of
a mile without great distress. I have been amused, when in church
I have heard a man beyond middle age singing very loud, and plainly
proud of his volume of voice, to see how the last note of the line
was cut short for want of wind. I say nothing of such grave signs
of physical unsoundness as little pangs shooting about the heart,
and little dizzinesses of the brain; these matters are too serious