One of the most discouraging aspects of modern life is the growing
tendency toward concentration of the population in large cities. Not
only is the air less salubrious in cities than in the country, but the
numerous cheap facilities for riding discourage the habit of walking.
London is one of the healthiest cities, and the English the most
vigorous race, in the world; yet it is said that it is difficult to
trace a London family down through five generations. Few Paris families
can, it is said, be traced even through three generations. Without
constant rural accessions cities would tend to become depopulated.
The enormous importance of exercise for Health and Beauty, which are
impossible without it, is vividly brought out in this statement of
Kollmann’s: “Muscles which are thoroughly exercised do not only retain
their strength, but increase in circumference and power, in man as in
animals. The flesh is then firm, and coloured intensely red. In a
paralysed arm the muscles are degenerated, and have lost a portion of
one of their most important constituents—albumen. Repeated contractions
strengthen a muscle, because motion accelerates the circulation of the
blood and the nutrition of the tissues. What a great influence this has
on the whole body may be inferred from the fact that the organs of
locomotion—the skeleton and muscles—make up more than 82 per cent of the
substance of the body. With this enormous proportion of bone and muscle,
it is obvious that exercise is essential to bodily health.”
Exercise in a gymnasium is useful but monotonous; and too often the
benefits are neutralised by the insufficient provision for fresh air,
without which exercise is worse than useless. Hence the superiority of
open-air games—base-ball, tennis, rowing, riding, swimming, etc., to the
addiction to which the English owe so much of their superior physique.
Tourists in Canada invariably notice the wonderful figures of the women,
which they owe largely to their fondness for skating. “Beyond question,”
says the _Lancet_, “skating is one of the finest sports, especially for
ladies. It is graceful, healthy, stimulating to the muscles, and it
develops in a very high degree the important faculty of balancing the
body and preserving perfect control over the whole of the muscular
system, while bringing certain muscles into action at will. Moreover,
there is this about it which is of especial value: it trains by exercise
the power of intentionally inducing and maintaining a continuous
contraction of the muscles of the lower extremity. The joints, hip,
knee, and ankle are firmly fixed or rather kept steadily under control,
while the limbs are so set by their muscular apparatus that they form,
as it were, part of the skate that glides over the smooth surface. To
skate well and gracefully is a very high accomplishment indeed, and
perhaps one of the very best exercises in which young women and girls
can engage with a view to healthful development.”
For the acquisition of a graceful gait women need such exercise more
even than men; and while engaged in it they should pay especial
attention to exercising the left side of the body. On this point Sir
Charles Bell has made the following suggestive remarks:—
“We see that opera-dancers execute their more difficult feats on the
right foot, but their preparatory exercises better evince the natural
weakness of the left limb; in order to avoid awkwardness in the public
exhibitions, they are obliged to give double practice to the left leg;
and if they neglect to do so an ungraceful preference to the right side
will be remarked. In walking behind a person we seldom see an equalised
motion of the body; the tread is not so firm upon the left foot, the toe
is not so much turned out, and a greater push is made with the right.
From the peculiar form of woman, and from the elasticity of her step,
resulting from the motion of the ankle rather than of the haunches, the
defect of the left foot, when it exists, is more apparent in her gait.”
Those who wish to acquire a graceful gait will find several useful hints
in this extract from Professor Kollmann’s _Plastische Anatomie_, p.
506:—
“Human gait, it is well known, is subject to individual variations.
Differences are to be noted not only in rapidity of motion, but as
regards the position of the trunk and the movements of the limbs, within
certain limits. For instance, the gait of very fat persons is somewhat
vacillating; other persons acquire a certain dignity of gait by bending
and stretching their limbs as little as possible while taking long
steps; and others still bend their knees very much, which gives a
slovenly character to their gait. And as regards the attitude of the
trunk, a different effect is given according as it is inclined backwards
or forwards, or executes superfluous movements in the same direction or
to the sides. All these peculiarities make an impression on our eyes,
while our ears are impressed at the same time by the differences in
rapidity of movement, so that we learn to recognise our friends by the
sound of their walk as we do by the quality of their voice.”
Bell states that “upwards of fifty muscles of the arm and hand may be
demonstrated, which must all consent to the simplest action.” Walking is
a no less complicated affair, to which the attention of men of science
has been only quite recently directed. The new process of instantaneous
photography has been found very useful, but much remains to be done
before the mystery of a graceful gait can be considered solved. If some
skilled photographer would go to Spain and take a number of
instantaneous pictures of Andalusian girls, the most graceful beings in
the world, in every variety of attitude and motion, he might render most
valuable service to the cause of personal æsthetics.
The time will come, no doubt, when dancing masters and mistresses will
consider the teaching of the waltz and the lancers only the crudest and
easiest part of their work, and when they will have advanced classes who
will be instructed in the refinements of movement as carefully and as
intelligently as professors of music teach their pupils the proper use
of the parts and muscles of the hand, to attain a delicate and varied
touch. The majority of women might make much more progress in the art of
gracefulness than they ever will in music; and is not the poetry of
motion as noble and desirable an object of study as any other fine art?